Found a couple of old photos of home made 59 crew cabs

The first is from the Nov 1959 Ford times


http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/a...b/CIMG1254.jpg

The second is from the Aug 1960 Ford times

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/a...b/CIMG1256.jpg

 

That first one is way cool, looks like he used a side window from a 40s coupe. The second one looks more like the standard conversion like a couple members here have.

 

These are awesome trucks I have a 58 crew cab f250 that is a armbruster conversion.

 

All Crew Cab's were conversions thru mid-year 1965, when FoMoCo first introduced their own version. Both of these are probably not home made, as they look "too good."

FoMoCo back then would do almost anything to accomodate customers, this is just one example of many.

Both were most likely sent out by FoMoCo after they left the assembly line to Armbruster, Crown Coach, Hess & Eisenhardt, Marmon-Herrington, Sayers & Scoville etc outside body makers to be converted.

The Standard Catalog of Light Duty Ford Trucks / krause.com / ISBN: 0-87349-411-3 / Page 86: Marmon-Herrington conversion of a 1950 F1 panel truck to a "Suburban" type, has side window installed.

Marmon Herrington called this: Ranger. First use of this name on a FoMoCo vehicle.

 

Here's one from James Wagner's book 'Ford Trucks Since 1905'. I bet it was built by one of the companies that Bill mentioned. There are 30 pages of fridge truck photos and a large amount of text concerning them in this excellent book. If you don't own it, put it on your wife's christmas list.

 

According to the Nov 1959 Ford Times

"The unusual pickup shown opposite was built in the E.J. Graf Ford dealership in Winters California,from a 1959 Ford F100 Styleside Pickup of 118-inch wheelbase.The stock cab was cut out just behind the doors and spliced with 26 1/2 inches of sheet metal. The Styleside box was cut off by that amount.
The rear windows came from a wrecked '49 Ford business coupe and the original pickup seat was moved to the rear for a back seat. A split back front seat froma wrecked 57 Ford Club Victoria was installed for the front seat.
This pickup,which will be used for hunting as well as business,has four-wheel drive that will take it through the roughest terrain.
The job required two hundred hours of labor and $250 for Parts and material."
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/a...b/CIMG1255.jpg

 

1976: The owner of Graf Ford died, his daughter took over the operation without informing FoMoCo. 1977: FoMoCo found out, cancelled the dealerships franchise, awarded it to the local Chrysler/Plymouth dealer.

June 1977: I stopped by Sac-Cal Motorcraft Distributors on the way to Harrah's swap meet to buy B6Q 4V Holley 'teapot' carbs. Owner knew I bought/sold NOS Ford parts, told me what had happened at Graf Ford, but I was unable to go there until after Harrah's swap meet ended. If I had only known beforehand what was there.

When I did get there, daughter had just removed the large mid-1930's Ford script neon/porcelain signs, beat on them with a hammer, then stuck them into a dumpster. Unbelievable, what the hell was she thinking?

In the "one car" showroom were parts bins with 100's of WWII surplus 1941/48 flatty distributors. Upstairs was a 1957 T-Bird white padded dash that had been there since August 1956!

Graf had every parts catalog, every shop manual since Model T days, well over 200.

There were so many obsolete parts that my 1976 Econoline couldn't possible carry them all, so I called Preston Ledbetter, owner of F100 Parts Unlimited in San Jose (ex Ford partsguy and a pal of mine), told him to bring his flatbed PDQ!

Preston and I bought all the obsolete parts/catalogs/manuals for 200 bucks (her price, we didn't argue!). After loading all the stuff in our two vehicles, I told her I would have paid 5 grand cash for the two neon/porcelain signs she ruined.