PickupTrucks.com: 95 Years of Chevy Pickup History

[GMTruckGuy74]

Source: http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2012/10/95-years-of-chevy-pickup-history.html

95 Years of Chevy Pickup History

Posted by Mark Williams | October 7, 2012

It started with a simple idea: a few car chassis fitted with hand-built beds to help carry materials around a booming car factory. Before long, millions of Chevrolet pickups were woven into the fabric of a fast-growing country. Chevy trucks tackled the toughest jobs on farms and in the fields; hauled tools and lumber to the burgeoning suburbs; and carried families and friends into and out of the wilds for well-earned vacations.

“The legacy that Chevrolet trucks have built over the last 95 years is important to protect,” said Don Johnson, Chevrolet’s vice president of sales and service. “The best way for us to do that is by delivering the capability and technology our customers have grown to expect, in both our current trucks and in our next generation of full-size pickups."

Here are some Chevy truck highlights.

1918 Chevrolet Four Ninety Half-Ton Light-Delivery Cowl Chassis (picture at link)

There are indications that some Four Ninety-based trucks were built for internal use in 1916 — and that a few even earlier chassis may have been converted to ambulances and sent to France in 1914 — but the first customer chassis appears to have been built on Nov. 22, 1916 in Flint, Mich., and shipped from the factory on Dec. 2 that year.

Two four-cylinder models marked Chevrolet’s formal entry into the truck market for the 1918 model year. Both were cowl chassis units that came from the factory with only front sheet metal. It was customary at the time for buyers to obtain a wooden cab and cargo box or panel van body to suit their purposes.

Priced at $595, the half-ton Light Delivery cowl chassis was essentially a body-less Chevrolet Four Ninety car equipped with stronger rear springs. Mounted with a pickup box or panel body, it provided an agile and economical light-delivery truck for small businesses popping up across America in the boom after World War I.

The second model, a one-ton 1918 Chevrolet Model T (the T presumably stood for truck), cost $1,125 without a body. It was based on the FA-series car and was built on a truck frame that was longer and stronger than the half-ton model. A 37-horsepower engine gave the larger truck the power to haul heavier loads at a governor-limited top speed of 25 mph.

See the rest of the article and pictures at http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2012/10/95-years-of-chevy-pickup-history.html

[GMTruckGuy74]

Interesting picture, the '55 2^ndSerries one:

That is not the 100% production model. The hubcaps look to be from the '54/'55 1^st series and the hood emblem was not a simple "bow-tie" emblem. The license plate reads 3000, which is the series model number, though many refer to the individual numbers instead (3100, 3200, 3600, 3800) when discussing these trucks. There is no issue with 3000; however, that would be like GM using a license plate GMT-900 on the current model's pre-production photo.

I don't recall ever seeing this picture before and it's funny that PickupTrucks.com used it as a reference to the actual production models for '55-'59.

[GMTruckGuy74]

Here's the '55 2^nd Series hubcap:

Here's the '54/55 1^st Series hubcap:

Here's the '55 2^nd Series hood emblem:

(*what is shown on the truck looks more like the '69/'70 hood emblem)

[ocnblu]

Well you can see in the photo that it's on a turntable inside the design studios. I always love to see these proposals and early prototypes. One of the reasons I love Collectible Automobile so much.

Chevrolet has a fine truck heritage. They keep giving us excellent trucks, we keep buying them. It's a win-win situation.

I will own another.