I found this Dodge Crew Cab in the Highlands of North Denver, and had to stop to gather a few photos. Outside of the aftermarket wheels, the exterior appears completely original, and I love the look of this tough, rough truck.
As Paul noted in an earlier posting, International offered the first pickup crew cab in 1961, but Dodge beat Ford and Chevy to the market in 1963, giving them bragging rights among the “Big Three.”
Those quad headlights identify this as a first generation D series, built from 1961 through (part of) 1965, but the crew cab showed up in 1963, narrowing down the possibilities. I chose ’64 to set it right in the middle of the crew cab run.
From the rear, we can see the “Sweptline” styling, Dodge’s name for the full width bed option. Although there’s lots of surface rust on every panel, I don’t see any significant rust holes. Denver’s dry climate helps prevent rust, but it does snow here every winter. Given that this truck is pushing 60, Dodge appears to have done a pretty good job on rust prevention.
Inside, the condition and originality matches the exterior. These crew cabs tended to go to commercial users back in the sixties, and such buyers rarely spent money on fancy options. Looking at that bench seat and big shifter jutting out of the floor, I’m not sure I’d care to pilot this rig on a lengthy road trip. To go along with this utilitarian interior, I’m sure there’s a crude suspension mounted to a ladder frame adding up to a punishing ride and noisy cab.
Dodge used the same hood, badging and grill from ’61 to ’65, the primary reason I can’t ID the exact model year. That “200” callout makes this a 3/4 ton, probably the lowest load rating for the Crew Cab option.
Denver dumps lots of gravel on their streets during the winter, and this traction aid also sandblasts the front of our cars for six months of the year. This shot really shows the impact of winter road grit has on paint over six decades of driving.
Just to confirm this is a lifetime Denver truck, here’s the dealer tag. A few letters have broken off, but “odge Cit” used to read “Dodge City,” a now closed dealer out on West Colfax in Lakewood, Colorado. As I recall, it was about 15 blocks west of the famous Casa Bonita Restaurant.
I called the suspension crude a bit earlier, but it’s also hell for stout. The truck is built to last, using lots of heavy duty features as represented by those eight bolt wheels. That bolt-on the axle flange tells us it has a full floating axle, completing a driveline that’s ready for all the abuse a hired driver could hand out.
We’ll end our look at this truck with a close up of the rear bumper. Back in the day, many (most?) pickups left the factory without any rear impact protection, so someone built this heavy duty battering ram out of thick steel plates. It has performed well, preventing damage to the tailgate, end caps and tail lights.
There’s no external engine badging, but the twin pipes tells me we’re looking as a V-8 rather than the slant six. It appears the only V-8 available was the 318, which I believe in ’64 was the polysphere A block. We had a family friend with a newer (standard cab) version of this truck, running the 383 big block. That motor provided some serious grunt, but I’d imagine in this longer, heavier truck a 318 felt… sufficient.
Still, that’s really what this truck is all about- No frills, no excitement, just the parts required to reliably deliver a full days work.
What an interesting truck… I’m surprised there was no mention of the odd styling of the crew cab itself as that’s all I could focus on! Looks like a late Studebaker/AMC-worthy effort, I can imagine a scenario in which they cobbled some parts from the bin to create a 4 door truck in a desperate attempt to create a niche for something that was (at the time) unasked for. But honestly, if such a effort came from the Big Three, I would totally expect it to be a MoPar.
Where are the rear doors from? They don’t look like transposed front doors which if they WERE, I would understand in the interest of manufacturing cost/efficiency.
This truck reminds me of the 1958 Jeep mini-van proposal, designed by Brooks Stevens, that had three doors on each side, two of which appear to be identical. It causes similar weird pillar shapes as on the Dodge. But for the sorts of people who bought early crew cabs, styling was unimportant; they were commercial/work vehicles through and through, not family transportation for suburbanites.
I remember seeing these very occasionally as a kid, and those doors have always fascinated me. I used to think that the rear doors were straight cut-downs from the front doors, but now I wonder.
Looking at photos of both crew cabs and regular cabs of these Sweptlines, I’ll bet that the stylists (to the extent any were involved in this crew cab project) were cursing the original Exner design with that main character line in the sides that slowly lowers as it moves rearward. That rear door had so somehow straighten that drop until it hit the rear of the cab. Which means that the rear door stamping cannot be just a blind repeat of the front door stamping because the character line would be higher on the leading edge of the front door if it was – unless they found a way to hang it a teeny angle. I would love to go over those rear doors with a tape measure.
