{"id":2627,"date":"2005-03-09T03:08:00","date_gmt":"2005-03-09T08:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2005\/03\/cargo-cars\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:02:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:02:06","slug":"cargo-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2005\/03\/cargo-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"Cargo Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1949<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1957, Ford introduced the Ranchero<\/a>, in one stroke of genius inventing the car-based pickup and forcing Chevrolet into a crash program that resulted in the El Camino<\/a>. So goes a version of conventional wisdom that is, unfortunately, completely wrong. Car-based pickups have a much longer history than that. Hudson<\/a> had them in the 1940s, as did Studebaker<\/a> in the 30s. In fact, the coupe utility or “ute”<\/a> has been a staple of the Australian outback since 1934. This 1949 Ford<\/a> makes one wonder if the Ranchero doesn’t have much deeper roots in Dearborn.<\/p>\n

In fact it does, much farther back than 1949. In 1931 Ford sold a deluxe version of the Model A pickup<\/a> that certainly qualifies. The original Ranchero had a short run, 1957 to 1959, but it returned in 1960 as a Falcon<\/a> and last appeared in the intermediate Torino<\/a> lineup in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

I photographed the “pre-Ranchero” above at Hershey a few years ago. It was a nicely-finished conversion, apparently from a standard Tudor<\/a> sedan. The rear window looks like it came from a Step-down Hudson. This idea seems to have appealed to several people, as Marian Dinwiddie discovered a “stepside” version<\/a> at the Early Bird Swap Meet in Puyallup, Washington. Converted from a Custom Fordor<\/a> sedan, it has a 1947-53 Advance Design<\/a> Chevy box and fenders.<\/p>\n

Where have all the car-pickups gone? Chevy held on the longest, the El Camino leaving production at the end of the 1988 model year. I suspect that we simply don’t need them any more. After all, for the last 25 years the best selling American vehicle has been a pickup<\/a>, and even Cadillac now offers a crew cab<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1957, Ford introduced the Ranchero, in one stroke of genius inventing the car-based pickup and forcing Chevrolet into a crash program that resulted in the El Camino. So goes a version of conventional wisdom that is, unfortunately, completely wrong. Car-based pickups have a much longer history than that. Hudson had them in the 1940s,….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3447,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/3447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}