(first posted 9/13/2012) For years, the pickup truck has been the best-selling vehicle type in the U.S. Even before that, pickups could be found across the country in the service of farmers, ranchers and tradesmen. But just when did the kind of pickup we know today come into existence? It’s a tough question–and I nominate the Model A pickup.
The pickup truck has existed for a long, long time. In the early years, a pickup truck denoted a vehicle with an aftermarket pickup bed attached to a factory-built chassis/cab. Apparently, the first actual factory-built pickup truck was built by the Ford Motor Company, in 1925, near the end of the Model T’s long run.
It should come as no surprise that Ford first identified and mined this market. Henry Ford was a product of rural, agrarian America whose Model T had been put to work on farms and in business all over the country, if not the world. A purpose-built pickup truck was an easy proposition then–it would simply be a variation atop the same frame that undergirded every other Model T body style. That said, it might well have been the first factory-built pickup, but one far from modern.
In any case, the Model T pickup must have been a success, as its body style was continued after the Model A succeeded the T, in 1928. Still, a pickup with a folding fabric top and lacking roll-up windows is like nothing being made today.
The Model A pickup should not be confused with the much heavier-duty Model AA truck. The AA, like the Model TT before it, was the Super Duty Ford of the 1920s. But not everyone needed the AA’s capabilities or wanted to live with its punishing ride. For them, the standard Model A pickup was just the thing, and it proved to be plenty durable in its own right.
Despite their eventually popularity among collectors, the first Model A-roadster pickups lacked a lot in practicality. The enclosed cab version, introduced late in 1928, quickly became the most popular; in fact, this factory-built closed-cab pickup truck would be the prototype for almost every one that followed.
Here at CC and elsewhere, much has been written about the 1928-31 Ford Model A. (Paul Niedermeyer’s piece on the Model A’s development is first-rate, but will not be repeated here.) The Model A was similar to the Model T in its use of a four-cylinder engine mated to a rugged frame suspended by a pair of transverse leaf springs. This basic configuration would define Fords through 1948; in its execution, the Model A may have been the finest flowering of Henry Ford’s famous design.
There have been many light trucks based on passenger car underpinnings, but this is surely one of the last “real trucks” mechanically indistinguishable from its passenger counterpart–not because it was light-duty, but because the basic Model A was so famously overbuilt.
We have seen some spirited discussions here at CC (here, for example) over what defines a luxury vehicle. Is it comfort and convenience? Sophisticated engineering? Top quality components? If you’re in the third camp, then you might consider the Model A to be the world’s first luxury truck. Henry Ford is remembered, mistakenly, as the father of the cheap car; in truth, Ford insisted that everything in his cars be of the highest quality. Their low prices came from distilling each piece to its simplest form and high-volume manufacturing. Henry Ford had no idea what the car cost to make, but deeply believed that by building best car he could, people would buy enough of them for him to make a profit.
My favorite Model A story (recounted in Beverly Rae Kimes’ book The Cars that Henry Ford Built) tells of the proposed use of a Zenith carburetor to replace the Model T’s Holley unit. Henry Ford looked it over and concluded that the 14 bolts connecting the pieces together made assembly far too complicated. An engineer took it back to Zenith and went to work on it. He proudly brought it back, this time with two bolts. Mr. Ford looked it over and declared that it still had too many bolts. The Zenith carburetor that ended up on the Model A was held together by a single, centrally located bolt, and with no compromise in function. Everything about the car was like that. The choke and mixture were adjusted by a single control: pull for choke, turn for mixture. The fuel gauge screwed directly into the fuel tank, which was right behind the dashboard and fed the engine by gravity. And every one of these little pieces was indescribably sturdy.
Every chassis part was forged from the highest quality of steel. There would be not a single piece of stamped steel in this car’s chassis. The Model A was also the first car in its class to use double-acting hydraulic shock absorbers (the same units used in Lincolns) and a safety-glass windshield. Even when early hot rodders massaged the 200 cu in (3.3-liter) engine to two or three times the original 40-horsepower rating, its internal pieces proved completely up to the task.
There may never have been another passenger vehicle better suited to truck use. Certainly, the stock engine’s 1,000 rpm torque peak was helpful for hard work. What’s more, these trucks offered good looks to match their utility. The Model A passenger cars were beautiful vehicles, due to Edsel Ford’s influence and good eye. Although the Ford stylists probably did not style the Model A with a pickup body in mind, its Lincoln-like lines and proportions looked just as good around a truck bed as any of the other body styles. Ford built over 48,000 pickups in 1930. Chevrolet launched its own factory-built pickup in 1931, starting a virtual war that rages to this day.
