When I growing up, I think I had a pretty vivid imagination. Really, I think I still do, as the way I view world doesn’t seem that different than when I was a kid, which I’m not so sure says many favorable things about me. One thing I remember in particular is how my world was filled with monsters. Helpful monsters, sure, but nevertheless still monsters, heavy-breathing, growling, often hot and smelly monsters, and they were constantly prowling around the roads, dragging huge loads of beer or grain or potato chips or collecting garbage from our streets or rushing, while screaming, to put out fires. These monsters were, of course, trucks, large, cabover, medium-duty trucks, in particular one type that had such an evocative and monster-like face. That face was such a part of the background of my life for many, many years, decades really, and has only just recently managed to start to fade into obscurity. I wonder if you can figure out what truck I’m talking about based on the monster it reminds me of?
In America at least, these trucks were positively ubiquitous. They were produced from 1957 all the way until 1990, a staggeringly long run, and I do not believe they received a single signifiant styling update in all that time. They always looked like a monster.
Here, let me show you what sort of monster I always thought they looked like:
That’s what these trucks always feel like to me: a powerful, shaggy beast, perhaps something like a cross between a lion and a buffalo, but much, much bigger, with wide-set eyes and a huge forehead and always wearing a sort of grimacing expression. It has the same expression as this emoji:
It always looks like it’s working hard, and while it’ll definitely do whatever it is you need, it’s not necessarily happy about it. Are you picturing the truck I’m thinking of yet? I bet at least some of you are. It’s this:
That’s a Ford C-Series Cabover truck, the first cab-over-engine truck with a tilting cab ever made by Ford. These things were used for pretty much every conceivable medium-duty truck use, from garbage trucks to tankers to food trucks to moving trucks to fire engines – there was no job these wouldn’t take.
These were powered by everything from Ford’s 300 cubic inch straight-six bulletproof engine to multiple V8s to Cummins and Caterpillar and Detroit diesels.
I feel like I’ve spent a significant portion of my life staring at the pleasingly monstery face of these trucks, through rain-spattered schoolbus windows or in the background of almost every TV show I watched on a big CRT, or lumbering past me as I sweated up a hill on my bike.
These were the unsung muscle of America for decades and decades, and they never stopped looking like they were sick of everything.
Oh! Here’s a strange whimsical thing they had, too: at some point, I think around the 1980s, the turn indicators were moved from those little round units set into the sides of the grille-mouth, and replaced with tacked-on round or square units that stuck out, like ears, from the sides of the cab. The old turn signal housings were filled with what could be the very last example of the sparkle motif in industrial design, as you can see here:
That’s a brochure from 1985. That kind of starburst/sparkle/star/whatever was a mainstay of 1960s design; seeing it on a machine made in the 1980s is incredible. And then the fact that they still looked like this in 1990 is just even more incredible.
The C-series is still around, if you look, but time is finally taking a toll, and they’re dying off, slowly. I think I saw a firetruck version recently, which seems to be the last reliable holdout for the old monsters. I miss them, and all of their cranky, grimace-y charm.
It was strangely comforting, growing up surrounded by monsters.
I might be strange, but I’ve never seen these as monsters or angry looking… To me they absolutely have a “face”, but it’s always been a friendly and cute one to me! 🙂
Buy for your very own: One of these is for sale right now in my neck-o-the-woods; 1959 Cab over $2500, here is a link:
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2386588408214661/?ref=search&referral_code=null&referral_story_type=post&tracking=browse_serp%3A912f40f4-6415-4675-9fa3-5f3afcf65019
Torch, are you aware of this book. I still think about it regularly. It was my favorite book at a wee child…
https://joemathieu.com/work/childrens-books/books-by-joe-mathieu/big-joes-trailer-truck/
Holy cow, this guy is from my state! Sounds like a nice drive for my wife and I!
That’s pretty cool! My childhood mechanical book was Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mulligan_and_His_Steam_Shovel
Still love steam machinery.
THAT ONE TOOOOO!!!! OMG me too! The other book I actually remember from my childhood. I still have both somewhere in a box.
I’ve read both of those to my son! My Mom kept copies of all the books I loved as a kid (honestly, still love…) and gave them to me when he was born. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go was at the top of the list.
A classic that I loved as a child and love as an adult
Wow, with a neat cross section diagram too!
Yeah, I can stare at that for hours. (or, I used to)
Good gravy, I remember this book! I have distinct memories of sitting on the floor and looking at the illustrations.
I’m super late to this but a stone cold classic in my childhood was How Many Trucks Can a Tow Truck Tow?
https://www.amazon.com/How-Many-Trucks-Truck-Pictureback/dp/0679878106
Here’s another one, a favorite of my son’s: The Happy Man and His Dump Truck, A Little Golden Book, by Miryam and Tibor Gergely (illustrator).
I will be coming back to this comment section when it’s grandkid time, hopefully no less than 10 years away.
I imagine that your childhood was very much like Bobby Generic’s. That was one of my favorite cartoons as an adult.
I thought you may have been talking about an International RDC-405 or similar. I used to walk past one on my way home from primary school when I was quite young and to a 7 or 8 year old me this truck looked scary, maybe monster like. https://tractors.fandom.com/wiki/International_DC-405
Yep, that’s a Ford Cabover firetruck off of Martha’s Chapel rd near Jordan Lake
Another long-running commercial model would be Ford’s “Louisville” line, which had a 28-year run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_L_series. And, for something more contemporary, albeit smaller, but still in production, decades later, it would be Chevy’s Express van. It’s in its 26th year, so it still has a few more years to catch up with both the C- and L-series Fords.
