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The Evolution of the Pickup Truck

From utility to style and back

Some say Gottlieb Daimler's 1896 "vehicle no. 42," which looked like a horse-drawn wagon without the horses, was the first truck. Daimler claimed its four-horsepower, 1.1-liter, two-cylinder engine would haul a payload of 3,300 pounds. Imagine using a riding lawnmower to tow a trailer loaded with nine 55-gallon drums. The weakest riding mower on market today is about twice as powerful as old no. 42. Either Daimler was prone to grossly exaggerating payload potential or old-time horsepower was a lot more robust than today. Daimler later offered a 10-horsepower truck that boasted a dizzying top speed of 7.5 mph.

Uphill Battle

With performance like this, vehicle manufacturers had an uphill battle attempting to convince small businessmen, farmers, and ranchers that a pickup truck was a better choice than a conventional team of draft horses and a wagon. Take a look at the first trucks and you'll understand why many stuck with trusty, potent Belgians or Clydesdales over puny, petulant internal combustion engines.

A few small factory-built models, including the King, Reo and AutoCar, entered the market in the early 1900s. By 1907, International Harvester began offering the 20-horsepower Auto Wagon, which featured a frame and body made of wood. It was wider than most vehicles of the period in order to better fit the existing wagon-wheel ruts in the routes traveled by its targeted backcountry and southern buyers. Today's typical average off-road trail is in better condition than the "highways" of '07. For rural America, this was true into the '30s.

Soon after the introduction of the mass-produced automobile, people began modifying cars to increase utility. They stripped off rear bodywork and grafted on open-topped boxes. Was this the true birth of the pickup truck?

Vehicle makers were slow to fully grasp the potential of this genre. In 1917, Ford offered a Model T that could be made into a pickup: It was simply a regular Model T with a bare chassis aft of the cab. The buyer had to add his own bed, often by contracting with a coachbuilder or carpenter. Today, we might call it a dealer-installed option.

Ford didn't sell a complete factory-assembled pickup until the 1925 Model T Runabout with Pickup Body, which listed for $261. In 1928, Ford introduced a pickup based on its more-robust Model A. It featured unheard of luxuries such as an all-steel cab and roll-up side windows. Ford set a lofty standard when it added the flathead V-8 to its pickup in the early '30s.

Though Chevrolet began producing trucks as early as 1918, they were essentially automobiles with no rear bodywork. As with the Ford Model T, buyers had to add their own pickup coachwork. Chevy's first factory-built pickup didn't arrive until 1931. The first pickup offered by the Dodge Brothers Company was the mid-'20s 3/4-ton model, which was actually built by the Graham Brothers. The first 1/2-ton Dodge, which was also the first Chrysler Corp.-produced 1/2-ton pickup, was the '29.

Japan's first domestically produced truck arrived in 1922, built by the predecessor to Isuzu. The first prototype Toyota truck, the Model G1, was completed in 1935.

Well into the 1930s, many regular automobiles enjoyed the generous ground clearance and rigid chassis now associated with pickups. But the automobile was evolving to be lower and more pavement-oriented. No longer could pickups be simply automobiles with a bed rather than a trunk.

Post-War Revival

Also during the '30s, Art Deco-themed pickups hit the showrooms. Two excellent examples from the mid- to late-'30s are the Hudson Terraplane pickup and the Studebaker J5 Coupe-Express.

During World War II, the U.S. government banned the production of private trucks. After the end of hostilities, manufacturers needed a couple of years to flush the olive drab out of their paint guns. But they came back with a vengeance. Chevrolet was the first to introduce a new post-war truck, with its '47 model. Ford followed in 1948 with the first F-Series pickup. The half-ton version was designated the F-1. A 95-horsepower six was standard with a 100-horsepower flathead V-8 optional.

In the '50s, there was a growing change in the use of pickups trucks. For the first time, most were used for pleasure, rather than business or agricultural work. Pickups increasingly were used to create an image: Kind of like cowboy boots worn by people who don't ride horses. In an attempt to grab the trend, Ford took a page out of the old playbook and grafted a pickup bed onto a conventional car. The sporty Ranchero—and Chevy's response, the El Camino—didn't fully meet the new desires, partially because of their on-pavement, light-duty nature.

To some it became clear that Americans wanted something less than the huge, hard-riding, tough-driving Big Three pickups, but something tougher than the citified Ranchero and El Camino. The answer came from Japan in the mini-pickup, introduced more than three decades after the emergence of the earliest mass-produced American pickup trucks.

The first on these shores was the 37-horsepower Datsun 1000, which appeared in 1959. "Not THAT small," said Americans. Toyota had been building small pickups—really small pickups—since 1947 when the Toyopet Model SB debuted. The company entered the U.S. pickup battle in '65 with the spartan little Stout. Over the course of a few years, about 4,000 Stouts were sold in America

Import Influence

In '69, the next-generation Toyota pickup, the Hi-Lux, came to the U.S. The vehicle wasn't so "hi-lux." It had a metal dashboard and a single bench seat. The Hi-Lux name lasted through '75, then in '76 the pickup became simply known as the "Pickup." In much of the rest of the world, the name Hi-Lux is still used. In 1995, Toyota debuted an all-new compact pickup in America, named the Tacoma. The Tacoma was designed in Southern California, built in Northern California, and brought a new level of style, refinement and performance to the class.

By the early '90s, gas was cheap and plentiful and the economy was booming, so the demand for larger pickups grew. Toyota responded with the not-quite-full-sized T100 in '93, and then followed it in 2000 with the full-sized V8-powered Tundra. Tundra was the industry's first import brand full-size pickup model line, and with the arrival of the Tundra Double Cab in 2004, it got even bigger.

Even today, the pickup continues to evolve. The days of the pickup truck serving exclusively as a utilitarian work tool have long passed. The vast majority of pickups on the road now serve duty as personal transportation, typically with little or no load in the cargo bed. Though most drivers may only rarely use the load carrying ability of their pickup, they nonetheless appreciate having that kind of practical utility always at the ready. Drivers are drawn to the pickup's rugged image and pampered with features and interior luxuries that can approach those of fine luxury sedans. Probably the clearest proof of the pickup's integration into the American automotive landscape is the sport truck and customization movement. Customized trucks abandon any shred of utility and are embraced as a pure exhibition of style.

The pickup truck spectrum on America's roads spans an incredible range, form practical function to unabashed self-expression. Where the pickup is headed next is uncertain, but as long as there's cargo to move and people looking for an evocative vehicle, the pickup's place on American roads seems secure.