Found some old negatives and finally got them developed.... any body got any ideas what kind of car my grandad has got here? and is it just me or in the first picture does it look like someone made a pickup bed out of the trunk of a car? thanks for any help.... I know my grandad was a hot rodder and a racer back in his day but he passed when i was young so i never got to pick his brain about these pictures.
Both Ford and Chevy made a pickup bed that mounted in the trunk area of a coupe. I think the chevy version was called an Express Pickup, don't remember what the Ford version was called. Rare today, never were a lot to start with. Would like to have that T phone booth in the second photo!
The "pick-up" is a '39 Ford coupe. I'm sure the bottom of his trunk lid was so rusty........ and he couldn't find a replacement he could afford, that he said screw it and built a truck
Your granddad had great taste! I those days many families had only one car. Those cars/trucks did everything that had to be done. I think it was Minneapolis - Moline that even built a farm tractor that doubled as the family car. Anyway, lots of cars became pickups. Australia's advantage was the ute.
Looks like a made frame The engine is either an A or B model. The axle has juice brakes on the rear and no brakes on the front. Looks like it might be from the 40's.
It was the Minneapolis-Moline UDLX. They only built 125 of them. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101595
Sweet pictures. Looks like the Speedster is based around a Model A drivetrain and has '35 Ford wire wheels on it. The coupe/truck was a popular conversion when those cars got old enough to be really cheap. Lots of sedans were completely cut down but the coupes only needed to loose their trunklids and have a box of some sort shoved into place. I've never heard of those conversions being factory, all homemade as far as I know.
Funny, that was my first thought too when I saw that shot. Great photos. Looks like some cool family history.
Oooooo-we're not bitter, are we? Wish we got those Utes. Did they ever import any 2 door hard tops to Oz in 50's? Only seem to see 4 doors.
If that guitar is what i think it is (Gretsch), its worth just as much as the cars that are in the photos. I looked (drooled) at one very similar in the big music store in Nashville and it was on sale for $11,000 and was owned by Little Jimmy Dickens.
I think that during WW-II gas rationing caused a lot of folks to convert coupes and sedans into pickups 'cause they could call them farm trucks and get gas when others could not. Not sure about all the details. I'm old, but not quite that old.
Not sure about the two plates, looks like one says Indiana and one says arkansas... and i know they lived in Indiana and then moved to Arkansas but i do not know why the would leave both plates...... I am however going to have to have a talk with my grandma about the Cig in her hand...... She would castrate me if she saw me smoking!
Here is a link to some info on the Chevy version of the coupe/pickup. http://home.znet.com/p1937/Ute.htm about 25 years ago, I saw an early or mid 60s Mopar sedan with a similar bed. The owner called it a "supervisor car," and said that it was a former Texas State Highway Department car. Slonaker
Back in the 1960's there were at least 3 of those cupe pick-ups cruzing around the Sf south Bay area, here in CA. They were all Fords. I saw the one out of Sunnyvale still on the raod in the late 1980's. I always thought they were home built 'til I found an article on them somewhere years ago. A very rare factory option, & many were home made too! Thanks for sharring those photo's!
i think that "pickup" may be a Hudson. the rear window is wide for a Ford i think... there were actually several factory made pickup beds for coupes, some slid out completely and some actually slid INTO the car and the trunk shut on them. intended for the stereotypical traveling salesman and the "gentleman farmer" who needed a car more than a truck. cool old pics; great that you can get history on them. i got piles of family photos but can't identify most of the old ones other than vague captions from when they were new. i can imagine the comments from that row of "old codgers" in front of the shop!
Nope, it's '38-'39 Ford. Tail light, trim, bumper, windows. I think it's a home made bed because it's too wide at the bottom and too deep to fit in the original trunk lid space. I think the after market kits from Sears and other places allowed them to be switched back. It looks pretty rough to be "bought".
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