A very popular truck- The utilities liked them for bucket trucks because the cab was so roomy and Roadway said they had the lowest maintainence cost of any truck in their fleet. When their discontinuance was announced these loyal customers ordered so many that production continued much longer than expected, Towards the end of production the tooling was so worn out that a lot of hand work was required to make the body acceptable. Pretty much learned to drive truck in the C model and still miss them!
Yes I remember seeing the Roadway trucks back in the day….
I could not guess the truck, although I certainly saw the resemblance once I saw the photo. Very creative!
I am a bit concerned that you may be repressing something a tad, um… traumatic that occurred in your childhood. Can you show us on the Tonka where the bad truck touched you?
In 1977, I was 10 years old and my spinster aunt took me to see the movie Sorcerer with Roy Schieder, because I loved cars. To be fair she also took me to see gumball rally when I was 9. Whatever, I loved her. But the trucks from Sorcerer felt like monsters for many years.
There were at least three in every episode of ‘CHiPs’
Usually on fire at some point in the show. Sometimes airborne.
1958 Jeep FC-170
I had a customer with one of these. It was a gulf Oil truck, at this point in time the cab is more plastic than metal.
What’s interesting to me is that “Super Duty” is a nomenclature that’s been around a long time – as has the side window notch.
Of course, back then, nobody drove their SuperDuty to take the kids to soccer practice…
I love that notch in ways and for reasons I can’t explain. I am so pleased it made it to the f-150s, including mine
Remove the back and it reminds me of those little hard rubber 2-legged creatures with funny facial expressions and questionable internal biology that came with Rocks and Bugs and Things for the rocks and bugs and things to eat. The toys were an interesting, if weird, idea that were not terribly interesting to play with, but I always liked the little creatures that came with them.
I didn’t know what it was called, but I knew the truck right away!
Same! “Cabover Ford…Something”
The picture you drew reminded me of this ad campaign. It’s a remarkable likeness, really:
ESUVEE – Road Safety Campaign Advert (youtube.com)
Oh wow; I’d not seen that! It is like it!
No styling updates??? My poor sweet summer child, Ford blasted quad headlights on there in the late 50’s when quads were the fresh new hotness. Then took them away pretty promptly.
I always remember these things because in grade school I saw a lot of them and was struck by how notably ugly and old they looked to me. I still saw a lot of them in high school, but assured myself that they must be dying a slow death. Then in college, I saw my campus using them as garbage trucks and I was aghast to find that they were still making them! 20 years after that, the industrial facility where I worked was still using one on a daily basis as a dumpster-loading garbage truck.
I’m sure they’re great trucks but they’ve always been like a low-grade virus that won’t go away to me.
You still see them as farm trucks around here, and I know of at least one read-mix concrete company that’s running a few. Those trucks just won’t die
A bit of trivia, that cab was designed and made by Budd and was the basis of the very similar looking Chevy and GMC cabovers and was also used by Mack fo some applications, mostly fire engines.
Still a few on farms around here, but none get heavy road use. Too small for current crop yelds.
Yeah, we had a few when I worked in farm country. They were vastly outnumbered by the GM and International trucks though. All of them were hold overs from a different time, smaller farms still squeaked by with them though. Scariest thing was those farmer maintained c60s blasting down the grade WAY overloaded, usually with a 15 year old behind the wheel. We’d have at least one turn over every year
The sugar beet harvest used to bring out anything that could roll into town overweight and still lift the box until the truck cops (and the co-op) started to go hard on inspections and spot checks.
Mostly dairy farms around me and the Class 6 or 7 stakebed/grain body farm truck is a dying breed, replaced not by anything larger but by a 350(0) pickup pulling various trailers.
My fireman grandfather (this was back in the days before they were called firefighters) always said he liked his station’s C series pumper best because his first grandson (me) and the new Ford apparatus arrived in the same week in 1957. As he used to put it to me, “One outta two ain’t bad.” He really liked that truck.
Man, grandparents.
After my brother’s suicide, my grandmother told me “it should have been you.”
Jesus, man.
I know it doesn’t help, but I, at least, am glad you’re still here
Ouch, that is rough. Family can be a blessing and a curse.
JFC! Shit! Some people are just not right my friend.
So damn sorry about your brother. And for your Grandma being able to say something so terrible.
I enjoy your comments here, and am thankful you are with us man. Take care.
Thanks, everybody. In truth, I share that story off-handedly because it was so awful, so far beyond the pale, that it comes back around to parody again. It’s just such a stupidly, hilariously intense little pill of poison all I can do is laugh.
I’ve always been a fan of these and the GMC/Chevrolet competitor, the even harder to find Tilt Cab series. They ended production on those much longer ago, so outside of random reruns of CHiPs or The Rockford Files, you just don’t see them anymore.
There’s a guy north of Toronto that’s slammed one and put a pickup bed on it (the cab being from a local fire department is pretty cool), which custom heavy trucks is always going to be neat. Sort of looks like a monster trying to creep along though.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CplmXrnOhrh/