Home » For Three Years, Ford Made A ‘Unibody’ F-Series Pickup Truck And It Was A Massive Failure

For Three Years, Ford Made A ‘Unibody’ F-Series Pickup Truck And It Was A Massive Failure

Ford Flexible Unibody F Series Ts
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There’s a certain romance to the pickup trucks of decades past. The trucks of old were works of art, yet simple and hard-working machines. For decades, trucks and cars served entirely different demographics. But as the pickup truck slowly became less of a tool purely for work and more for of a daily-driver for everyone, Ford had an idea. What if it could make its iconic F-Series more carlike? It could save a ton of money while also making a better fit for suburbia. The result of this was the 1961 F-100 “integrated pickup,” which seamlessly blended cab and box together into one solid structure that people call a “unibody” even if it isn’t really the case. It was a great idea that perhaps came a bit too soon, as owners figured the truck part didn’t work so well.

The idea of a pickup with its box integrated into its cab, or adapting some or all of a unibody construction, isn’t such a novel idea nowadays. Lots of Americans are scooting around the country behind the wheels of Ford Mavericks, Chevy Avalanches, Rivian R1Ts, Honda Ridgelines, and the Hyundai Santa Cruz. Some of those trucks are unibodies while the Rivian uses a sort of hybrid construction. All of them are a step outside of the bed of the typical pickup truck, but they still work for folks who want to do some “truck stuff” but also have a good daily driver.

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Pickups that adapt unibody principles have been around throughout truck history. The Dodge Rampage of the 1980s was a unibody design, as was the Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup of the 1970s. Integrated beds on body-on-frame designs also weren’t anything new. Flip back through enough pages of history and you’ll find such trucks as the Austin A50 Cambridge of the 1950s, the Ford Coupe Utility of the late 1940s, the Nissan Sunny 1400 Bakkie of the 1970s, and so many more. I mean, no list like this is complete without mentioning the Ford Ranchero and the Chevrolet El Camino.

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The 1961 Ford F-100 is sometimes cited as the first full-size unibody pickup, but calling it a unibody is also not correct as it’s basically only half of a unibody if you’re being really charitable, but even that doesn’t really make sense. We’ll get to that in a moment.

A Little History

Much of the lineage of the Ford F-Series is tied to both work and play. Ford notes that after World War II, America experienced a bit of a migration of people from rural lands into suburbia and cityscapes. Many of those Americans took their pickup trucks with them. But these trucks were entering a new sort of life of less hard work and more just daily drivering.

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In response, Ford began the development of a new truck that wasn’t purely for work. The result came in 1948 with the F-Series Bonus Built truck line. These trucks were still utilitarian vehicles, but now Ford focused a little more on creature comforts, including improved radios and heaters. Ford also gave the F-Series a striking style with two-tone paint. In the handful of years after, the trucks gained improved armrests, dome lights, sun visors, and lower cabs.

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Ford

Ford spent the 1950s with its ears on the market, and its research found that there were plenty of people who wanted their trucks to be their daily driver as well. An increasing number of people wanted the comfort and style of a car, but still wanted a bed and a high payload. America got to experience the result of this research in the Ford Ranchero coupe utility, which launched in late 1956 for the 1957 model year.

Ford also began experimenting with how it could further reinvent the pickup truck. In late 1960, Ford launched the Econoline, a forward control van meant to compete with the likes of the Chevrolet Greenbrier and the Volkswagen Bus. Like its competition, the Econoline was available as a pickup truck. But for a twist, the Econoline wasn’t a typical truck, and I’m not just talking about its layout. The first Econolines were unibody thanks to Ford robbing the parts bin of the Falcon.

A month later, Ford would launch its next-generation F-Series and it too would sport what people still call a unibody even though that’s not really the case.

Trying To Capture New Markets

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As PickupTrucks.com, a former subsite of Cars.com, wrote in 2010, Ford decided to do something ahead of its time for full-size pickup trucks. The fourth-generation of the F-Series launched in late 1960. On the lower end of the line, the F-100 and F-250 featured beds that were welded into the back of their cabs, resulting in something like today’s unibody pickups. This meant the cab and the bed were treated as a single unit.