The Model A was famously durable, with many remaining in daily, or at least occasional, use well into the 1950s. My mother’s aunt and uncle were Minnesota dairy farmers whose younger children drove a Model A coupe as everyday transportation as late as 1967.
By the 1960s, the old A had become far less appealing, a victim of the vastly enhanced performance and comfort features of contemporary vehicles, including hydraulic brakes, synchronized transmissions, and solid-steel roofs that eliminated the leaky seams around the fabric inserts. And certainly, postwar engineering eliminated many of the more tedious maintenance schedules, such as recommended lubrication of a bazillion grease fittings every 30 days.
Ford has a lot invested in the idea that their modern trucks are “Built Ford Tough” and, for the most part, that’s been the case. Sure, today’s trucks offer countless advancements over their 1930s ancestors, but is there one as tough as this old-timer? That’s high praise for a purpose-built pickup truck made over eighty years ago–and even higher praise for one that is, in fact, simply a re-bodied Ford sedan.
More Model A’s at CC:
CC 1929 Model A Coupe: The Best Ford Ever; Maybe Even The Best Car Ever PN
Very well done and an awesome find!
There is a lot that can be said about a frame and drivetrain sturdy enough it could be used for both passenger car and pickup use. That alone says a lot about the quality built into these Model A’s.
Ford has gone full-circle. This Model A has a really short bed; go to a Ford lot now, and most of their pickups will still have a really short bed (albeit with four doors in front of it)!!
Who needs a long bed when the only cargo carried is a piece of 1X2? I do note that said board inevitably sticks out of the top of the tail gate and you’d need a ladder to get it out.
In reality, the size of the driver has grown much faster than the payload; thus, the “truck” is designed to to carry people, not stuff.
That’s real progress!
What a beautiful truck! (can you imagine the reaction Henry Ford would have given in response to that?). Designed and made in America, for Americans. Today the new Chevrolet Colorado has been released in Thailand while we still await the release of this vehicle. The head of GM was heard on the radio addressing a Chinese audience, telling them of the plans GM has of building more vehicles there instead of here. Everything seems to be built of a platform sold to the entire world.
This truck just oozes honesty in it’s design, it’s build. JP is spot on with his remarks about Mr Ford. For a great read on Henry I, Edsel, Henry II and the entire Ford empire, the book “Ford: The Men and the Machine” by Robert Lacey is a must read. It’s an older published title, but it has to be one of the most thorough and definitive works on the Ford family.
Thanks for such a great breakfast read! The Model A had a near-mythical hold on those that could fully appreciate it. In the early sixties, we had a neighbor who was a doctor, and he had two black cars: a “flossen” Mercedes 220SE, and a Tudor A sedan. I spent a lot of time just sitting and crawling around them both, and I soon came to see why those were his choice of vehicles.
Your statement There have been many light trucks based on passenger car underpinnings, but this may have been the last “real truck” mechanically indistinguishable from its passenger counterpart is one that might be debatable, although I don’t have the time this morning. Exactly when American pickups migrated to their own unique chassis and cabs might make for an interesting analysis. But I don’t know how much really significant difference there was under the skin, even if the cabs were somewhat different.
Is it really possible to say that the Model A pickup wasn’t just the original Ranchero? It gets into lots of hair-splitting and semantics. Was the Nash pickup of the forties, which used the car chassis, a pickup or ute?
Clearly, an evolutionary split took place, but it’ a bit s difficult to say with certainty which was the last car-based pickup.
I have made an edit to give my statement a little room for debate. It is my understanding that the A pickup was identical to the A sedan right down to wheels and suspension. I would imagine that most later pickups that shared components with cars (Hudson, El Camino, Ranchero, etc) at least used upgraded springs, axles, clutches or other components of heavier duty than used in the cars. Also, I do not believe that those vehicles were intended for the kind of use that standard pickups (Big 3, IH, Studebaker) were used for. Not so with the Model A. It was a legitimate working truck. The only “heavy duty” option was found by moving up to the big Model AA truck.
I’m fairly sure that the whole Ranchero/El Camino fleet used strictly passenger car underpinnings, except for probably the station wagon springs, or the ones that might come with a heavy-duty suspension option.
