Greetings from Paris. Not Paris, Texas, this really is Paris, France. No matter how exalted the city, it always has some cheesy suburbs. Even the City of Light has its share of suburban superstores. I’ve been out here a week for work, not on the Left Bank, in an industrial park by the airport. I needed to pick up a few things, so I pointed my little rental car, a diesel Peugeot 208, into this shopping center. Imagine my shock on being greeted by this old friend from my childhood, a hard-working “Job-Rated” 1951 Dodge truck. What in heaven’s name is it doing here in France??
What’s this old truck doing here in France? It’s working, of course! A modeling job, shedding some of its honest muscular character on a new variety of cheap tequila-flavored beer, believe it or not. “La bière Desperados a puisé dans le bouillonnement culturel et l’ambiance tropicale de Cuba pour nous apporter DESPERADOS VERDE.” (Desperados beer tapped into the cultural ferment and tropical atmosphere of Cuba to bring us Desperados Verde. So says Google Translate anyway.) Apparently classic American iron of the postwar period reminds Frenchmen of the Cuban Curbside. Fair enough, if it keeps an American in Paris at work.
A bit of research tells me this is a second-generation Dodge B Series truck, 1951-1953. Its tall “pilot house” cab, improved weight distribution, deeper bed and smoother suspension were popular features, says Allpar. This truck’s in great shape all around, licensed for the street and carrying a current inspection sticker. Enjoying a comfortable retirement in Paris. I envy that. “Vive la France!”
Nice truck,unfortunately the beer is only fit for killing slugs!
The truck is registered in the department of Seine et Marne. (Disneyland) There is a very active Morpar fan club there that collect everything they can. Mostly Chrysler and some 300 series.
Not too far away are a couple of garages that will modify any US car to europen spec. They are very expense dudes. They also sell used cars they fix up, 4 year old Mustang count on spending at least $55,000.
Fabulous find! I have a weakness for trucks of this era. It seems to me that, other than red, this color of green is the universal color of old pickups from the beginning of time until the mid 1960s.
I don’t see any “V”s, so I presume that this is still the old flathead 6? As for Allpar’s statement that this truck beat Ford and Chevy, I suspect this is true – in everything but sales. This must be an intelligent truck, though, as it has graduated from manual labor to a career in sales.
Well said JPC, I too love old trucks and flathead 6’s.
Allpar has a way of making any Chrysler product sound like it was the best selling vehicle ever.
I’ve inserted a correction. The Chevy Advanced Design dominated sales all during its time; I suspect that was the case all through the fifties and probably the sixties. I don’t have stats for who was number two, but from my impression, it was Ford, and by a big margin over the Dodge. For some reason, Dodge never seemed to get a lot of traction with its pickup sales.
I fixed it. Merci!
Years ago I bought a book covering the history of Chevrolet pickups from the end of World War II to 1972, which I believe I still have packed away in a closet somewhere, but haven’t looked at in years. The book contains some material on where Chevy stood in the market in relation to its competitors. My recollection is that it was consistent with what Paul wrote above. Throughout the period covered by the book, Chevy was almost always #1 in truck sales, with the exception of two or three years where Ford managed to poke through to the top slot. All others, including Dodge, lagged well behind Chevy and Ford. IIRC, there were actually years where IHC was #3 in truck sales behind Chevy and Ford, but that may take into account sales of heavy trucks (where IHC was probably much stronger than Dodge).
Rather than cheap beer, this truck reminds me of “The Big Book of Real Trucks,” from 1950, reprinted many times since:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/sets/72157612578261696/
The lovingly rendered paintings of real trucks doing real truck things are hard to resist.
Nice to see one that isn’t a rat rod
The Giant Eagle “Market District” (read: “poor-man’s Wegman’s”) at Settler’s Ridge, west of Pittsburgh has a ’53 Ford F-100 sitting in its produce section.
It’s a “twelve-inch” truck. Get any closer and you see the bodywork…
Maybe 10 or 15 years ago, Old Navy used late ’40s/early ’50s Chevy “Advance Design” pickups as displays/decorations in their stores, at least in my part of the country. Looking at the trucks left me with the impression that they had bought a number of non-running/incomplete/junkyard vehicles, mixed and matched them to make complete exteriors and interiors (probably with some aftermarket or fabricated items thrown into the mix), then painted them, reupholstered the seats, etc. to make them look presentable as store displays. I’m sure they were all gutted of any mechanical components, and some intermingling of parts from different years was apparent (bearing in mind that these trucks didn’t change much from year to year in that era, so a lot of exterior and interior components will interchange across model years). I remember seeing one truck where the series badging on either side of the truck was of a different style, obviously having come off two trucks of different model years.
I remember those too. The other thing I recall was that they were painted a sort of flat or low luster dark blue that would disguise sketchy bodywork.
That’s “Jaunt Iggle” in New England 🙂
I can think of at least three stores I have been to recently that have an old truck up front. Fryes electronics and Gander Mountain are the two you might have heard of. Thought it might be unique to Texas but this tells me it isn’t unique at all.
Something odd about the rear fenders… The kind on the truck were introduced in 1954. Prior to that, they had a style closer to a motorcycle fender. The front end is a match for 1951, so I’m pretty sure that the year is correct. Those are not the original rear fenders, however.
Incidently, those 1954 style fenders were used on step-side (utiline) Dodge trucks up through the mid eighties! They got their money’s worth out of the stampings!
Hey Jeff…..That Dodge is likely a “late” 1953 Canadian made pick-up. No corner cab windows say its Canadian and those are 1954 fenders, which were used at the end of the 1953 run. And you are correct, those fenders made it to 1985…the last year you could order that UTELINE box (stepside)….a very good run!! (U.S. made dodge PU’s had corner cab windows)
Speaking of old pickup-trucks. Can anyone tell me which US pickup-truck from the early fifties was the inspiration for this (very rare) 1953 DAF A107 ? It (clearly) must have been a truck from the US. This DAF had a
6 cylinder Hercules gasoline engine. (All new DAF military vehicles after WW2 also had Hercules engines, part of the Marshall Plan-deal)
Source picture: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daf38.jpg
Sure looks like the iconic 1st-gen Ford F-series truck, the 1948-52 F1.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_F-Series_first_generation
Can’t go wrong if you copy from the best.
Problem solved quickly, thanks ! That must be it, no doubt.
(Unless DAF copied a Ford-copy)
There is a Ford F-1 (not sure of the year) in the produce department of Top Foods in Edmonds, Washington, north of Seattle.
Cool find, but please say that isn’t a Walmart!
No Walmarts in France. It’s Cora, similar but French. I looked it up, no Walmarts on the continent. They tried Germany and it didn’t catch on.
N.B.: ASDA is Walmart’s UK subsidiary.
Tesco, their primary UK competition, recently tried but failed to break into the US market.
Well actually Cora is a Belgium chain. The French equivalent is called Carrefour.
Hi, I am french and I have a job rated truck (1952) also! I think we find some dodge trucks in france because just after the war, frenchs ans americans sign the Marshall plan, to equip the old europ in trucks, car, and many, many other things, because a lot of factory are destroy. Mine come (I think) from EDF, Electricité De France, the french distributor of electricity…