Jump to content

Articles

Articles

Articles

Chevy looks back on its canopy work truck past


Gorehamj
  • John Goreham

    Contributing Writer, GM-Trucks.com

    4/07/2015

     

    Chevrolet looked back on its urban delivery vehicle past in a press release retrospective today. Chevrolet began making canopy top and sides work trucks back in 1936. Small business owners used the trucks to bring their goods for sale directly to the neighborhoods of American cities. The top image is a 1939 Half-ton City Express. These trucks were a huge part of Chevrolet's business in pre-WWII days, accounting for hundreds of thousands of sales.

    https://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/uploads/monthly_04_2015/ccs-319-0-68509900-1428661352.jpg

Post WWII Chevy's business increased, of course, along with every major manufacturer that made it through the war-time economy. The second image here is a 1949 Chevy Canopy Express. Chevy produced an amazing 345,000 of these vehicles in 1949. Just to put that into perspective, if sold today that would be Chevy's second leading seller after only the Silverado family. As a stand- alone company that vehicle would outsell both Buick and Cadillac, not to mention many other car companies now in the US market.

ccs-319-0-68509900-1428661352_thumb.jpg

The 2015 Chevy City Express shown here being used by Smokey D's BBQ. The truck's cloth top and sides have gone away, but the need for a vehicle to bring a company's product directly to the public has not.


User Feedback

Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.



Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.