Four Pioneering All-Terrain Pickups

All pickups are useful, but four-wheel drive infinitely expands a light truck's horizons. Whether it be negotiating dusty desert terrain, scaling rocks, or churning through deep mud and snow, a transfer case and live axles makes getting cargo where it needs to go a whole lot easier and safer. There's no end to the great four-wheel-drive light haulers we could profile, but here are a few interesting examples.

1966 Ford F-250

More than 80 percent of F-150s sold today are equipped with Ford's four-door SuperCrew cab–the preferred configuration of buyers with families. But prior to 1965, Ford didn't build a four-door truck, and the demand for additional passenger room from utilities, logging companies, railroads, the military, and others was met by aftermarket coachbuilders.

Among the firms performing these crew cab conversions–on not just Fords but virtually every make of light truck–was Crown Steel Products of Orrville, Ohio. In addition to building crew cab pickups, Crown built utility bodies, sleeper cabs for heavy trucks, and more. This truck, an unusual 1966 Ford crew cab F-250 four-wheel-drive, was converted to a four-door by Crown. The fact that the work was performed on an up-level Custom Cab, rather than a baseline truck, makes it more unusual, as does the original color, Caribbean Turquoise.

Early crew cab conversions didn't involve altering the truck's chassis. Instead, body panels were cut and stitched back together to fit the existing frame rails, thus avoiding a lot of expensive and time-consuming work—like extending the driveshaft and brake lines or plating frame rails. The cab was sectioned and elongated, rear doors were fabricated out of front doors and mounted on exposed hinges, then the front of the box was chopped to compensate for the length of the cab.

The 1966 model year marked the last for Ford's handsome fourth-generation F-Series trucks. This design, which was launched in 1961, is most widely remembered for the "integral cab and box" trucks that were discontinued after 1963 (they were unpopular at the time, but a favorite with collectors today). This generation also introduced the Twin I-Beam independent coil spring front suspension under two-wheel-drives, beginning in 1965. The integral body was never available on a 4x4 chassis, and four-wheel-drives used leaf springs fore and aft as well as heavy-duty Dana axles.

For 1966, the standard light-truck engine was the thrifty 240-cu.in. straight-six with a one-barrel carburetor that was good for 150 hp, but buyers could opt for the 170-hp 300 six-cylinder or the 208-hp 352 V-8. Automatic transmissions weren't available with four-wheel drive, and a Warner T89F three-speed was the base offering, but buyers could step up to a New Process 435 four-speed gearbox. A divorced Spicer Model 24 two-speed transfer case sent the power to the front axle and, in ¾-ton rigs, a set of stump-pulling 4.56:1 cogs were standard issue.

1967-'72 Chevrolet K10-K20

Chevrolet's 1967-'72 light haulers have been nicknamed the "glamour series," but the hauling, towing, and snowplowing these trucks had to do in their day was usually anything but glamorous. Hundreds of thousands were built to be used up, serving as barebones work rigs, but interest in this series spawned an abundant supply of aftermarket parts. So now it's easy to restore and customize any 1967-'72 model, bringing it more in step with the tastes of modern light-truck buyers: chrome and wood veneer trim, interior carpeting and padded accents, bucket seats, aftermarket sound systems, air conditioning, etc.

Unlike previous generations, many of these cosmetic touches and creature comforts were part of Chevrolet's option offerings, so it's also possible to find a 1967-'72 truck decked out with bright trim, a relatively plush interior and a smattering of accessories from the factory.

When the series made its debut in 1967, Chevrolet marketers clearly sought to give this truck a split personality, appealing both to the fashion sense and the practicality of potential customers. "This brand-new Chevy pickup looks so good you could call it a two-door," Chevrolet announced in its magazine advertisements. But just so truck buyers didn't question its ruggedness, they threw in: "You could also call it the toughest Chevy pickup ever built."

Interestingly, as the glamour series truck aged, it became less glamorous and more macho. The 1967-'68 trucks had an almost delicate style, with a sloping hood and a soft front-end treatment. The 1968-'70 trucks toughened up, gaining a higher hood that gave the truck a more blunt face, which was spearheaded by a bold, shiny grille and surround. For 1971-'72, Chevrolet went to a full-width egg-crate grille that lent the trucks an all-business look. In 1971, front disc brakes became standard fare in light trucks. In 1972, sales soared to 845,000 units—a record for Chevrolet truck production.

Four-wheel-drives had their transfer cases relocated to a higher position starting in '67 and bolted to the back of the transmission rather than driven with a shaft. This allowed the overall height of the trucks to be lowered several inches for easier loading, while maintaining 12.5-inches of ground clearance between the axles. For 1967, the 327 V-8 was available alongside the 250/292 sixes and the 283 V-8. In 1968, the 307 was substituted for the 283 as the base offering. Some exciting newcomers joined the team for 1969: the 350 and the 396—later increased to 402 cu.in. and called 400. The Mark IV big-block, however, was not offered in the '69-'72 K10 or K20. Power steering was also optional in four-wheel-drives for '69, and the all-new Blazer two-door, open-top sport utility joined the lineup.

