i just picked a merc m350 and had delivered to states when it arrived i realized she has a dump body 1 ton anyone know if this is rare

 

Welcome to FTE. Many of us think of a Mercury truck as being rare. Being a one ton adds to that. I have no idea how rare they are, but certainly not what you see every day. Did you pick yours up in Pembina? SRW? I've been watching a few of these being sold on ebay and wondering how many the seller has. Can you tell us more about what you have and what your plans are?

Grant

 

The truck was sold new as a Cab & Chassis (no "back of cab equipment"). The dump body was then installed by an aftermarket body maker because Ford didn't offer it.

 

Being from Saskatchewan, Mercury trucks are not as rare. The Ford of Canada archives states 3 Merc Trucks were sold for every 5 Fords in Canada during the early 1950's. In the 1950's there were a lot of 1 ton trucks sold to farms for hauling grain. A lot were modified by installing a hoist under the box to make it easy to unload grain. Your truck may have a hole cut in the tailgate for a "grain chute" to unload. The truck would have had wooden box extensions to increase the number of bushels of wheat it could haul. Enjoy your truck.

 

My f350 has a 9' express box with a hoist under it. It looks like the box from the factory was removed, hoist installed on top of the frame, box set on the hoist rails and bolted down. The back end of the running boards are not attached to the back fenders. For restoring, I was fortunate that no one cut a hole in the tailgate for unloading grain.

Grant

 

I think Bill is assuming the truck is a flatbed dump or a Masons dump. Even if it is a Ford script bed, or in this case a Merc script bed.... if there is such a bed, the hoist was added after it came from the factory like your express bed dump.

 

Abe,
I agree. It would not have come from the factory with a hoist, but maybe more than a cab & chassis. It would have been quite easy to add a hoist to either the express or flat bed. Probably a good marketing tool for the dealers to show how these great trucks could be used in a variety of ways. The dealer might have made more money adding the hoist than they did in selling the truck. Who knows? I made good use of the hoist over the years when it was being used for work and the previous two owners did too.
Grant

 

All trucks began life as a Cab & Chassis. Ford factory installed pickup beds, and Flat and Stake beds.

The factory Stake & Flat beds on the rear panel have the Ford script 1948/56, (edit) 1957 and later have FORD block letters.

Any other type of "back of cab equipment" was aftermarket.

 

I always thought the 57 and up had the block letters ......... I will look at my brochures

 

You're right, I edited my post...And I knew that, but why I typed what I did...I dunno.