The Ford Model AA was the First F-450
Unlike modern trucks, older Ford’s from the 20s-30s came in all shapes, sizes, and iterations to suit a thousand different jobs, but only came under one nameplate. The Ford Model AA. Today’s work trucks span nameplates, and often don’t come in the selection of choices they once did.
Old school Model AAs were only sold for four years, and ranged from school and passenger buses, to ambulances, mail trucks, meat and dairy trucks, crane and cradle tow vehicles, grain storage, dump trucks, garbage trucks, firetrucks, and trucks meant to transport coal, along with a host of other iterations too numerous to recall.
What’s particularly interesting, an oddity that would never fly today is the engine that powered these Model AAs. Again, unlike today’s modern work trucks, the Model AA only came with one engine option, and that was the same four-cylinder flathead motor that was also found in Ford’s Model A. It packed a whopping 40 horsepower out of the 200.5 cubic inch motor. However, Ford outfitted the larger Model AAs with beefier differentials and high gear ratios allowing them to lumber along through traffic with ease.
The Model AA isn’t as well know as the Model A or the Model T, but it’s the great-great-grandfather to the F-150 along with the entire F lineup and deserves its recognition in the history books.
Photos via Hemmings Daily