Technical Ford: How big are the interiors year to year between 1928 to 1934 pickups vs 1928 to 1932 cars.

You can move the seat back in coupe or sedan; not so much in a truck. Kid had a '34 truck; seat back was literally foam and tuck & roll on the back of the cab; gas and brake were OK, clutch was tight to work.

 

Don't let your mind play with you. A sedan has room to move the seat back, a coupe is marginal and a pickup is for midgets. That is without chopped or channeled. I put 36,000 miles on a 32 pickup in short order, driving it to shows in a 400 mile radius of my house. I have a 30" inseam and there wasn't enough leg room. What is being left out of some of this is age and how much pain you can handle. There is a lot of hot rodding that is based on cool, not comfort. Be honest with your self about your expectations.

 

Built a Model A during lunch with the measurements from @Petejoe. Envisioning getting under the steering wheel with peddles in my way. Channel with maybe the frame cut down and cab sitting lower on a 32 up frame which I believe is deeper than earlier years. A chop but, not both. At 5'11" and 175lbs I think I can do it although I would like to sit in one. Slid my chair back and forth to approximate forward and rear placement.

 

Best to go to a big show and ask some owners to sit in a couple

 

Agreed. Waiting for a show to ask exactly that, tactfully with enough questions, so I don't come off as an unknown yahoo wanting to sit in someone's vehicle.

 

Just be upfront, tell the owner you are looking at building or buying one but would like to see how you fit in them first. THEN, ask what mods they have done to the seats, floorboards etc

 

@Petejoe 's post was super informative and it inspired me to take some measurements of my chopped 30 A coupe.

I tried to replicate his measurements (my drawing isn't nearly as good... haha) for comparison's sake.



My package tray is removed, which helps but the firewall being reversed negates that a bit. The car is chopped 4" but there are a few tricks to sneak a little extra room.

I'm 6-2.5", long torso, 220ish. The car has been built to accommodate my size and comfort.

 

Model A pickups are tiny.

I am reworking about everything that you cannot see on my mid-engine '29.

The body appears channeled, but I am dropping the footbox to even with the bottom of the frame rails. I have not yet figured out how far, but the firewall will go forward as far as necessary to make my legs comfortable.

Nothing is off of the table.

 

I'm just a small jump over the border if you want to sit in something. I've got a 34 pickup. My A pickup and A 29 coupe here currently.

 

That is hugely useful information. There really ought to be a website consisting of only stuff like this, catalogued and listed logically. I'm not going to create it, though!

There is an ergonomic kludge called the 7-foot rule. It proposes that a human figure in side elevation will fit in a rectangle whose length and height add up to 7 feet. Standing up you're roughly one foot long and six feet high; lying on your back you're about six feet long and one foot high. It's a kludge because it doesn't really work in the middle of the range — a 42" square isn't really comfortable to sit in — and it makes no provision for anthropometric percentiles, but it's a useful educated-guess type of thing if you remember to add a bit the nearer you get to a square.

The principle which comes out of it, though, is that whatever you lose in height, you'll have to make up in length, and vice versa, in what does seem to be around a 1:1 ratio. If you're short of legroom in an unchopped car, and there is air between the top of your head and the headlining, consider what everyone invariably doesn't, i.e. raising the seat a bit and tilting it more upright. Or vice versa.

If you want low, you'll have to find length somewhere. That may or may not necessitate moving the steering wheel back. All of that is likely to affect how you get in and out. This was an interesting discussion: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/ingress-egress-question-for-early-cars.1210100/

I've sporadically daydreamed about an Austin FX4 taxi as a daily, with an OT hot turbo-diesel in it, and it keeps coming down to the shape of the driver's compartment, if the taxi partition is kept — and keeping it is part of the whole idea. There isn't a lot of length between the dashboard and the partition. Cabbies sit scrunched up, but they could probably wear opera hats in there. The way I drive I'd probably be hitting my hands on the dash all the time. I haven't drawn it up, but it's pointing to a higher seat with a pretty much horizontal cushion, and a 12" steering wheel on a column much nearer vertical than stock. I'd be driving in a position closer to standing up than in anything else I've driven, but it might just work.

 

Whilst I may get slapped for this, running an auto will give you more space for your feet.

 

@panhead_pete , my thoughts ran to this about 5 posts ago, while I was reading this thread.
You're good.

 

There are guides to get you started. Vertical angle for traffic signals is a good one as moving the seat back cuts into this.

 

The cowl on the 32 too 34 is shorter, so therefore reducing legroom. A very seldom thing anyone considers. Im 6'3 and no chance of driving a 32 to 34 at all. I can however fit and drive a RPU with special seating done up.

I guess the best thing I can say is, If your tall, stick to coupes, sedans etc of these years, If your sawed off, build roadsters or pickups.

