“We think it’s about time trucks stopped looking so trucky,” read one of Chevy’s ads for its all-new 1967 pickups. In sharp contrast to most of today’s pickups, 1950s and 1960s trucks went out of…
Posts tagged Trucks
Dodge SpaceVan: Anything But Space Age
Yup, it’s a Mopar! But definitely not one most American Dodge Charger, Plymouth GTX, or even Ram 1500 fans would recognize. This is a 1982 Dodge SpaceVan, a relic of Chrysler Corporation’s 1960s overseas ambitions…
Volkswagen Type 147 Fridolin: Special Delivery
Seeing any Volkswagen Type 147 Kleinlieferwagen, colloquially called the Fridolin, is a real rarity, but a Swiss-market model rolling up anywhere in the U.S.? That’s a genuine unicorn, and we spied this Swiss-spec one at…
Renault Goélette: Martinique Minibus
A gaggle of rare French machines from the OldMotors archive today; once again from Martinique. A trio of Peugeot 403 pickups are fronted by a Renault Goélette minibus, set to take people from Fort-de-France to…
Saab 9-7x: An Oldsmobile Becomes a TrollBlazer
Not-so-old Motors today and the famous (infamous?) “TrollBlazer.” Saab’s 9-7x was the least Saab-like Saab of all time and came to be a symbol of GM’s mishandling of its Swedish subsidiary. It seemed like an…
Ford Bronco Mk1: A Horse Untamed
It could be fairly said that 1964 was Ford’s year of the horse. That April, Ford’s epoch-defining Mustang debuted at the New York World’s fair. The Mustang not only created an entirely new market, it…
SUV Mania: 1993 Ford Explorer Limited
The year was 1985. Just a year earlier, famous auto exec and future Chrysler and GM product Czar Bob Lutz had returned to Dearborn, Michigan. He was still working for Ford then, and fresh off…
A Van By Any Other Name: Mitsubishi “Wagon”
The Mitsubishi Delica name dates back to 1968, but it was in the 1980s that the van became famous as a go-anywhere overlander. Today, 1980s and 1990s JDM AWD Diesel Delicas are popular enough in…
Airborne Armor: Land Rover 1/2-ton Lightweight
It’s a Land Rover alright, but of a very particular kind – it’s called the “half ton lightweight,” although it’s actually not as light as the name or materials used would imply. The story of…
O.G. G-Wagen: Mercedes 460-Series Geländewagen
Nobody would have predicted that the military surplus Mercedes Geländewagen would end up a coveted luxury item, but that’s what it’s best known as today. This particularly true in the USA, where the truck’s best-ever…
Alpine Fire Brigade: Volkswagen LT 4X4
Hundreds of thousands of VW LT vans were built over the truck’s lengthy lifespan – 1975 to 1996 – but just 1,250 of them were the lifted, go-anywhere 4X4 models. LT stands for “Lasten-Transporter,” loosely…
Econline Pickup: The Forward Control Ford
The big news in Detroit in 1960 was the arrival of “compact” cars – and in particular, the Ford Falcon. But just as imported cars had encroached on domestics 1950s, smaller and more fuel efficient…