What's the payload like on one of those, lol.

 

They were half-ton pickups just like todays F-150
Back when the term half ton pickup truely meant half ton.

The problem was they kept calling them half ton pickups today, when the payloads have increased which confuses some people..

 

Those old trucks were work horses,too. Even the old 6 cyl Chevys. They had wooden slats in the bed thru 1956. Looked something like this, tho I have this one "gussied up" a bit.

 

I thought the Mercury line was a little better build quality than Ford.
For example Ford Taurus vs Mercuty Sable, same vehicle but Mercury had more sound deadening material and the trim was slightly higher end.

I thought this was the same with Chevy and GMC (GMC was slightly betterbuilt)

Is it still like this today?

 

Did you read the earlier posts? The GMC and Chevy are the same today. Originally, the GMC had a larger frame, bigger brakes, suspension.

The Mercury truck is just the Ford truck sold in Canada. It has slightly different trim on it.

 

1946 thru 1968...

http://www.mercurypickup.com/

 

Ok history buffs, what about the Fargo pickup?

Always wanted a Merc pickup, never could afford one. Did have a 40 club convertable though. That was a LONG time ago!

Flagship

 

I don't recall ever actually seeing a Fargo, but it was my understanding that it was the same as a Dodge, or at least basically the same, and sold in Canada.

 

Yes! It was to Dodge as Mercury was to Ford. Actually, the Fords weren't Fords, they were Meteors!

I remember in the 50's, they put a Plymouth front end on Dodge cars. I had a 60 Dodge that had a Plymouth interior because it was Canadian.

GM had some of the same, I remember a 58 Pontiac that was only a Pontiac body on a Chevy frame/drive train. 6 cylinder/Powerglide tranny and all!

I can understand the marketing thing with the Mercury and Fargo trucks, but not the meddling with the sheet metal and drive train. Oh well, they didn't ask me when they did it! Makes for some interesting conversations though. Hadn't thought of all this in years!

Flagship

 

Just doing our job, making the light bulbs pop on.

 

Some of those bulbs may be antiques! Mine started out as 100w and are now about 40w.

 

Adrianspeeder

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plodge

I remember when the Canadian Valiant was a mix of Plymouth Valiant and Dodge Dart - we use to call it a Vart.

 

This subject falls into one of my two hobbies.
American vehicles sold outside of the US and wheeled military vehicles from 1935-1945 outside the US which includes an amazing amount of US sourced vehicles.

General Motors:

Oldsmobile trucks were sold in Europe and Australia before WWII
They were essentially GMC trucks with the smaller Chev engines.

Pontiac cars were sold in several countries both before and after WWII with Chev engines. In Australia, the did a Ute, which they still do, on the Pontiac chassis from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. Nice looking vehicle.

Prior to Chevrolet introducing COE vehicles here, they were sold in Europe before WWII as "Bulldog" Chevs.

Ford:

As posted here, the Ford truck line in Canada only was marketed as a Mercury after the war.

Almost every country in Europe had their own versions of Ford passenger and commercial vehicles in production prior to WWII and into the 1950s that were close to but not quite the same as the contemporary US vehicles.

I particularly like the French MatFord and the British Ford versions that used the basic Ford engines and chassis but with bodies specific to their needs.

Chrysler:

Fargo was their main commercial vehicle export brand and they were also sold from the 1930s well into the 1950s all over the world.

They also badged some commercial vehicles with the DeSoto nameplate, in Turkey for example.

Other:

From the mid 1950s to the late 1970s in most cases, American manufacturers of every stripe shipped old tooling and dies to South America and Australia and such makes as Kaiser, ******, AMC and the Big Three were produced sometimes for many years after their production runs in the US essentially in the same form for several years.

As a BTW, I have two 1956 American F-100 pickups in my driveway for sale if anyone is interested.

Raoul: Regarding my PM, I am going to try to stick to non-political subjects.

Bill