The A vs the 32 and up, The A is just smaller in many ways, but is more adjustable for length and height. My big ass gets in my A coupe and stretched out to hit the starter button. The 32 and up width makes them better for wider folks...

Anything over a 32" inseam isn't driving a truck from these years without major modification. You could push the toeboards out if you run banger power within reason.

 

Very gracious of you. I could easily do something like your pickup with the banger.

 

If I remember nothing about A's I have to at least remember this. Actually in carpentry we have the rule of 17 for stairs, 12" tread 5" riser, 10" tread 7" riser, etc. Helps formulate parameters.

 

Thanks @34Phil, This has given me an idea to make the plywood 'Chop Box' to add the dims from @Petejoe and @-Brent-.
3 sheets of 1/2" ply held together with screws. Fire a seat and a steering wheel in there and play with dims until I get something to fit me. Top of the box is made slightly larger than the lower box. 3" chop , 6", 2" whatever, slide it up and down to size appropriately. I can make it the largest size to represent the coupe then strap the back to adjust for the truck and put a riser in the bottom to rep the channel. May even make an oval chop guide on the outside with predrilled holes and make it available to anyone who wants to sit in it.

 

Throw some fenders and a hood on there and I think you might be on to something!

 

I'm 6ft and when I ride in my friends 29 Model A pickup with a modified seat, its cramped compared to my other friends 40 pickup. I have a non running 33 ford Pickup with the seats in it and definitely has more room then my friends 29.

 

Im 6 feet 6 inches tall with 36 inside leg .. I drive a 30 coupe , chopped 3 inches, repro 40 steering wheel which I believe is an inch smaller in diameter than an original . Seat is the ubiquitous people carrier middle seat . Its as far back as it can go and is mounted an inch off the floor . Distance driving I can sit back and drive with ease , but local runs I tend to lean forward with elbow on the door frame trying to look cool .. I can do with the seat being just a little higher to take the crease out of my stomach in the "Milner" position as it puts a wee bit of pressure on my hernia repair .. lol

I cant drive my buddies 30 coupe which is chopped 4 inches and has bucket seats and a humongous 40s Buick steering wheel .

Ages ago I had a 28 coupe unchopped with a teas seat and tilt column drove it all over the country no problem .

Currently building a 28 roadster , It has a little less leg room than the 30 coupe, but by adjusting the seat height, and thinning out the back foam I can get fairly comfortable .

My buddy has a 28 RPU an its impossible for me to drive it once behind the wheel. I cant even get in a closed 28 pickup ..

 

Small and smaller!

 

I'm 6'-7" and I can fit into my '29 model a pickup. I had to heat up and bend the shifter to allow me to shift. It's a little tight but I don't mind.

 

Wow, 6'7" fits? I'm a midget at 6'1" and before I bought my 53 F350 I went and looked at a nice 29AA farm truck... really too original to consider modifying but that isn't what kept me from buying it. Sitting in there then imagining the firewall being moved back to accommodate the big block did.

 

A good idea. I used to want a TVR Griffith until a guy let me sit in one at a show.... holy claustrophobia, my right arm sitting out level with my shoulder on the tunnel, no place at all to put my foot when off the clutch pedal and getting in and out of the thing with those short doors.

 

CCPUs are cool! Maybe not a daily driver, a family car, or your choice for a long trip, but hard to beat the look, and utility.

 

Holy smokes, 6'6-6'7' in a pickup!! Think I'll find it hard to complain. Glad to see some Lower Mainland guys on the forum. Thanks @anothercarguy, if I bolt a hood and fenders on my soap box you might see it blasting down the hill to the ferry at Horseshoe Bay some day. By the way I found your efforts to get your car up your driveway entertaining, I build in West Van so I get it.

 

Just so you guys understand where my mind is at, I couldn't find an A so what does a wannabee do? I painted one on the door of my '65 pickup.

 

Well with at one time having both an unchopped or channeled 33 pickup at the same time as a 34 3 window and 5 window coupe I can safely say the pickup is the tightest space of the bunch. I am only 5'9 and it feels like I fill that pickup cab up. Next in terms of space was the 3 window coupe, and the largest was the 5 window. Plus an advantage of a 33/34 coupe is the firewall is farther forward for quite a bit more leg room, plus the seat is a little bit more ergonomic for longer drives over my pickup. My back is always sore after a long drive in it.

 

I'm 5'6" and fit just fine in my son's 32 coupe lmao

 

I have a 28 PU and a 32 Coupe. Neither are chopped nor channelled. Both have 4 speeds.
But sitting inside them are two totally different experiences.
In the 28 my knees are jammed way up towards the steering wheel which is rather close to my body. Driving it for more than an hour is difficult. There's just no room to move your legs so I need to stretch often.
In the 32 I actually have some room to move around. It is night and day.
BTW I'm 6-1" but have a long
torso. My long legged 6-2" son really has it bad in the 28.