What is the differences between T Bucket & a RPU?

Just wondering how we define a RPU versus a T Bucket style vehicle.

I dont need to hear that a T bucket is based on a model T and a RPU can be any year.

There must be more of a 50's definition to define or separate the two styles etc?

Any experts out there or Show judges or just your opinion for starters!

 

I always thought RPU stood for Roadster Pick Up, but I have been known to be wrong in the past

 

Yes you are right, but side by side a T bucket and a RPU are slightly different or should I say very similar but how do we define the differences?

 

I'm thinking an RPU is a pickup so that a 'T' bucket could be an RPU but an RPU may not necessarily be a 'T' and 'T's are Ford anyway and a RPU could be any mfgr.

 

Obviously,A T Bucket is based an a "T"..whether it has a poop deck on it or a pickup bed or just a large gas tank on the rear....A RPU is just what it says."A Roadster pick up.any year...

 

If your knees are in your face, you are in a T Bucket.

 

Proportions...

 

What difference does it really make?

A T is a T. A RPU is a roadster pickup version of a closed car.

 

Wasn't the name t-bucket given to a specific type of hot rod using a model t roadster body? Fenderless, suicide front axle, tall windsheilds, etc....

 

I think roadster pickups are much cooler than T buckets but that's just me.

 

in my opinion, a T bucket is based on a model T style body. Room for two, with no box behind the body. An RPU has a small pickup style box behind the passenger compartment. Both are open

 

When Ivo and Grabowski built their first roadsters, they used Ford T bodies. Over the years other make bodies have also been used, mostly Dodge. The bucket name came about because many of the cars did not have a turtle deck or pickup bed, hence the car body was only a bucket. Any T-bucket with a pickup bed of any length can, by strict definition, be considered a roadster pickup(RPU).

But generally speaking the roadster pickup name has been used in conjunction with any make, full bodied hot rod (with or without fenders) with a factory styled chassis rather than the scratch built T-bucket frame.

 

Dont forget the model T had a RPU style body also just as the model A did.
So where did the T bucket come from since numerous T buckets had a dummy pickup style box on the rear, yes I agree some had turtle decks and others had gas tanks!

 

it may be nit picking and probably not relavent in the big picture ,but if you said you are building a 23 t bucket I think of an 18 or 20" box or gas tank etc if you said 23 t roadster I think of a turtle deck and if you said 23 t pickup I would think of a 23 t with a 48" ? or fullsize bed, but opinions are like.........

 

Roadster Pickup is a Ford(and other makes) body style designation for an open bodied Commercial vehicle with a pickup box. Ford also made open-bodied 1-ton Trucks with flatbeds or large pickup boxes.

T-Bucket is, in general, an all-encompassing term for hot rods based on the 17-25 Ford roadster bodies, with or without turtle decks or pickup boxes. Oddly, the 1923 T roadster pickup is most often regarded as the arch-typical T-bucket even though the roadster pickup body style was actually first available in 1925.

The 26-27 T Roadster bodies with pickup boxes or without turtle decks are often grouped with the T-Buckets. However, the 26-27 Roadster bodies with turtle decks are often grouped with the later 28-36 Roadsters as designated by many associations which did not accept the earlier bodied T cars at all. Yes, prejudice existed in the car world of the 30s-40s-50s too.

The closed-minded often use the term for all open bodied fenderless T hotrods under the false assumption that all are built in the Fad-T style popularized in the 60s-70s.

The Grabowski T and the Ivo T are examples of the "classic" T-bucket style with channelled bodies and high-mounted abbreviated pickup boxes. The Grabowski T was constructed from the front half of a Touring Car body though.

 

It is one of those questions that no answer will satisfy everyone...just like "what is a shoebox?"

 

Of course, things can get confusing when you try to throw in all the cut-off coupes, tudors, fordors, late-model closed cab pickup bodies and other stuff roaming around with a pickup box on the back end.

 

To further complicate matters....

I present the RGT (Roadster Gas Tank).

JH

 

.........it's a "T" truck............it's a "T" bucket........it's a roadster truck......it's a milk truck......it's, it's, it's......a JALOPY according to it's builder/owner.

(whatever ya do, don't refer to it as a rat-rod in her presence)

 

My $0.02. The typical T bucket I think of has the engine set back further and bigggg rear meats and skinny fronts. And your knees in your eyeball sockets.

 

What separate’s the two is were the axles sit in relation to the motor and cab.

T bucket >>>>>>>>>motor / trans and cab pushed back on frame.
RPU>>>>>>>>>>>>more of a stock configuration and longer bed.

 

Pretty good definition.

 

It is one of those questions that no answer will satisfy everyone...just like "what is a shoebox?"

Simple, it's what my new loafers came in!

Old time Rodders agree that there is only one Shoebox - the 49-51 Ford and only one Deuce, the 32 Ford (not some silly Nova)
just because some Yahoo or magazine dweeb decided to call a tri 5 a shoebox, or worse yet a later Nova a shoebox doesn't make it so and we don't have to accept and spread the ignorance.
It's like when John Q Public tries to sound hip and says "Nice Roadster" while looking at my 3 Window! (and yes that has happened a few times!)

As for the original question, Fad T and T Bucket generally invoke a style of build for T's. Roadster Pick Ups are usually A's and later and it's just the descriptive name that are accepted by Hot Rod Lore, although a rearely seen T with stock style hood, grille and closer to full size box would certainly be a RPU in my book.

 

If it isn't steel it isn't real.
___________________________________________________________________
Like i told the kid, "Your music's not too loud, it just sucks and so does OKC.!"

 

I'd heard it's because the basic font half of the body resembled a bucket!
Whether it's got a turtle deck, pick up bed, or just a tank on the back, the front is still about as comfortable as a bucket!
Or is that too simple?

 

haha aint it the truth!

 

Me too!

 

Wow, thread this is two pages already. Are we that bored? The name should clear it up. A T Bucket is based on the Model T. The Roadster Pick Up is based the on Model A and B. I don't think that they made any later versions. But I could be wrong.

 

What is the difference between a T with just a gas tank and a "modified"? They are beginning to be interchangeable.

 

Ford built roadster pick ups begining in the 26/27 body style, and the last ones were built in '34. '34 production was very low. RPUs are one of the few things I know about.