I was curious about the A pickups springs, and I did find one source that states it had much heavier-duty springs than the passenger cars :
The chassis was a carryover from 1928. The Model A pickup was considered a ¼ ton vehicle, but was beefed up with additional front and rear springs to add increased load capacity. But the price of the added capacity had it riding like a buckboard, especially over the rough roads of the time. Eleven-inch front and rear mechanical drum brakes stopped the truck adequately, as long as the brake rods were kept in proper adjustment.
Handling – Handling of Ford’s pickup truck was harsh at best, with its 10 leaf rear springs and 12 leaf front springs. Unless a big load was in the bed, the shocks received no workout, as the truck would just bounce over ruts and rough roads, jostling the driver and passenger around the truck.
source: http://www.autotraderclassics.com/car-article/1929+Ford+Model+A+Pickup+Truck-172102.xhtml
But maybe you have better sources.
My comment above is not meant to be contradictory, but having higher-rated springs is pretty logical, in order to appropriately carry heavier loads than the sedan would typically carry.
Springs are designed for the specific job the vehicle is intended for; and it doesn’t take anything away from the intrinsic ruggedness of the A’s design and construction for Ford to have put heavier duty springs on it. It would have been bad engineering to not specify springs according to the intended load capacity, since the A was hardly a harsh riding car.
One of my former customers has a thing for A and AA trucks and we had an A kicking around the shop for quite some time first trying to get the original engine running and then installing a used engine, that he took for ever to find, that turned out to be junk. It’s springs were not that stiff sitting on the bed made them compress quite a bit, even w/o the engine installed the front was also easy to compress by pushing down on the fender. Of course time may have weakened them some.
I am a little suspect of that source – it is the first place that I have ever read that the pickup was designed from the outset as a truck. I wonder if they are talking about the AA. As for the punishing ride of the 10 leaf rear spring, one antique parts supplier (www.brattons.com) lists that same 10 leaf rear spring for use in the Tudor and Fordor sedans as well as in pickups. Coupes and roadsters got the lighter 8 or 7 leaf springs. Also, why would a specially designed truck use a rear spring with fewer leaves in back than in front?
It may well be suspect, but FWIW, the number of leaves is irrelevant. That strictly depends on the spring design. The Chevy II used a single rear leaf.
I doubt he’s talking about the AA, which was designed to carry substantially heavier loads. But anything is possible.
He’s not saying it’s a specially-designed truck, is he? Just describing the A pickup. But he may well be confused about the springs. Frankly, if it was rated at 1/4 ton, then I suspect the sedan’s springs would have done the job just fine.
I feel like I’ve opened an issue that I didn’t intend to, or have the time to debate further. What I really meant to say is that the question of what defines a pickup has changed over the decades. Obviously, the Model A was called a pickup, but if its load capacity was 1/4 ton (500 lbs), and it used the sedan’s springs, then from a modern perspective, it was functionally closer to what turned into the Ranchero/El Camino class of vehicles.
That doesn’t change anything, except as I said a ways up, the evolution of the pickup genre had many steps along the way, and certainly the Ford A and T pickups were their legitimate ancestors.
As demand for larger and heavier loads developed, the manufacturers saw the obvious benefit of offering larger beds and greater load-carrying capacity.
We may be circling the same idea. Even at 1/4 ton rating, lots of old F-100s drove around overloaded way beyond their rated capacity. I believe that many old Model As got this treatment also, and stood up to such abuse quite well.
I agree that the yardsticks have changed. But I have viewed this truck through the prism of a starting point for what became the F-100 or F-150. A Model A sedan was a lot smaller than a new Taurus or a 64 Galaxie too. Eveything has gotten bigger. After awhile, the El Camino and Ranchero came along and were lighter duty than F-100s (in the real world, if not on paper). And a lot more comfortable. In 1957 or 1964, the pickup buyer made a choice – carlike comfort or trucklike utility. In 1930, you bought one truck and got both at the same time. But for certain, a Model A pickup was not as comfortable as a newer and larger Ranchero or as capable as a newer and larger F-100. In a way, we have come full circle as a new F-150 has full car-like comfort as well as full utility.
Just my supposing, but I would more likely trust the integrity of a grossly overloaded Model A as opposed to a grossly overloaded Ranchero (particularly if it is a Falcon instead of a 1957-59 Fairlane). But I have never tried it, so I could be wrong.