1945-'68 Dodge Power Wagon

With all of the popular focus on the Jeep and its importance during World War II, it's easy to overlook another wartime hero dragged into civilian life by the scruff of its neck: the Dodge Power Wagon.

Dodge had been building four-wheel-drive pickups since 1934, and had been modifying them to suit the Army's whims ever since. One-ton, ½-ton, ¾-ton, in a variety of wheelbases and open and closed body styles, the over-engineered WC (or T214, its development code inside Dodge) was a hot ticket on the military surplus market after the war. Farmers, construction companies, miners, all manner of working men sought out its rugged, honest goodness. The WC's toughness was never in question, four-wheel- drive was seen as a high-tech bonus, and to boot, it had a 2,000-pound payload capacity off-road.

So the decision for Dodge to build a civilian-spec version was easy. Built on a 126-inch chassis, Dodge used the commercial cab introduced in 1939 and retained the military T214's open fenders. The result, though, was not called Power Wagon: It was called the Model WDX General Purpose Truck on its January 1946 launch. The decision to name it Power Wagon came a few months later, and was announced in the noted truck journal Power Wagon. No, seriously.

The 94 hp, 230-cu.in. flathead-six powered truck was never going to win any speed contests, but for the municipalities, fire companies, ranchers, farmers and others who ordered them, speed was never the issue. They were tough as rocks, cheap to fix, and lasted forever. Technical upgrades came slowly to the Power Wagon. Model year 1951 saw probably more changes than in any year before or since: A new pickup bed graced the rear; axle capacities increased; optional, stiffer springs were available; new rubber engine, cab and box mountings were integrated; the mounting angle of the transfer case was adjusted, and more. A new carburetor came in 1952, and compression was bumped yearly in 1953 (7.0:1, from 6.7), 1954 (7.25:1), and 1955 (7.6:1). Model year 1955 also saw the introduction of 12-volt electrics and a synchromesh transmission. Power steering became available a year later, and key-actuated starting came in 1957. In 1958, both an alternator and a 10,000-pound winch were available. The '60s didn't see much new on the wartime design: A 251-cube six arrived in 1961, lock-out front hubs came a year later, and a dual master cylinder came in 1967. Emissions issues finally killed the Power Wagon in the States in 1968 (though not before the forest service pleaded its case for the truck's continuance!); it was deemed too expensive to reverse-engineer the Slant 6 into the engine bay. A total of 95,145 WDX-WM300 Power Wagons were sold between 1945-1968. Exports continued for at least another decade. Confusingly, the Power Wagon name also appeared on ¾-ton and 1-ton four-wheel-drive variants of standard W-series Dodge pickups.

Power Wagons were over-engineered for military duty (the story goes that development engineer Frenchy Raes would find a way to make components fail every time the bean counters wanted to save a couple of cents here and there); so save for general rot issues, and perhaps the mixing and matching of parts if you're going to keep things correct for a given year, there shouldn't be anything unusual to watch out for.

1957 GMC 100 (with NAPCO 4WD)

Prior to 1960, General Motors did not offer a factory-built four-wheel- drive pickup truck, so a small vendor called NAPCO— Northwestern Auto Parts Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota— stepped up to meet the demand.

Armed with NAPCO's Powr-Pak 4x4 conversion kit, a mechanic could transform a two-wheel-drive truck into a four-wheel-drive, with no welding and minimal cutting needed. The front drive axle in the package was fitted with tubes modified for constant velocity joints, thus allowing the wheels to steer, and the transfer case was a divorced unit, driven via a shaft off the transmission, so it could be mounted without altering the stock powertrain.

NAPCO conversions date at least as far back as the 1947-'55 (first series) GM light trucks. However, prior to 1955, only 1-ton and ¾-ton trucks could be converted, because ½-ton trucks used a torque-tube style driveshaft that wasn't easily adapted to a transfer case. Once the torque tube was eliminated, in the second-series 1955 trucks, it became possible to use NAPCO conversion kits on ½-tons.

The NAPCO conversions were originally performed by Chevrolet and GMC truck dealers or independent NAPCO installers. Starting in 1956, Powr-Pak 4x4 was offered as a factory-installed option on GMCs, while Chevrolet began offering it from the factory in 1957. The two were identical systems, other than the availability of a V-8 and an automatic transmission on the GMC trucks. (The Chevrolet could only be ordered with the 235-cu.in. six-cylinder and a four-speed manual transmission.) This continued more or less unchanged until the introduction of the redesigned 1960 haulers, when GM installed its own four-wheel-drive system on light trucks. This truck below, a '57 Series 100 with 28,000 original miles, is powered by a rugged, 130-hp GMC 270-cu.in. six-cylinder paired with an optional Muncie SM420 four-speed. It's also equipped with the optional large, wrap-around rear window. The '57 trucks were essentially a carryover from the year prior with cosmetic updates. It would also be the last year that GMC light trucks were equipped with two (rather than four) headlamps, until the new-for-1973 trucks hit showroom floors.