It looks cobbled together, but it still looks sleek. Honestly, it’s hard to screw up the lines of a 1936 Chevy. They just look that good. Photo credit unknown.
I always thought the muscle car-era versions paled in comparison to their car counterpart. Still, then I feel the exact opposite from the disco era to the discontinuation of the model. The cars looked okay in those years, but they really wore a pickup bed and bobbed cockpit better. The Ford Ranchero does it just as well for me. Heck, I even like the Dodge Rampage. The Holden Monaro is okay, but slap a bed on it and call it a Ute, and I’m sold.
When I first saw the ‘36-’42 Chevy Foreman Coupe, I thought one thing: rural fuel ration “truck.” A rural farmyard hack job is not uncommon, especially not on earlier cars than this. Need a work truck but can’t lift the price? Rig a bed onto it. Tons of Model T Touring bodies got that treatment, but the finesse was never there. The body modifications are usually done with an axe. Not only was it done out of utility, but also of necessity.
During the war, you couldn’t just fill your tank whenever you wanted, you were allotted a certain amount of fuel to last for a certain time period, and that was it. It might have varied region-to-region, but my understanding is that farm trucks were allotted more than passenger cars. The cars got hacked so they could drive more. It was a loophole that probably gave a lot of Model T cars a longer life on the road as a handy pickup. However, the Foreman Coupe is too new for that and was built exactly as shown.
It’s sleek and smooth right up until the moment that it isn’t. The bed looks finished, just mismatched to the rest of the body. In 1936, it was either a Coupe or a Foreman Coupe. There was no “un-trucking” it. In 1937-1942, when you ordered a Foreman Coupe, it actually came with a painted decklid wrapped in paper, as the bed was removable. 1936 was also the only year with a fender-mounted spare tire. After that, the tire was mounted under the bed floor, a trend that continues to this very day. I’m not sure how it came out of there, and honestly, I’m not sure how they come out of most trucks. Mine usually come out with an angle grinder and spend the rest of their days ratchet-strapped into the bed, as the only thing worse than getting a flat tire is getting the spare out of its rusted and seized factory tomb.
If you were the type of person who wanted one of these car pickups, there are a few issues even over and above the high price tag. The first issue is the fact that they were a truck, so they got beat, bent, and scrapped. The second issue is that they only made about ten thousand of them accumulated over all the years. Honestly, they’re about as common as ivory from a unicorn’s horn, but they’re also not that complicated to clone with a little sheet metal and the right bends.
Have a question or comment for Kelly? Post it at lmtimes.ca/kirk
