Back to back: 1952 Pick-ups weird and wonderful

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We’ve always had a soft spot for the saloon / sedan based pick-up here at PostWarClassic, with an extra special place in our hearts for the country cool Chevy El Camino and Ford Ranchero. They are also sometimes referred to as coupé utilities and the very first of them is believed to have come from an early 1930se request from an Australian farmer. He applied to Ford in a letter ‘looking for a vehicle to go to church in on a Sundays and which can carry our pigs to market on Mondays’. 

The duo seen form two examples of the earliest pick-up saloons predating both the El Camino as the Ranchero by quite a few years. First of them is a 1952 Armstrong-Siddeley Station Coupe. With 990 examples and the majority of these having been exported to Australia, it’s pretty rare. But this one is even rarer being left hand driven and a metric speedo. With its straight-six 2.3-litre engine it was delivered to Finland when new. According to the seller it was restored in the 1980s and has been preserved well since. See the ad here.

Even rarer is a Hudson Hornet 6 that was converted to a pick-up. Although this is a replica, at least one such pick-up was originally built in 1952. The whereabouts of the real car(s) are unknown, but this is a beautiful reproduction in the style of the early 1950s when Hudson-dealers were encouraged by the Hudson Motor Company to develop their own version of the pick-up as ‘a parts and service business that attracts attention (…) It is a symbol of good business and marks the outward distinction of the dealer who cares.’ Like the Armstrong-Siddeley it is also being powered by a straight-six engine, now of 308 cubic inches capacity. See the full description of the car here.

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