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However, unlike a real unibody vehicle, these F-Series trucks still had separate frames underneath. In a way, Ford basically built its so-called “integrated pickup” trucks like how automakers made sedans back then. It’s hard to find a single word to describe what’s going on here, so most people seem to just say “unibody.” As such, if you Google classic unibody trucks, you’ll run into so many articles about the ’61 F-Series that say it’s a unibody.

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Building a truck like this had some clear advantages. Ford saw itself responding to market demands, where the buyer of the early 1960s wanted vehicles with styling to match the optimism for space and the jet age. Buyers also wanted their trucks to be a bit easier to live with. Ford tried to deliver this and more.

The automaker said that the fourth-generation F-Series had five inches of foam in its seat for greater ride comfort, 23 pounds of sound deadening to reduce road noise, and legroom was ample compared to its predecessors. The old-school style of a wraparound windshield was also gone and in its place was a greenhouse featuring thin pillars and panoramic windows. The truck’s doors opened wide and Ford dealers even installed Polar-Aire air-conditioners. These trucks were getting nearly luxurious for their day.

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1962 Ford F 100 Img 3083 59308 S
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To deliver that sleek and modern look, Ford stamped out the cab so that the rear of the cab formed the front of the bed. The bedsides were then welded to the back of the cab right behind the door sills, creating one long uninterrupted body. There was no gap between the bed and the cab like you’d find in a typical pickup. Instead, the front of the bed was the back of the cab. Look at the truck from the side and look at that, not even a line to be seen between cab and bed.

In addition to style, Ford marketed its integrated pickup line as having 16 percent more cargo area compared to the outgoing 1960 models. All of this was good for Ford’s bottom line, too. The integrated pickup design was easier to paint while requiring fewer stampings and fewer welds than the typical pickup truck design of the day. Reportedly, this would have made the ’61 trucks a bit cheaper to build.

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But Ford didn’t throw all of the F-Series heritage out of the window. Parts like side mirrors, seat belts, and rear bumpers remained optional to keep the price low enough for those who just needed basic trucks for work.

All of this was done in an effort to sell the F-Series to even a wider set of people. Reportedly, Ford saw itself selling these trucks not just to farmers, but also to the suburbanites who wanted more utility than offered by their wagons. Of course, looking at the integrated pickups from that angle is a bit weird since technically, the Ranchero was already capable of filling such a role. Ford also sold wagons, too. So, if Ford was set on getting people out of wagons and into trucks, the company was setting itself up to cannibalize its own sales.

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Ford

Still, Ford was quite proud in its advertising:

Ford’s new and vastly improved 1/2- and 3/4-ton Styleside Pickups have both high-styled beauty and rugged construction. One-piece cab and box provides increased rigidity for longer life, and greater cubic capacity. There’s more loadspace than you’ll find in other conventional pickups. The wheelbases have been increased 4 inches to 114 and 122 inches. This increase combined with improved cab mounts and front shock absorbers gives a ride that9s unexcelled in its field–proven by Impact-O-Graph tests.

And this comfortable ride is not gained at the expense of excessive tire wear as on independent-type suspension systems. Noise and vibration levels are reduced considerably below 1960 industry standards. There’s Certified Economy, too. The 223 Six is the same truck engine that beat all comparable leading makes in the 1960 Economy Showdown U.S.A. Ford’s powerful 292 V-8, the one V-8 engine with “six-like” economy, is optional.

Oh yeah, Ford also spilled a lot of ink in its brochures talking about how these new integrated pickup trucks were more rigid and would last longer than its predecessors. What Ford also didn’t note above was that the 223 Six made 137 HP while the larger 292 V8 was good for 186 HP. Unfortunately, something then went wrong.

Not So Ford Tough

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Ford

The 1961 Ford F-Series and its sister Mercury M-Series had a few quirks.

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If you wanted one of the integrated pickup trucks, you had to order one with a Styleside bed. You were able to get this bed in short or long lengths, but you were not able to order the truck with four-wheel-drive. If you wanted a Flareside stepside box your truck reverted back to the classic configuration of a separate bed and cab. Four-wheel-drive trucks had the option of both Flareside and Styleside beds, but both options had separate beds and cabs. The separated Styleside bed was also of the older 1960 design, which didn’t quite match the truck’s fresh looks. PickupTrucks.com writes that the cause of this oddity was the fact that the integrated pickup design couldn’t handle the twisting forces and abuses that 4×4 trucks go through off-road.

