Contemporary accounts of our vintage vehicle past would have us believe that an automotive conglomerate during the postwar era should have had a leg up on the independent companies when it came to innovative designs and advanced engineering. That’s probably because companies like Chrysler Corporation, General Motors, and Ford Motor Company have all been long heralded as champions of such forward-thinking management of their products. But that’s a poor assumption to make.
Consider Hudson’s revolutionary “step-down” chassis design that simultaneously advanced what had been rudimentary unit-body construction. Crosley’s introduction of the Hot Shot beat Corvette to market as America’s first two-seat sports car. Kaiser, and its Frazer sibling, handily beat the “Big Three” to market with truly modern smooth-side (a.k.a. slab-side) designs on each of their cars. Let’s be sure to add Studebaker to that list of independent innovators, too.
The company was hardly new to the notion of bringing fresh ideas to market by the time it unveiled the all-newthe first American trucks built without exposed running boards. To assist with cab ingress/egress, the previously protruding appendages were simply incorporated into the cab design as a step hidden by cab doors. This simple change provided a smooth-side design akin to same-year passenger cars without abandoning the dynamic rugged looks of a workhorse truck.
