Hot Rods Trucks - thinking outside the box

"But then, just about anything would look better than that jail bar front sheet metal."

OUCH!

 

Here’s a few I like.


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1937 Dodge 4-door

 

I know I've seen a side view of an early Ford sedan that was converted into a fenderless chopped hot rod pickup. The rear panel of the sedan was used as the rear panel of the pickup cab, and naturally, it was curved in at the bottom. The front of the bed was modified to follow that line.

Seems to me that it might be one of the best things you could do with an old 4-door. The trucks have a kind of coupe-ish feeling to them, but they're a bit short... especially chopped and/or channeled. Control the length of the cab building it from a sedan.
Chop and channel and still have leg room.
And it's "coupe-cool".
Less money and more available than a coupe body, I think.
And you can carry stuff.

My late night mental build. Almost convinced myself to build one. Better sleep on it...

Edit:
Slept on it.
Did a little research.
Proportions can be difficult.
Front doors on most 4-doors are short in length. Either lengthen the doors or start with a 2-door.
Other particulars, too.
Final thought...
Considering all the work involved to do this, and yes, the cost... I think a guy would have to acquire a sedan for almost no money to justify converting a sedan to a pickup truck... as opposed to just building what he'd prefer in the first place.
I guess that's usually the case.

If you want to see more examples though, search for "extended cab" etc. etc.
Here and elsewhere.

 

Saw this one at a show in Roseburg, Oregon in 2013. The proportions seemed to work in person. He said it was built from a Tudor sedan that had damage to the rear passenger area (I assumed it was something like a tree fell on it in that area) I really liked how the 2 door gave a decent length to the cab, and how he used the back panel of the car instead of just going straight down at the back.

 

Looks like this could be it!

Ray

 

My present project ... a '60 F100 "Fridge" . I'm close to having it being a DD and I'm looking for some '40 ford wheels to look a bit more traditional ... trying to lose the hoopty 20" dodge spares.

 

Not only did thus builder think outside the box, looks like they built a curvaceous “box” to pull behind it. As seen at Turlock swap 2016:

 

The Original!

 

It can of course be done the other way round: passenger car body on a truck front. I did a design exercise on that idea many years ago, but as it was for a local magazine it focussed on available Japanese trucks, so it isn't really HAMB-friendly. Any other examples, though?

 

A couple designs that are a little different. Our old 37 Chevy Custom Kingcab Pickup build from the 90's that our Son and his Family now own and my current Custom 56 Chevy ElCamino.

 

Seeing all those Studebakers linked together, reminded me of this one. It was built about a 1/4 mile from me. As I remember, all the wheels were driven. The guy's name was Elmer Wagner.

 

Always liked these Studebakers

 

I really think the 38 standard/deluxe/39 standard passenger grilles look really cool on the truck cabs. Then the 36 37 38 truck grilles look awesome chopped up and used on a 33-34 coupes. Nothing wasted!

 

I agree, personally i like the front sheetmetal on the 39-40 trucks better than the 39-40 chevy car fronts

 

This one is neat but the hard edges look unfinished to me....

 

One of old builds

 

This one is my favorite, has a little bit of everything in it.

 

'34 Dodge Red Ram Hemi

 

I wouldn’t expect this picture to be left up here for long.
It looks to me like the wheels are at least 17” or bigger.
I posted a really nice Studebaker pickup in a previous thread and you could only see a sliver of a wheel and someone freaked out and deleted it.

 

Back in the late 80s I built this street/drag '40 pickup with '37 pass front sheetmetal. It looked a lot faster than it really was.

In the early 90s I threw together this '39 Ford pickup...just couldn't live with that 39 grille, so I changed it to a modified '36 Ford pickup grille. (the cat on the roof approved)

 

And, kind of a truck...I built this Sedan Delivery from a 4 door sedan.