When it comes to commercial vehicle design, the venerable box-on-wheels is hard to beat. If there’s anything that comes close, I think it may be the flat-tray-on-wheels-with-a-cabin-up-front concept, which I guess we’d call a “chassis-cab,” because that can become a box-on-wheels or damn near anything else. This 1957 brochure for the Renault 1000kg-14000kg commercial vehicle shows this flexibility astonishingly well.
Like all mid-century (well this one is a bit prior to that, being released in 1947) French commercial vehicles, this thing is weirdly appealing and characterful for a workhorse machine. It’s got an expressive face and feels sort of like a large animal of some pachydermic kind.
Here’s a diagram of it in its most basic, stripped-down form, so you can appreciate the base from which all of these variants sprang:
That’s about as basic as it gets! A cab and chassis. So let’s look at the variants shown in this old brochure, because, dammit, we know how to have fun.
Okay, let’s start with the basics, a nice, simple van body, with solid sides that have a nice inset little stamping, perfect for your branding needs, so you can put 24 HOUR ORNITHOLOGY or CHILI BY THE FOOT or whatever you’d like on there.
Another van, but this time with a sliding side door! I think you could get these on either side, perhaps both? I’m not positive, but I’d think so.
Another van with a sliding door, but with a high roof, because you may be hauling grandfather clocks or baby giraffes or doors or something.
Maybe you want a van, and you want ventilation, but you have a strange anti-window bias? Boy are you in luck, because you can get yourself a can with open upper sides that have canvas roll-up covers! Holy crap, that’s breezy! I wonder what the use case was for these? Vending stuff from the van, like a food truck?
If that canvas got you excited, Renault can go even further, with a whole canvas rear over a truck bed. These are very military-seeming.
I love this flatbed variant though I’m really curious how those big pots of mulchy whatever stay in place as they drive.
Look at this! A cow-hauling variant! Complete with cattle-friendly ramp and everything!
I love this one; it’s all full of compartments and hatches and drawer’s like R2-D2’s torso. Is this for transport, or some kind of mobile store?
I really love this one; it’s a food truck sort of thing, but all wood! I wish I had a color photo of this one, because I bet it’s lovely, like a little mobile cabin.
Of course there’s a people-hauling variant, complete with a nice big roof rack for the kids or luggage.
This all-sides-fold-down pickup version is a very useful design, but I’m more taken by how the rear cab bulkhead looks; do they all have those stampings? It looks like it’s made of a big bar of chocolate. Also, why were these old trucks always so stingy with rear window sizes?
Another animal-hauler, this one for pigs, it seems. That side door looks sort of awkward, though, based on how those dudes are wrestling with that pig.
I love that this brochure shows some genuinely bonkers stuff, too, like these elaborate custom bodies. I think Laines Sofil is a yarn company? I think that shape may be some sort of stylized yarn-ball design, like yarn with a central band holding it together? And are those knitting needles coming out of the back and sides?
This one is just more of your basic bonkers pre-jet-age food truck, with a…horse head on the front? Is that a horse up there? I love the blob-shaped windows.
What a sleek bus! And all the skylights! The faked fenders are kind of fun, too. I wonder if these had any real aero advantage over the basic ones.
And finally, yes, there was a camper version. The roofline is especially interesting here – are those slots windows or vents?
Damn, that’s a lot. What a flexible, amazing machine!
Horse’s head photo signifies it is a horse butcher, selling horse meat on the market….
Around 20 years ago you still saw these often.
I rode in one once, the engine is in the floor, in front of the axle mainly, with bits between the driver and passenger — fair to say that the smell of hot oil was prominent, and a well pitched voice was needed for conversation….Owners loved them, reputed to be unbreakable, but they used an awful lot of petrol (gas) stank, and were slow.
Numerous govt subsidies to buy new vehicles eventually saw them off.
“canvas roll-up covers! Holy crap, that’s breezy! I wonder what the use case was for these?”
Tour bus!
Those big pots look like wine half barrels – I’d guess it’s carrying grapes, since it looks like a vineyard.
Chili By The Foot is the Torchiest Torch that ever Torched.
Mmm, I could go for 1.5 feet of chili and 2 yards of lemonade right now.
I assume this thing couldn’t go or stop fast enough to generate any significant g-forces.
I’m torn as to whether I love the bus with the glorious windows everywhere or the camper with the lovely mollycroft roof more. I suppose I should have one of each; that would be best.
Ah, back in the day when vehicles looked as if they liked us and not like they want to murder us in our sleep.
About the canvas-side and canvas-covered ones… Europe has always seemed to have a preference for canvas-sided trucks. Maybe it’s because they were directly derived from similar horse-drawn wagon designs, combined with a “We’ve always done it that way” mindset. Honestly, for short distances it’s simple and practical. The canvas sides allow for easy reach-in access — like reaching over a pickup’s bed sides, and the steel top offers good weather protection. The canvas covered one is just an open-bed truck with steel bows and a canvas cover stretched over, and allows easy conversion between covered and open configurations depending on the cargo being carried.
To this day, the most common semi-trailer configuration in Europe is a “curtainside” design, which is a trailer with a rigid top and ends, but the sides are modern-day “canvas” made of vinyl or some poly/petrochemical derivative that slide in tracks and can be pushed aside for loading/unloading and pulled taut for travel. They look solid when all closed up, but are still soft-sided like the old canvas-covered trucks and wagons. The advantage is that they can be loaded and unloaded from all sides, not just the back. Which makes sense in crowded European urban areas. Backing up to a truck dock isn’t always an option.
Those non-parallel frame rails are giving me the heebie-jeebie’s.
I think that’s a cow head, to let you know about the kilograms of beefy goodness offered in exchange for your hard-earned anciens francs.
Horses head truck– Drive your 2CV (deux chevaux) up to the food truck for a burger cheval… (which is really a thing)
It’s burger à cheval, which means with a fried egg on top of the steak
And yes, it’s a yarn truck https://www.limitedruns.com/original/advertising-posters/consumer-products/laines-sofil/image/
The R2D2 one is: Remarkably designed store van for unpacking at fairs and markets
I think it’s because the window limits how much (or possibly what) can be carried in the back. With a chocolate-bar-stamped steel panel, the operator can stack things against the back of the cab to maximize the carrying capacity; that is less practical with glass panels.
And once your load is piled high you won’t be able to see out of that window anyway. Plus glass is more expensive that steel.
Especially if you need to replace it constantly
And you could even get it with 4 wheel drive!
That truly is a lot of variation.