The Evolution of the Pickup Truck

Some say Gottlieb Daimler's 1896 "vehicle no. 42," which looked like a horse-drawn wagon without the horses, was the first truck. Daimler claimed its four-horsepower, 1.1-liter, two-cylinder engine would haul a payload of 3,300 pounds. Imagine using a riding lawnmower to tow a trailer loaded with nine 55-gallon drums. The weakest riding mower on market today is about twice as powerful as old no. 42. Either Daimler was prone to grossly exaggerating payload potential or old-time horsepower was a lot more robust than today. Daimler later offered a 10-horsepower truck that boasted a dizzying top speed of 7.5 mph.

Uphill Battle
With performance like this, vehicle manufacturers had an uphill battle attempting to convince small businessmen, farmers, and ranchers that a pickup truck was a better choice than a conventional team of draft horses and a wagon. Take a look at the first trucks and you'll understand why many stuck with trusty, potent Belgians or Clydesdales over puny, petulant internal combustion engines.


A few small factory-built models, including the King, Reo and AutoCar, entered the market in the early 1900s. By 1907, International Harvester began offering the 20-horsepower Auto Wagon, which featured a frame and body made of wood. It was wider than most vehicles of the period in order to better fit the existing wagon-wheel ruts in the routes traveled by its targeted backcountry and southern buyers. Today's typical average off-road trail is in better condition than the "highways" of '07. For rural America, this was true into the '30s.


Soon after the introduction of the mass-produced automobile, people began modifying cars to increase utility. They stripped off rear bodywork and grafted on open-topped boxes. Was this the true birth of the pickup truck?


Vehicle makers were slow to fully grasp the potential of this genre. In 1917, Ford offered a Model T that could be made into a pickup: It was simply a regular Model T with a bare chassis aft of the cab. The buyer had to add his own bed, often by contracting with a coachbuilder or carpenter. Today, we might call it a dealer-installed option.