The Delivery I noted below stated 1200lb load capacity
I think there were pickup versions of the Model T in the Ford catalogs, one I saw was labelled a “Light Delivery Runabout”, also in the Standard Catalog of Light-Duty Ford Trucks there is a 1917 Roadster Pickup that looks factory (this was when they had introduced the TT, but was on the normal chassis). Ford Australia had a few different pickup bodies in 1928.
As for the pickup “we know today”, I would refer to the point where pickups went their separate way from normal sedans – perhaps 1933 where the pickup cab was distinctly different from the sedan body. This may have occurred earlier but it appears to me that in the Model A & B era the a-pillar & roof was the same as the sedan.
As an aside, the weather issues noted with the roadster pickup were a factor in the development of the ute in Australia.
The Coupe Utility carried on the car based pickup theme right thru to the present day with car mechanicals and just heavier rear springs including a sensible deck height for ease of loading/unloading.
Excellent story and a great find. There were a lot of them around when I was a kid. I never did tire of seeing them. Still love it.
“The Model A was famously durable, with many remaining in daily, or at least occasional, use well into the 1950s”.
One of my all time “better ideas” occurred back in 1970. I ran into a fellow who was still driving his Model A 2 door sedan, which he had bought new in 1932. The stuffing was coming out of the seats and the exterior was only attended to by a paintbrush. It had 86,000 miles on it.
This encounter turned my head around. Why follow the crowd and get sucked into marketing propaganda with a 3 or 4 year trade-in cycle (which I had been doing). Why use up a car needlessly when 90% of your use of it could have been avoided. Why not just choose the best vehicle you can find and drive it for life!
My current vehicle I bought new in 1988. It now has 126,000 miles on it. It looks and drives like new. I expect to drive it for the rest of my life. A 1988 Toyota pickup may be the Model A reincarnated.
(I recognize, of course, that if everyone were “rational” the economy would implode and we would have 48% unemployment instead of 8%. Buying into the marketing hype can be defended as a social obligation. In my defense, I should add that I haven’t asked the economy to provide me with a job since 1976. This, I feel, is the only honorable way to play this game. Will this be the only real path to a greener future?).
I have long been intrigued by the concept of a permanent car. Unfortunately, I live in an area where roads are salted in winter, so anything around here that is used with any regularity will eventually rust to the point that the vehicle can no longer be used. But for the person who lives in Oregon or California or Texas probably could pick the right car and keep driving it – as long as parts (and now, electronics and diagnostic equipment) are available for it. When I was in college in the early 80s, I would occasionally see a couple of old ladies in a beautiful Fluid Drive 46-48 Chrysler sedan. Looking back, it was only 35 years or so old. It’s all about choosing well – and it seems that you have.
I cribbed a bit JPC. I too live in salt country. There, a ‘winter beater’ is a required accessory for your lifetime vehicle. I always thought of these companion beaters as ‘sacrificial anodes’, like the special plates that ships employ to protect the hull from corrosion.
My strategy was to maintain a constant lookout for something with a fairly decent body, but a crapped out transmission. I was able to pick these up for $300 or so and then replace the transmission. I generally got 4 or 5 winters out of them, and sometimes even had an extra one stockpiled for the future.
Now, I migrate yearly to warmer climes and no longer need to procure a sacrificial anode to keep my lifetime vehicle protected.
I love your strategy. I wish I had thought of it years ago. Crud. Now I have to start fresh. I have allowed my 93 Crown Victoria to descend to teenager-car status, and it bears the scars of 6 years of that duty (with 2 to go). I am not sure that a new Kia Sedona is of “permanent car” quality. And as much as I like my Honda Fit, I’m a big-car guy, and life is just to short to make that one my permanent car. Hmmmm – maybe I need to find one of those Town Car Continentals we were discussing the other day.
Your strategy for choosing a winter-beater is pure genius. The transmission is the glass jaw in most cars today. When you have an old car and the transmission craps, it is truly worthless. Then you fix it and you know that the most vulnerable part of almost any beater is good for the duration. And the other modern-car money pit (air conditioning) becomes irrellevant.
Your description of a winter beater as a sacrificial anode is the best I have ever heard. This deserves the same copyright protection as Geozinger’s Cockroach of the Road and PN’s Great Brougham Epoch.