What a cool truck to find on the street! And I love that Highlands neighborhood. We spent some time around there on a visit a few years ago.
Meanwhile in Argentina and Brazil, some local coachbuilders or aftermarket specialists did an other twist.
Wrong link here the correct one.
And also, there’s a D200 panel diecast available as a panel truck ambulance.
https://picclick.fr/ixo-1-43-Dodge-D-100-ambulance-Argentina-273444483353.html
Notice the South American versions of these trucks did not have the beltline dip on the Sweptside quarter panels. I think it makes the later versions look less dated. I really like the looks of these things, but even back in the late 60’s I thiought these trucks looked dated compared to the ’67-up GM and Ford trucks.
Note then Chrysler built the Sweptline in South America until they sold their Brazilian and Argentine operations to VW althought VW keep building them in Brazil until the mid 1980s. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ifhp97/11593546615/in/album-72157625090373499/
And from what I saw on these screenshots coming from Argentinian movies. They might did offer a local Sweptline version of the Town Sedan and Town Panel.
http://imcdb.org/vehicle.php?id=853263
https://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_360326-Dodge-D-200-AD-1972.html
And the International Travelette?
And só on… What happened?
.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Harvester_Travelette
International wasn’t just the first with a crew cab pickup, but also the first modern-style short-bed crew cab truck designed as family transportation rather than a commercial work truck. These were first offered in 1973 and had a 5 foot bed.
It was a Travelall with a bed at the rear instead of the wagon area. And it was a dud; there really wasn’t any interest in it. And it didn’t actually work well as a fifth wheel hauler because the fifth wheel had to be set back well behind the rear axle line, so the trailer had to be quite light.
I was going to note that it was carved from the Travelall, sort of like the much later Chevy Avalanche was culled from the Suburban, though the IH didn’t have the fancy mid-gate setup. I was wondering about that camper being so far back, yeah it doesn’t really work for that. Still, these seem reasonable for use as a light-duty pickup with plenty of room for 4, or 6 in a pinch, and after International quit the pickup truck business there wouldn’t be anything like this again until the 2001 F-150 short bed crew cab. I think the market for shortbed crew cabs just wasn’t there yet in the mid-’70s. Some people shopping vans or full-sized wagons may have been swayed by these had they been in the same showroom, but those people wouldn’t be in an IH dealer in the first place. With the ’74 fuel crunch these were unfortunately timed as well.
Is Dodge City now Christopher’s Dodge World near Colfax and I70?
This one has held up extremely well in the lower extremities for likely never having been garaged or cleaned up much. A great Denver find!
Yes, according to their website:
In 1990, Christopher purchased a Dodge franchise and opened the doors to Christopher’s Dodge on West Colfax in Lakewood. As the store grew, the name became Christopher’s Dodge World and it became widely known as Colorado’s premier dealer for new and used Dodge vehicles and Ram trucks.
To keep with the growing demand, Christopher had a vision of building a large, state of the art facility to continue to expand the brand and better serve his Colorado community. In 1999, this vision became reality when he opened the doors to the new Dodge facility in Golden.
Fine old survivor. Right up my alley.
There was a family on our block in Iowa City who bought one like this with a huge cab-over camper. It looked absolutely enormous to my eyes in 1964. They took it all over the West that whole summer.
These Dodge “six pack” trucks as we called them in the Air Force were bought by the thousands and used as: flight line and weapons storage area patrol vehicles requiring four Security Police armed response force members inside; alert crew response vehicles at the SAC bases across the US and overseas; general purpose flightline maintenance vehicles and hundreds in the six ICBM missile fields that existed back then (3 remain now- Minot AFB, ND; Malmstrom AFB, MT and FE Warren AFB, WY). I drove several throughout my career– mostly the “Power Wagon” series with manual shift and manual locking hubs. All beasts. The Air Force bought International six packs as well, but not as many. These trucks escorted ICBM “Cat 1 convoys” (warhead swaps) up until 1979 when we introduced a light armored vehicle as required by the Department of Defense, they were “mobile offices” for missile field “Mobile Fire Team” response forces for 3-4 days at a time in the missile field on 12 hour shifts and were rugged and tough riding trucks. Barely any heat and certainly no air conditioning. The last of these Dodge trucks disappeared around 1988 and the Ford F-250 crew cab aka “six pack” took over for a few more years. I sometimes wondered if the Air Force kept Dodge afloat for many years. Phil Henning, Lt Col, USAF (Ret)
I have wanted an early Dodge crew cab since I was a teenager I actually prefer the later body style (after 1972) but these are awesome too. Dodge offered the factory crew cab until 1985. Then it disappeared until the mini crew cabs came out in 2002.
