Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Truck Monday is upon us again, and we're going way back!
I've selected 1953 as the model year for this truck, but it could be a '52, or a '51 with later "push-button" doors (this truck has apparently had a door transplant), or a '48 frame with a '51 cab, or… well, you get the idea. To add to the fun, you couldn't get a Chevy pickup with a chrome grille during the Korean War- chromium being a strategic war material- so the grille on this thing isn't original. Old pickups are so useful that they serve as rolling repositories for generation after generation of junkyard parts, and trying to nail down an exact year on one would probably require a look at the pink slip.
The doors are especially interesting, so much so that I hope the owner never repaints them. Back in the early 1950s, there was a military base somewhere with an early-50s Chevy truck hauling provisions to the Commissioned Officers' Mess. It probably wasn't the (now-closed) Alameda Naval Air Station, which favored Dodge trucks.
This truck is still earning its keep; it parks on the street and goes to work every day (unlike its nearby sibling, the '53 GMC, which doesn't seem to move much these days.