I pretty much tried that with my 1981 Datsun King Cab. I drove it for about 12-13 years but finally gave up when it cratered the motor at 350k mi. I would have gone with another engine but by that time the streets of Houston and running an air conditioning business had whipped it too badly. May try again with the 91 S-10 I now have if the smog inspections don’t make me reactivate the 57 chevy. Runs great but smog inspections have put down a lot of good vehicles.
One vehicle that might be a candidate for this today is the full size pickup. If it is not loaded to its full capacity every day and not driven like you stole it, it can last a good long time. My almost-daily driver is a 2003 Silverado, and it is still in great shape. Has been well-maintained mechanically. A/C shouldn’t be a problem going forward as it uses R134. The only downside is the fuel mileage and the need for a couple tugboats when parking. Also, no salt here in nice chilly Phoenix.
I plan on keeping it long enough to be buried in it! (Hey, I’m old…)
I’ve been driving the same 1989 BMW E30 Cabrio since 1998. It had sun damage from being a Florida car when I got it, and that’s the only major wear. I kept it as my DD in NYC for years. It’s still in almost the same shape as when I got it, save for some dents, a teeny bit of rust in a wheelwell, and a respray I did ten years ago, though many plastic bits are wearing and the odo is finicky. 160000 miles, 100k of which are mine. I see no reason to ever get rid of it now that I’m in California. Though I want to do some refreshing of the seats and other interior bits.
My understanding was that Henry wasn’t interested in building pickups but got quite angry that outside companies took his Model T and fitted beds to them so he decided to put them out of business by making them himself.
I’ve been enamored with 1930’s trucks lately. I think the 1935-1936 Ford Trucks are just about perfect and the ’37 is right behind them. The Dodges from right around there are fantastic too. Not sure which I like better.
I’d love to take one and put it on a more modern frame with updated suspension, driveline & brakes. I could go either way on the motor – a flathead hopped up enough to be liveable at modern traffic speeds has a lot of appeal, but then so does something like a 32V modular or a big diesel. I wouldn’t make a total show car out of it but not a rat rod either – it’d be pretty and sit right but I’d take it to Home Depot and use it like it was meant to.
My fear is that I wouldn’t fit in one – I’ve heard they’re cramped and they sure look like it too. Maybe I should start with a larger commercial cab – were they actually larger or is that apparent size all in the bigger wheels and taller ride height?
In most of the trucks of the day like in the post about the Internationals above the same cab was used on the bigger rigs as on the pickups, they often had longer hoods to accommodate larger engines and different fenders to accept the larger diameter tires and wheels but the same cramped cab. The trick is to find one of the larger IH R series with the sleeper cab, like in the post about the IH’s, the first “extended” cab, that is one of the rare cases where the early larger trucks had a larger cab.
My other idea would be to graft bits from a 5 window coupe to extend the cab a little. Of course, that wipes out any simplicity (ha!) to the project but I think it could be made to look right. I’ve seen early trucks with crew cab customizations and the proportions just don’t work.
Ah, found one:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paddyspig/7408072708/
Yeah, that could work.
I can’t find a story online that originally appeared in a local paper roughly 17 years ago about a couple of brothers that farmed near Warrnambool on the south coast of Victoria who were aged around 90 and still used a Model A to cart cattle to market and around their farm. They also had a tractor they had built themselves based on a Model A.
My mother grew up on a farm. Her father never owned a pickup truck. He had a tractor and a 1935 Ford V8 sedan which he used to pull a trailer. And of course, it was also the family sedan. He was very mechanically inclined and took care of his stuff, and that 35 Ford was the family’s and farm’s only vehicle until it was replaced by a new 51 Kaiser. My aunt and her husband were a young married couple with a baby and were given the old 35 to replace a Model A coupe that they were driving at the time. My aunt and uncle saved their money and finally bought a new 52 Ford hardtop (also with the flathead V8) which they drove into the early 1960s.
I remember reading that – might have been picked up by Restored Cars. Over the years they’ve sometimes run articles about old cars still in daily use.
There was a newspaper article about an old guy still carting his firewood from the Murray in a cut down Rolls Royce from the mid 20s, somewhere near Echuca from memory.
“Chevrolet launched its own factory-built pickup in 1931”?
My uncle had a ’29 Chevy pickup, factory built. Except for mechanical brakes, it was mechanically and electrically very similar to our ’53.
Hallo
I am looking for a Ford Model A built in 1930-31 Pick-up , good running ,and beautiful optik
can jou help me to find this car ?
