A Space Efficient Pickup

In North America the pickup truck is the king of the road. Ford sells more F-150's than anything else. In fact, during the month of March, 2014 they sold 70, 940 of them in the US. That's three trucks every two minutes, 24/7! While all the pickups sold in North America are great vehicles, I believe we've been brainwashed to think we NEED a big giant truck. I'll admit there's something empowering about riding along in your bigwheel looking down on the mere mortals trundling along in their hatchback and sedans, but the shine comes off when you've got to park Goliath downtown.

The rest of the world uses a different style of pickup, something more like a van with the back cut off.  It has the same load carrying space in a significantly shorter package. Back in the sixties, the Big Three (Ford, Chyrsler and GM) all offered pickups in that style. In fact I had one, a 1966 Dodge A100. When I bought it, it had already been hard at work for more than ten years, but that trusty old slant six engine still ran like a top. It was my daily driver for more than ten years, making hundreds of trips for building supplies and to the garbage dump. It also helped haul the equipment for the Kelowna City Band. We called him "The Relic." If you were to buy my ebook on iTunes called "Digital Automotive Art" you'd find a nice digital painting of himself in all his glory just after we treated him to a full body workover and a paint job.

From personal experience I can tell you that this style of truck carries a heavy load more balanced between the front and rear axles than a conventional pickup. Before I had The Relic I'd borrow my boss's regular Dodge and with a heavy load in the back, it felt like the front wheels were just barely maintaining contact with the road – not a great feeling. 

Relic's pickup bed was 8'-4" long and the sides were taller than any regular pickup. If the load was something relatively light, like yard waste for example, it would take a nice big load of it. Inside, the cab was downright spacious feeling. The engine sat between the seats in a "doghouse" that was big enough to spread out all the fixings for a nice picnic if the weather turned nasty. Also in an emergency, five people could be seated in that cab quite comfortably. There was only two seat belts in The Relic, so more than two occupants would now be considered illegal, but we did utilize the space on a few occasions to transport people out of the woods after they'd had a mechanical breakdown.

With his very short wheelbase, The Relic could turn around on a normal city street within the width of the pavement – try that in your 4X4 crew cab! All in all that old cabover pickup as one of my friends liked to call it, served us well. It was relatively comfortable to drive, and did everything that was asked for it. All the while being a whole lot more compact in size. 

Here's a quick little sketch I did of a Dodge A100 pickup. My friend Brian says he's disappointed when he gets a new blog entry from me and it doesn't have an illustration of some sort in it. This one's for you, Brian.