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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
The 1961 Ford F-Series and its sister Mercury M-Series had a few quirks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A failure then but quite sought after now. I just acquired a 61 short bed in red and white like the first image. Not quite so nice though.
Until just now, I always thought these actually had uni-bodies
The new pickup bed was phased in by 1964 although you still seen the wrong bed on the 4×4 pickups.
This isn’t unibody or “sort of” unibody. It’s just a full-frame vehicle without a separate bed.
Here’s a brochure from the Heritage Vault
And the reason is DEFINITELY cost. Building it like a contemporary car of the times would reduce assembly steps, parts count, and bill of materials. For example: with the integrated body, there’s a single bodyside stamping (apparently) and the same stamping that forms the rear wall of the cab serves as the front of the bed.
That’s less metal, fewer forming and trimming and welding steps, fewer assembly steps, and on and on. It adds up.
I believe the flexing issue, for sure.
Names and terminology often have subconscious influence over how we react to something. Based on this possibility I’d like to offer a different (additional might be more correct) reason for the failure of these trucks. This was the early 60s and the word “integration” was “fightin’ words” in what was predominantly pickup land. Lot of people who might otherwise have been buyers wouldn’t be caught dead riding around in a so-called “integrated” pickup truck due to a negative predisposition to the word. If you think that sounds silly, just consider the fools who boycotted or destroyed Bud Light because the brewer dared to have social media celebrity campaign featuring a prominent transgender actress and influencer.
“Sadly, it’s not exactly known where Ford went wrong”
It’s pretty clear to me:
The payload rating was too high for the body – the chassis & body had too much flex for the payload rating.
Lower payload rating coupled with a stiffer chassis and body would have solved this.
The conversion of a pickup to something with a singular body also caused issues with the first gen K5 blazer. My buddy had a 71 back in high school, and if he parked on uneven surfaces with the top off, the doors would be really hard to open.
Anyone who has watched a conventional pickup traverse a proving ground twist course will understand. There’s a LOT of movement between the cab and bed.
I suspect the torsional load was the downfall. A traditional truck frame is narrow where contemporary car body frames flared out wider to allow a lower floor.
The El Camino was BOF, not unibody. Aside from a couple oddball years in the 70’s, so was the Ranchero. Maybe you were referring to not having a seam between the cab and bed when saying “Pickups that adapt unibody principles”? But having continuous body panels does not make a car a unibody. Check out the Panther platform as another example.
I’m excited to learn something new and did learn from this article, but it wouldn’t have lost anything (except arguable errors) if you left that paragraph out.
[Edit: This whole article … ugh. I’m so interested, but the awkward sentences and conflated terminology make it hard to follow.]
If you read that section again, you’ll notice this:
I can’t edit again, but thank you! That phrasing makes a lot more sense to me.
I did go ahead and add “on body-on-frame designs” to that for further clarification.
I also noticed an editor accidentally forgot to delete my test headline from the top, which might have been an additional source of confusion. Got rid of that, too!
Exactly, this is still BOF, just with an integrated station wagon style body. I suspect they underestimated the torsional flex, as with a traditional pickup the effects are minimized. I do love the look though.
The Falcon and Fairlane based Rancheros were unibody, no?
Probably telling on how well vehicles of that era survived a crash.
The vehicles back then often survived a crash better than the occupants I tell ya hwat.
An old tow truck guy told me many years ago “in my day we’d take the people to the morgue and the cars to the body shop, now they take the people to the hospital and the cars to the junkyard”.
It was easy to tell what cars were tough: the ones that did well participating in a Demolition Derby.
The crumple zone starts at the bumper and ends in the other guys vehicle.
The late ’50s GM products with the X-Frame were not among them
“…most sources consider the 1961 to 1963 integrated trucks just a bit too ahead of their time.”
Or the styling and marketing departments were ahead of the engineering department.
Amazing how Ford got caught with their pants down. It’s mind boggling to think that nobody bothered to test what would happen with a full payload. Or maybe they did but someone sent it anyhow.
The same guy signed off as “Good enough for government work” as the one who signed off on using a 1960 bed on trucks from 1962-1966.
I recall being told in the 1980s by several people, pretty much whenever one of these was spotted, that they should be avoided at all costs because they would inevitably crack where the bed joined the cab. Did I ever see one that had cracked? No. Had anyone else actually seen one? I got the impression the answer was also no. Still, “everyone” knew this was a fatally flawed design for this reason.
We had one come into the shop I worked at back in the mid 80’s. Of course the old boss quickly explained how they were a failure cracked ect. Yet the truck in front of us lacked any cracks and the general condition of the truck said it had been well used. Of course after 20+ years those that did crack had already been scrapped, and those that had survived were starting to be appreciated and preserved.
GM seemed to figure it out 9 years later with the Blazer and Jimmy. They were shorter in length and wheelbase, but the roofs were removable and thus not structurally significant, so whatever reinforcing they did in the body to prevent buckling worked.
Of course, those weren’t used for hauling as much as a dedicated pickup, so maybe they weren’t purported to have flex problems because they weren’t put to the limit as often. Nevertheless, Dodge (and Plymouth!) followed suit and eventually the Bronco did as well. Also, the Scout II and the 4Runner.
Ehhh, I wouldn’t say they totally figured it out. My buddy had a ’71 in High school, and the doors would be really tough to open if he parked on an uneven surface.
The 69-75 Blazers, with the full removable tops, had a rocker box that extended from the firewall to where the floor stepped at the the back seat. Basically a double floor pan with about a 3 inch gap in between them. This helped with the flex, but it they were still not very rigid. It was also good at retaining water and rusting out (who could have foreseen that?) In 76 thru 91 they went to the partially removable top and a steel cab, and no more rocker boxes. Those were much, much better for flex.
International did what they could, but any truck is gonna flex. I definitely notice a difference with the hardtop off vs. the hardtop on; the doors sometimes take a little more convincing to close properly. Then again, it’s a 40-year-old truck.
When my first Scout got stripped down for a replacement fiberglass tub, they lifted the body off the frame with a crane with two straps front and rear. it folded at the B-pillars like a taco due to the cancer in the rockers.
Fine for a few bales of hay, a sofa, or an engine on blocks. Not so fine for filling up the bed with gravel, dirt, or rip-rap.
My dad had one of those! When I bought my ’63 (wrong bed), he immediately told me how his was so tight, he couldn’t open the doors unless he rolled the window down. Or maybe it was he couldn’t roll the window down unless the door was open. I dunno. He’s got a lot of stories.
Sounds like a Dad.