With regards Hans
Price between 15000— 28000 Dollar
Hans, I snapped these pictures in a parking lot a couple of years ago, so unfortunately I have no information on the current whereabouts of this car.
Nice article ! .
I ran a 1931 ‘A’ Model pickup as my shop truck for several years , some guy up North had built it in the early 1970’s out of bits of this and that so it was a ” DeLuxe ” , a thing Henry never made :
Loads of stainless steel , dual side mount spares , cowl lights , ‘A’ cylinder block , ‘B’ cylinder head (higher compression) and a ‘C’ (fully balance crank) plus a Borg – Warner over drive from a ’59 Rambler fitted into the Torque Tube ~ it really skipped right along .
’53 F100 steering box with ball bearings made it steer very easily , even at low speeds .
Rear bumpers , dual taillights and the list went on and on….
I of course loaded it up with as many ” Fulton ” accessories as I could find , they’re great , all of them and ease the Driver’s work .
I found one of those ‘ Salt & Pepper ‘ moulded rubber mats with carpeting in it and it fit the bed from front to back and rail to rail *perfectly* , allowi8ng me to (*gently*) load it up with my usual compliment of old engines , trannies and so on , the guys @ my local Model A Club nearly wetted their pants every time I showed up to the weekly gathering with a load on =8-) .
Somewheres I have -one- polaroid photograph of it , if ever I find it , I’ll have someone scan if for me so’s I can post it here ~ that was in the 1990’s in a gas station in San Fernando , Ca. after a hard days work .
I don’t know where my ‘A, Model parts books are but IIRC , there were _7_ different rear springs for various ‘A’ Model Sedans , Coupes and light trucks .
After a few years the springs got some ‘ sack ‘ (ask a Motocycle Writer about this) so they rode O.K. , not bone jarring atall and still able to carry quite a load .
Grandpa was foolish to not use a proper spreader tool , many _DIED_ when that expanded spring popped loose during DIY repairs .
FWIW , the ‘T’ Model was sold as ” The Universal Car ” .
-Nate
Sure hope you find that photo! Sounds like the guy who built it really knew his stuff.
I am loocking for a Ford like this but where can I find one of this cars?
Can you help me?
I would say that “today’s” trucks oldest link would be the 1974 Dodge Club Cab. It spawned the extended cab that would evolve into today’s family truck. They could be optioned up pretty nice too. There were crew cabs by different companies before but they were aimed at commercial use mostly. With it’s car like dash and exterior styling it was the first truck to really blur the lines between car and truck.
At the time of the Club Cab’s introduction, all 4 pickup manufacturers had had their own in-house crew cabs for at least a year, and 14 years in the case of IH. But yes, as you said, they were almost entirely for commercial buyers.
Slightly ironic that the Club Cab sold so poorly that Dodge dropped it from the assembly line in 1982, only bringing it back in 1990 when the extended cab/6.5′ bed pickup was quickly becoming the most popular half-ton configuration.
Let’s not forget that for a brief time in the late teens-early 20’s, Graham Brothers would convert your full-framed useless passenger car INTO a truck.
Also, many such vehicles were converted by their owners.
i know the scope of this article is factory-built trucks. But isn’t it amazing that at one time, passenger cars were so overbuilt that they could BE used as trucks?
That is really a great looking little truck. Really ahead of it’s time. Large, tall grill, 21 inch rims, small short bed, and high liftover height!
JP if you would like to see more T and A’s, the Ford variety of course,hundreds of them in one place. I highly recommend attending the Newport Antique Auto Hill Climb evevnt in Newport Indiana the first weekend in Oct. every yr. Are you familiar with this event? It is rich in Indiana history as Indiana auto makers began testing their cars on this hill, dating back to 1912. Not just Fords, everything, pre 1940 or defunct US nameplate pre ’56. It would make a great CC feature
Amazingly, I have never gone down there. I really need to do that.
A mate of mine ran a 28 A Ford in the late 70s it was his only car a roadster pickup from memory it rode ok for what it was half a yard of shingle in the bed softened it up some though and slowed it down lots but for something that was then 50+ years old it went reliably and was easy to fix when it did break, we towed a 48 Chev sedan home with it quite easily, and towed one of my sidevalve Hillman wrecks many miles to where it was dismantled, it was just used as a pickup truck and it did that just as Henry intended, rather well.