Posted by Eric B. [162.158.214.197] on Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 07:19:39 :
In Reply to: 9 ft bed posted by John Flood [162.158.107.166] on Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 02:48:28 :
As far as I know only 6 1/2 foot and 8 foot Sweptline beds were made 1961-1971.
I've seen people claim to have 9' Sweptline beds in the 1961-1971 era, but they were always measuring the overall length of the bed and not the load area.
That being said, I'd be open to the concept that a handful of 9 foot Sweptline beds were made for some special application, but I'd be skeptical unless the truck was an unmolested original with lots of documentation.
Most of the special application trucks take parts from other models and install them on models they are normally not offered on. Like the 1960 W200 9 foot Utiline Navy trucks. They used the D300/W300 bed on a W200 that would normally have used a 7 1/2 foot Utiline bed. I assume that was for some specific need the Navy had. Then they mixed the frame parts from a D300 and a W200 to make the longer frame. The rest of the truck was stock W200. Nothing new was designed in that application, but a 9' Sweptline bed in 1961-1971 would've required a new stamping, or a bunch of hand work to weld up a longer bed out of 8' parts. Both of those options seem unlikely when a 9' Utiline bed already existed.
If someone has seen an actual 9 foot load area 1961-1971 Sweptline bed I'd be very interested to see pictures of it and more info about it.
Eric
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