The Air force was the largest buyer of these by far. Many of the ones around are former airforce trucks. The US forest service also bought quite a few. I’d have to check my books on these 60’s ones, but after 1972 the 2wd trucks could be long bed or short bed but 4wd were only available in the short bed. These crewcabs bring decent money mostly from guys converting them to diesel trucks. I belong to a FB group for them and a common question for new people joining is how to find a 4wd long bed crew cab, to which they get the response is you build one. At this point hundreds have been made so it can be confusing if you do a google search.
One of these was used in the movies Overboard and Christmas Vacation, so I’ve been familiar with these weird looks since I was 10. I always assumed the swept line on the doors must’ve been level and straight at that point for it to work with the rest of the line, but I’m not sure looking at it now. Knowing what was excused on working trucks in that era, it now wouldn’t surprise me to find 1/2″ misalignment across the B shut lines and that was just OK.
What a great find!
With crew cab pickups being so commonplace now, it’s amusing to read the early sales material for these. What we call a starkly utilitarian interior was then billed as “room to carry six burly men in weather-protected comfort!”
One of these made a cameo appearance in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation:
The same truck was in Overboard, too. Not just the same model, the same truck.
Same truck in Fire In The Skies.
That’s the movie that came to mind for me too. They used it for the logging crew. Looked like it earned its keep in that.
I have a 71 model of these. Factory 383 auto,ps,pb,ac. It is nice driver, the long wheelbase makes for a nice ride. A lot of wind noise but the added overdrive helps keep the engine noise down.
While it may not have been a public offering (quite possibly either Ex-Forrest Service or Ex-Military), I drove a 1955 Ford 4dr “Crew-Cab” Pick-up (6cyl/”Granny” box) as a site support vehicle for an Anthropology expedition while in attending ENMU in 1967.
Guy on my street had one and it earned $600 per year in insurance when it was hit by drunks. Smashed their cars. Never dented the Dodge bumper.
Reminds me of my Aunt’s 1956 Oldsmobile affectionately named “Black Beauty”. Every now and then when there wasn’t a cop around my crazy cousin would knock over a small tree.
Don’t ask.
The Air Force Base I was on had tons of the Dodges.
Dodge was also the first of the big three to introduce the extended cab in the early 70’s….Ford soon followed suit but Chevy/GMC never offered an extended cab on the ’73-’87 generation although a 4 door crew cab was available through ’91 on the square body platform as they along with the K Blazer and Suburbans kept the older body style through ’91.
Ford did a similar job with a second set of front doors when they came out with their factory version in, I think, 1967. Kind of amazing GM didn’t offer one until 1973 with the launch of the squarebodies, but then again they only had passenger side rear doors on their Suburbans until then.
The Dodge crew cab used in ‘Fire In The Sky’ was a 1963, my buddy used to own it, just one more beat to crap movie car .
The toe board cab mounts in these fine trucks were recessed and so collected gravel, mud and dirt, most died due to rust out not worn out .
Between 1947 ~ 1953 GM used some coach builder to make Advance Design crew cabs, they were beastly .
-Nate
I found my 64 D200 crewcab in Cidar City Utah in 2000. I have the original order sheet and many original service receipts. It was special ordered, sold new at Lunt Motors in Cedar City Utah by a then employ of Lunt motors.
I am the 2nd regerstered owner.
I drove it home to Denver North Carolina from Cedar City and it drove very comfortably for a 3/4 ton truck. Still does. It currently has 150K miles on it and due for a new set of tires. (I still have the optional original spare tire}.
Thanx for the picture Sir .
-Nate
will you sell the truck?