The Model A Roadster Pickup

The Model T laid the groundwork

Ford didn't invent the light truck in 1928. For years before that, owners built their own working Fords. Some bolted homemade boxes onto a car. Hotels and resorts bought chassis and had coachbuilders put wooden bodies on them to haul guests and luggage from the railroad station, and those were the depot hacks. Ford watched all of this and, in April 1925, finally sold its own.

That first factory job put a steel bed, 56 inches long and about 40-3/4 inches wide with an adjustable tailgate and four stake pockets, on the standard Model T Runabout chassis. It listed at $281 f.o.b. Detroit, and Ford sold nearly 33,800 the first year. The full story of the Model T pickup truck belongs to the trucks article, but one thing matters here: it was a roadster with a box on the back. When the Model A came along, Ford kept the formula.

Why every early Model A roadster pickup was open

The Model A pickup launched with an open, roadster-style cab, and the bed was carried over from the Model T. Ford had a reason beyond tradition. The new Model AA truck line was using every closed cab the company had on hand, so pickups built through August 1928 went out the door with open cabs. A shortage made the decision, and the farmers didn't complain much, because the price was right.

And the price was right. The open-cab pickup started at $395 in 1928, ten dollars more than a Roadster car. When the closed cab arrived in August 1928, the one some folks call the "phone booth," it started at $445. Fifty dollars was real money in a farm town, and plenty of buyers kept their fifty.

The early open cabs were plain. No outside door handles, and a fixed top. You reached over the door to let yourself in, which is fine until you are wearing a winter coat and holding a lunch pail.

Those early trucks sold like crazy. Ford built 23,972 open-cab pickups for 1928, more than any other Model A commercial style that year. For the whole of 1928, the company sold nearly 62,000 trucks of every kind, which is a different count, so don't try to do the subtraction.

From the whole line to an extra-cost option

Once the closed cab arrived, the open one was living on borrowed time. For 1929 both cabs were on offer. Then for 1930 every Model A truck got a new, less boxy cab styled after the closed cars, and the closed cab became the standard pickup. The roadster pickup was now an extra-cost option.

It got one improvement on the way out. The 1930 roadster pickup finally had outside door handles. It also got scarce in a hurry: 2,730 were built that year. For 1931 the count was 2,637 roadster pickups out of 98,116 Model A pickups, under three percent of the total. The farmer who wanted his truck with the top down was a dying breed.

The body codes follow the same story. The open cab was 76-A from May 1928 and 76-B from June 1930. The closed cab ran 82-A, then 82-B. Those codes were shared with the AA truck cabs, so a cab off a big truck can end up on a pickup without anybody lying about it. Ford also added a 66-A DeLuxe Pickup and a 78-B wide-bed box for 1931.

Under all of it was the same running gear as the cars: the 200.5 cubic inch four rated at 40 hp at 2,200 rpm, the three-speed transmission and four-wheel mechanical brakes. The pickup was a car that worked for a living.

"The roadster pickup was the cheap truck for a man who figured the weather was his problem, not Ford's. Today it's the expensive one, which would have made those fellows laugh."

Gary Nowak

What a Model A roadster pickup is worth now

The open cab costs more today than the closed one, and the gap depends on the year. According to Sports Car Market, for 1928 and 1929 an open cab is worth slightly more than a closed cab. For 1930 and 1931, when the roadster pickup was a rare extra-cost choice, it is worth markedly more.

Two sales give you a feel for the range. A 1928 open-cab pickup brought $20,160 at RM Sotheby's from the Guyton Collection (lot 388 at the Guyton Collection sale in St. Louis, May 2019). A 1929 roadster pickup sold for $9,350 at Worldwide in Auburn, Indiana, on September 2, 2017. Condition and originality explain most of that gap, and neither number is a price guide for the truck in front of you.

The one thing nobody can fake is how it feels to drive one. Top down, a load in the box, the four chugging along at 35 miles an hour on a back road. The men who built these trucks meant them for work, and the ones who kept them running through the Depression deserve the credit for every one still around.

A roadster pickup with honest paper is about as good as a Model A gets.

Sources and notes

• The Henry Ford: 1925 Ford Model T Runabout with pickup body
• Sports Car Market: Model A open-cab pickup production and values
• RM Sotheby's: 1928 Ford Model "AR" Open-Cab Pickup, Guyton Collection
• RM Sotheby's: The Guyton Collection sale, May 2019
• AAFords: Model A and AA cab body codes
• MAFCA: Model A new car and truck prices