I was out cleaning up leaves....
AGAIN....
and as i was dumping them in my 97 F250 HD something occured to me...
Im 6'1 and its a royal bitch to reach over the bedside and dump the leaf vac bag in over the bedside. Usually i use the ranger but i didnt feel like going down and unloading them tonight.
How in the royal shit do people do things like this with the massivley tall bedsides on modern trucks? Use a ladder? Why are the bedsides so tall anyways?
Not trying to debate old vs new...but just something i dont understand.
Just a matter of "styling progress" Back in them olden days all pickups were step-side, and they were work trucks. In the 50's Ford came out with the first styleside bed, but even then it was very accessible because it was designed that way.
The "belt line" was much lower than modern trucks. Later designs had higher belt lines and thus bed top rails got higher. Also, truck bodies were much lower on the frame because the engine assembly was much smaller and lower, so the body could sit "lower" on the frame rails. As engines got bigger it necessitated raising the body so the engine wouldn't stick up and hit the hood. Just place a stock Ford, Chevy, Dodge pick up from 1960 next to a modern truck and the difference will be obvious.
And, tires were much smaller in diameter, and they usually "filled" the wheel wells. No thought was ever given to using huge diameter tires. Look at pic's of 50's-60's trucks and you won't find the huge wheel well openings you see now,
A bit of research... I found that the stock 1960 Ford F-100 2 WD had a ground to top of bed rail height of around 47-48 inches. Can't find specs for a new F-150 or Ranger, but I'd bet it's much higher. But 47 inches is very easy to lift and lean over to access the bed from the side.
The designers could easily design a lower, easily accessible truck and bed, but then it wouldn't be "rugged" looking enough.
Grumpaw