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Posted

Back in the 1950's and 1960's it was a trend to modify pick up truck bodies into something more car like.

There was even a company called Carrocerias Sul (South Bodies) that was into the business.

This is what they did:

4627977144_cc31b38ff2_z.jpg

Posted

Wow now those are different . Some of them I would like to have .

thank you for posting.

I wonder what it take to send one of these up here to the USA.

That's a very good question. I wish I knew the answer.

Those trucks were all built in steel by the Carrocerias Sul company in Southern Brazil. The Carrocerias Sul main business was to build buss bodies.

The same guy that owned the company also owned a Ford dealer. he was a second generation Italian immigrant called Gido Cé

Being a dealer, he was able to get unfinished trucks from Ford, and to modify them at his body building company using Ford parts.

He even sent some of the truck to the Ford of Brazil headquarters, where some of the pictures were taken, and obtained from Ford the right to sell them trough the national dealer network.

Today, those modified trucks are rare, and collectors fight over them. I saw a couple, only a couple, but they were really well made. Design was not sophisticated, but build quality was.

The main reason for this kind of modification to be so popular was the fact that Ford only manufactured trucks in Brazil until 1966, when the first Ford car was built here from the tires up. before that, the passenger cars were imported CKD from the United States, so, due to importing fees, the cars were not as cheap as they were in the U.S.

It was cheaper to buy a domestic made truck and have it modified to "become" a car.

Of course that was a solution adopted by a minority, but even tough it was people enough to create a market for those trucks.

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