In 1948, the Ford Motor Company restyled its pickup line and identified I each model with an F designation, from F-1 for their half-ton to F-8 for their three-ton. The fresh design of the F-Series quickly won the hearts of thousands of pickup buyers and, with only minor tweaks and updates, the basic design remained through the 1956 model year. That classic era of Ford pickups is captured in this color history devoting one chapter to each year in the F-Series first nine years. Featured are interviews with retired Ford designers and engineers, period advertisements, technical details, and sidebars highlighting little-known and interesting facts about this revolutionary era in pickup design. Modern color photography of restored pickups and archival black-and-white photos are accompanied by engineers' original drawings and artists' renderings.

Learn all there is to know about the most popular vehicles in history. Ford's F-series pickups are simply the most popular vehicles ever. The F150 set a modern-day single-month sales record for the industry with 126,905 trucks sold in July 2005, the most sales of any single nameplate in any month since the days of the Ford Model T. The F-series has been the best-selling vehicle in the world for most of the past forty years, and to date Ford has produced nearly fifty million models. The Complete Book of Classic Ford F-Series Pickups covers all the classic models in Ford's popular line of light-duty trucks, from the first F-1 pickup of 1948 through 1976.

Now revised and updated, this book tells the story of how the automobile transformed American life and how automotive design and technology have changed over time. It details cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the wealthy; racing and the promotion of the industry; Henry Ford and the advent of mass production; market competition during the 1920s; the development of roads and accompanying highway culture; the effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the automotive Golden Age of the 1950s; oil crises and the turbulent 1970s; the decline and then resurgence of the Big Three; and how American car culture has been represented in film, music and literature. Updated notes and a select bibliography serve as valuable resources to those interested in automotive history.

This book examines all aspects of the history of one of Ford Motor Company’s greatest successes, its F-series pickups. Complementing a detailed text examining annual model changes, options, specifications and the unique appeal of Ford’s limited-edition and high-performance pickups are hundreds of illustrations, nearly all in colour.

Learn about the entire history of America’s best-selling vehicle: the Ford F-Series truck. When Henry Ford first started manufacturing Model Ts more than 100 years ago, he didn’t really have any sort of pickup or truck configuration in mind. However, enterprising people and businesses were modifying those early chassis for commercial use, and it didn’t take long for Ford to figure out that there was a demand for a truck application of the Model T. Soon, Ford was making its own configurations for commercial use, first through third-party body companies and eventually by Ford itself with the Model TT. From these humble beginnings, Ford stumbled onto the basis for one of the most popular vehicles ever built: the Ford F-Series pickup truck. In Ford F-Series Trucks: 1948–Present, authors Jimmy Dinsmore and James Halderman thoroughly dissect the history of Ford F-Series pickup trucks as seen from a technical viewpoint. Fully covered are all the options, chassis specifications, running changes, and the evolution of these trucks, as they transformed from postwar utilitarian vehicles to the best-selling luxury family cruisers seen today. Not only are Ford trucks the best-selling trucks, they are the best-selling vehicle of any category, cars included. This book will thrill truck aficionados and Ford historians alike, as it covers the first F-Series models (1948–1952), the ever-popular second-generation F-Series models (1953–1956), the popular Bumpsides (1967–1972), and all the way through the remarkable technology of what is now the 14th generation of the F-Series.