My dad is getting ready to paint this for a guy soon and he dropped it off last night. The owner said it is a 1942 but it does not look like any other 42 I have seen. My dad has a 46 Ford pickup and I thought the 42 looked like it. Just curious if anyone knew anything about this body style. It still has the flathead in it and is in fairly good shape.
That appears to be a '40 or 41 tonner front. It's possible the title says '42, since some states didn't title a truck until it sold. Here's a 41
1 ton express, after a lot of digging I found a site that had 2 small pics of that style truck. They were made in 41 and 42. Its a pretty cool little truck, I just had never seen it before.
I found this one that is similar to the one Havi posted http://www.autogallery.org.ru/k/f/41for1_1_2ton4x4MarmonHarrington_RC.jpg It looks like someone had put the big truck cab and nose on a half ton frame at one time on the one your dad is painting.
Possibly, the owner is kind of an odd fellow. He traded a paint job for a running 1936 Chevy sedan, doors need new wood but its a great car.
Your truck is a 1940 STANDARD pickup. The 1940 pickups that appear to have the same sheetmetal as a 1940 car are COMMERCIAL pickups
Wouldn't either style of the half ton pickup have the headlights in the fenders, and the hood not have the vents? I also looked at a 1942 sno-go, and it has the same grille as the 46/47's, so as most pages point out, such as wiki, how-stuff-works, etc... show the 42-47 as being the same. I would hazard a guess that maybe Ford used left over sheet metal to make 1942 1 ton express model. I'll talk to Chuck, and see what he says. I'm kinda curious myself.
The vehicle your dad is painting is a '40 or '41 3/4 ton or 1 ton Express, which rode on a 122-inch wheelbase compared to the 1/2 ton, which rode on a 112 inch wheelbase. The '42 Express shared the same front sheet metal styling as the '42-'47 1/2 ton pickup. However, as Havi suggested, it's possible that the state where it was first titled issued a '42 title instead of a '41, even though the model year was not '42. The source of my information is the Standard Catalog of American Light Duty Trucks, edited by well-known automotive historian John Gunnell and published by Krause Publications, the publishers of Old Cars Weekly, Old Cars Price Guide, and hundreds of automotive reference books.
Trucks and Sedans were made during WW II for the Military...usually from left overs or so I've been told...d32
It's a 1940 Ford 3/4 or 1ton, 40s had the V8 emblem ahead of the hood louvers and was the last year for the 60 hp V8 - Most 42-45 cars and trucks have no chrome or very little because of the war.
That hood is a '40 Express hood as Mark Boltjes said, and yes, the front sheet metal could have been transferred to a '42, as Dadstoy 2 said.