Unfortunately, the “unibody” design also didn’t appear to be strong enough for the application its customer used it for, either.

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Ford

Ford did not list payloads in its advertising, but did say that the standard rear-wheel-drive F-100s, which included both the integrated bed models and separate beds, had a GVWR of 5,000 pounds.

As PickupTrucks.com writes, when owners of the integrated trucks loaded their rigs near the limits, they discovered excessive flex in their trucks’ bodies. If the bed was loaded with enough weight, allegedly, some owners found that their doors were stuck closed from the flexing. There are also unconfirmed stories out there of the flex causing doors to pop open while the truck went down the road.

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Ford

Forums echo these stories of trucks loaded up and flexing too much. Apparently, Ford did know about the potential for flexing. As such, the integrated trucks had spring-type core support mounts in addition to rubber pads to allow the truck’s front end to adequately respond to flexing forces. Ford also added a bracket box in the center of the truck to stiffen the structure.

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Still, apparently that wasn’t enough. Some figure that the problematic flexing noted above was actually caused by overloading the trucks. Either way, Ford reportedly received several complaints about the integrated style.

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As Mac’s Motor City Garage writes, in 1962, Ford issued an alternative for the people who didn’t like their integrated trucks but still wanted a Styleside bed in a 4×2 configuration. To facilitate that, Ford just slapped on the older 1960 Styleside bed found on the 4×4 model and the heavy-duty F-Series trucks. The sort of sad thing about this whole deal was that the older bed just didn’t match up. I mean, check out that upper character line on the truck above.

Ford kept selling the integrated pickup trucks into 1963 but then canceled the line that year after just three model-years. From that point forward, all F-Series trucks stayed true to a separate cab and bed design. Amusingly enough, a variant of the 1960 bed choice (the one shown above) persisted through 1966. Ford fans call these trucks the “Wrongbeds” and while these trucks looked goofy, they still outsold the integrated trucks. PickupTrucks.com notes that by 1963, the cobbled-together 4×2 Styleside trucks were outselling the integrated trucks two-to-one.

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Hindsight vision is perfect, so we know that Ford’s concept was sound. Americans have been able to buy trucks like this in the years since. Remember, the Chevrolet Avalanche and its sister Cadillac Escalade EXT had an integrated body and a frame underneath but didn’t buckle when you loaded it up. The loads of unibody pickups produced since then also prove that an integrated structure alone can work.

Sadly, it’s not exactly known where Ford went wrong, but most sources consider the 1961 to 1963 integrated trucks just a bit too ahead of their time. That being said, these trucks are pretty affordable classics in the modern day with nice unmodified examples going for under $20,000.

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The Ford F-100 and F-250 integrated pickups are a rare miss from the undisputed king of pickups. Ford tried something new and it didn’t work out that well, so it went back to what it did best. Despite that, these trucks are still awesome. There aren’t many other full-size trucks in history that look this sleek and futuristic. Just make sure you don’t pile all of your junk into it at once.

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John Hower
John Hower
1 month ago

I had a ’62 “unibody” in the early ’70s and it wasn’t great at being a truck. I’m sure I overloaded it on more than one occasion and had a heavy camper top on it. I do remember the doors popping open more than once. I got rid of it when it developed a crack behind the cab.

Thomas Johnston
Thomas Johnston
24 days ago

My uncle owned a body shop. He bought a 1962 brand new, used it for hauling parts, trash, firewood, and used furniture to many family members. He did complain about the flex when it was fully (over)loaded, and I remember the passenger door jamming with a heavy load. I’m not sure if Ford offered the heavy-duty floor shift 4 speed with granny gear, but i remember that it was a floor shift and that 1st gear was unsynchronized. Perhaps it was a shift kit or transmission conversion. He restored it in 1990 and offered it to me on the cheap, but I was a broke-ass college student and I passed on it. Looking back, I should have sold my coin collection, baseball cards, comic books, Star Wars stuff and my plasma.

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