55-59 Development/Concept Photos

[hewittca]

Introduction

After popular demand, I have decided to dive further into the development of GM trucks and uncover what I could for the Task Force trucks. I originally only planned on researching the 67-72 trucks (since that's what I have) but my interest in the history of GM trucks and enthusiasm by those on the board after sharing my findings has lead me to look further back to earlier generations. If you've read through my C10 development posts, you probably noticed quite a lot of design proposals were thrown around before GM settled on the final designs. Even year to year changes saw several front end and trim proposals. Unfortunately, you will notice the exact opposite here. For reasons I can only speculate, there is almost a complete lack of proposed alternate designs. Regardless, the photos below do show early pre-production versions of these trucks with a few subtle variations that a keen eye will spot. I hope you enjoy these!

Disclaimer

Of course, I must state that these are property of GM and I have been given permission to share these with you in a public forum format. PLEASE don't do anything with these photos that would result in requested removal by GM. This essentially means that these photos are for "reference" only and may not be used in any profitable way.

Contents

Part 1: Chevrolet Development
Part 2: GMC Development
Part 3: Promotional Photography

Part 1: Chevrolet Development

-Early 1955
Since the Advanced Design trucks were produced through the first part of 1955, the Task Force trucks were still in pre-production form in early '55. These photos show the first production ready version of the all new Chevrolet 3100.









Also new for Chevrolet was the first solution to a fleetside bed, which GM called the Cameo Carrier. It was basically a reskinned stepside bed. Initially, it was supposed to be a unibody construction as shown in the first photo. The engineers, however, decided it would be better to keep the cab and bed separate due to chassis flex concerns.









-Mid 1956
Since the '55 model year wasn't released until near mid '55, the '56 model year was virtually identical to the '55. By mid '56, however, Chevrolet was finalizing the grill and other updates for the '57 model year.





-Mid 1957
By this time, GM decided the Task Force trucks needed a midcycle refresh, so they introduced a new front end design heavily influenced by the passenger cars.






Interestingly, GM decided to carry the Cameo Carrier through the '58 model year even though they also introduced their first full width bed called the fleetside. Of course, the fleetside was preferred over the Cameo and sales suffered, resulting in the end of the Cameo Carrier. The fleetside shown here is painted in a proposed gold scheme to celebrate GM's 50th anniversary.





-Mid 1958
The final production year of the Task Force trucks was virtually unchanged from the '58 model year. By this time GM was already deep into development of the 60-66 C10s, so design for the '59 were limited to modest paint scheme proposals as seen here.








To continue this story through time, you can follow the production of the 60-66 C10 here. I will also update this thread soon with progression of the 55-59 GMC trucks called the Blue Chip Series. Stay tuned!