Long a staple of the street rodding scene, the Effies remain simple to restore or customize
Can a pickup truck be beautiful?
Attractive, sure. Stylish, yes. Handsome, absolutely. But is “beautiful” the right word for a pickup, especially one designed and launched in an era when light-duty trucks were still largely sold to farmers, ranchers, and handymen, and generally not seen as acceptable in suburban driveways past five o’clock?
Maybe not when the first Ford F-100s were new or when they were just used trucks plying rural backroads, but in the 70 years since their introduction, the F-100s have gone from workhorses to showponies, earning all sorts of descriptors in the process, including “beautiful.” They’ve also inspired a loyal following, making them one of the simplest and most accessible generations of Ford truck for budding collectors to get into, regardless of what one decides to call it
What Makes F-100s Desirable?
That loyalty and enthusiasm for the first generation of the F-100 goes back decades, as Dave Emanuel wrote in the April 1984 issue of Special Interest Autos. “No other truck, and damn few cars have ever inspired the almost maniacal fervor found in F-100 aficionados,” Emanuel wrote. “In fact, Ford’s early Fifties pickup is every bit as much of a ‘cult’ vehicle as the Chevrolet Corvette or VW Beetle.”
Part of that could be due to the F-100’s simplicity. It had classic and unadorned lines, was fitted with as few gadgets as possible, and sat on a chassis little more complex than a haywagon yet as rugged and durable as grandfather’s ax.
Part of that could also be due to the $30 million worth of research, development, and engineering that Ford claimed to have put into the trucks with the express purpose of making them more driver-centric. Ford’s engineers and designers even went so far as to create a positionable dummy, the “Measuring Man,” meant to emulate the dimensions of a typical American man, and sized the cab and its fixtures around the dummy. For the time, it was indeed a “revolutionary new approach” to truck design, as Ford claimed in its own sales literature for the trucks, intended to “make the driver’s job simpler and less tiring and to permit him to get this job done faster.”
Ford’s ad men even dubbed the trucks “Triple Economy,” referring to their greater load-hauling capacities, their economical drivetrains, and a number of “Driverized” cab upgrades that “reduce fatigue, conserve energy, help keep the driver fresh and alert for better, safer driving.”
Indeed, while the side and front profiles of the new-for-1953 pickups weren’t radically different from the previous Bonus Built F-1 pickups, the number of changes that Ford made to the trucks – everything from larger windshields to wider seats to a four-inch-shorter wheelbase – led to an entirely new nomenclature system, with half-ton pickups now designated F-100. (Medium- and light-duty trucks adopted similar nomenclature from F-250 up to F-900.)
Or, as Emanuel and numerous other authors have noted, the popularity of the 1953 to 1956 F-100s could come from how easy they are to modify. “Here was a truck that had barely launched its hauling career when it became a favorite of the street rod set,” Tom Brownell wrote in his “Ford Pickup Color History.”
Whatever the case may be, the F-100 has become a mainstay on the collector car market and remains as popular as ever with enthusiasts looking for an old truck to tool around in.
Ford brochure image
1953 Ford F-100
Can a pickup truck be beautiful?
Attractive, sure. Stylish, yes. Handsome, absolutely. But is “beautiful” the right word for a pickup, especially one designed and launched in an era when light-duty trucks were still largely sold to farmers, ranchers, and handymen, and generally not seen as acceptable in suburban driveways past five o’clock?
Maybe not when the first Ford F-100s were new or when they were just used trucks plying rural backroads, but in the 70 years since their introduction, the F-100s have gone from workhorses to showponies, earning all sorts of descriptors in the process, including “beautiful.” They’ve also inspired a loyal following, making them one of the simplest and most accessible generations of Ford truck for budding collectors to get into, regardless of what one decides to call it.
How to Identify an F-100
While the F-100 came in a number of different configurations during the mid-Fifties, including chassis and cowl, chassis and cab, and even stake truck, collectors tend to gravitate toward the pickup and the panel truck, which we will focus on here.
The 1953 through 1955 trucks can all be distinguished mainly by their grilles. From a double horizontal bar between the headlamps in 1953, the grille switched to a single bar with two vertical supports in 1954, then back to a double bar with a large V notched in the middle in 1955. The 1956 double-bar grille differed slightly from its predecessors, largely in its use of frenched headlamps.
For 1956, Ford’s stylists also decided to update the F-100’s cab with a more upright wraparound windshield. That required extensive modification to the cowl, the vent windows, and the doors as well as a longer roof.
While F-250 and F-350 pickups could be had with an 8-foot bed starting in 1953, the half-ton F-100 made do with just a 6-1/2-foot bed until 1956, when Ford offered an 8-foot bed as an option.
Each year saw minor changes in what little trim the trucks came with. To distinguish Deluxe or Custom cabs from base trim levels, look for small chrome “teeth” on the grille in 1953, “sergeant’s stripes” hashes on the grille in 1954, a slotted upper grille bar in 1955, and a chrome-plated grille in 1956. Similarly, to distinguish trucks powered by the V-8 from the straight-six, look for a V-8 emblem for the former or a three-pointed (later four-pointed) star for the latter.
The VIN, located on the glove box door from 1953 to 1955 and on the driver’s door frame post in 1956, will not only identify the truck’s model year and tonnage rating, it will also identify which engine the truck originally came with. The first three digits correspond to the truck’s series, so look for an F10 for an F-100, F25 for an F-250, or F35 for an F-350. The fourth digit is the engine code (D for six-cylinders; R, V, or Z for V-8s). The fifth digit corresponds to the model year (3 for 1953, 4 for 1954, and so on)
