ACtualey the pleats on the tuck and rolls got narrower, guys started putting designs on the headliners , wheels were all 15" by then, White uplostery with gold or black pipeing, tanouwe cover for the pick up bed, tailgates got covered with sheet metal with a diamond design. dual exhaust, pearls or candy paints, more chrome, paded running boards, canted headlights, custom grills,
Who are you building the car for? If you need consensus to define a style then arent you designing by committee? build a car that YOU love and stuff what the experts tell you is correct or otherwise!!!
Flaketastic! Love this truck too! I get your point. I am building the truck for me, eventually someone else, and that's why I am not worried about being 'period perfect' I know I will get judged no matter what, I just want it to look 'correct' to me and that's the problem. I know some of the stuff I want to do but I have made a few pieces and done some sketches but some of the stuff just does not come out right. It either looks too '80's or too 50's. If I can hit on those key ingredients, that might flip a switch in my head. I'm sorry I'm having a hard time asking what I am looking for.
My Dad ran a push truck in the early 60's. Show cars (trucks in this case) aside, and not counting the occasional parts chaser or shop truck, push trucks seemed to be about the only new, or relatively new, pickup trucks I saw "fixed up" in the early 60's. Real modifications were few, and the changes usually consisted of dual exhausts, sometimes with stacks coming up behind the cab, chrome wheels or much less often, "mags", often times with white wall tires, the requisite column mounted tach (Dixco or Sun usually, but occasionally a Stewart Warner). Always with a wooden push bumper mounted in place of the stock one and carrying side boards sporting a sponsor's logo to help defray the costs of going to the race track. More often than not it would be a "two toned" deluxe model with options not seen on the more mundane "working" trucks, and very rarely you might find one nosed, and even more rarely with a smoothed tailgate. Never did you find them lowered, almost never did they have "custom" upholstery, at least on the newer ones. Because these trucks were used for all manner of tasks at the racetrack, you wouldn't normally find toneau covers mounted either. Quarter mile or half, asphalt or dirt, jalopies or stocks, midgets or sprints, it didn't seem to matter, you'd see these trucks displayed proudly in the infield at every race, week in, week out, every week, their owners beaming.
I think they did. If you could narrow a rearend for a dragster, you could narrow one for anything. I know some of the g***ers ran narrowed rearends in the 60's too. Larry T
You'll get a different answer from everyone you ask. But, with the 60's came a huge selection of custom wheels, LOTS of color, chrome, and a ton of new speed parts from the aftermarket where a lot of speed parts were crafted by the rodder in his garage before that. Yes, I know chrome existed before the 60's. But, you didn't see that much of it on rods til the 60's
The Jalopy Journal
