The Chevy people offered an all-new pickup for 1960, and they were excited enough to declare it “the biggest news since trucks began!”

Things are different today, but in the classic era of American pickup trucks, the products didn’t change much from year to year. Commercial truck buyers were a practical crowd, more interested in operating cost than in the latest engineering and styling. But by 1960 the market was changing, and we can see the trend at work in the new pickups Chevrolet rolled out that year. These trucks were entirely new inside and out, top to bottom.

A full seven inches lower than the previous design, the new Chevy styling included elaborately sculptured sides (for a truck, anyway) and a flat-topped roofline that borrowed a bit from GM’s Flying Wing four-doors. The front end featured a trifurcated grille treatment with quad headlamps in the lower section and turn/parking lamps in the eyebrows, much like the ’59 Chevrolet passenger car. Chevy called the new exterior theme “Fore-Runner Styling.” While the unusual hood eyebrows lasted just two years, the basic body shell remained in production through 1966, where it was also shared with GMC.

Buyers with traditional tastes could select the Stepside (above) in three bed lengths from 6.5 to 9 feet, while fashion-forward shoppers could opt for the smooth-sided Apache Fleetside and deck it out with bright-metal side moldings, chrome bumpers, and chrome grille (lead photo above).  There was also a 4×4 option, Chevy’s first in-house 4WD system. Engine choices were limited to two: the 235 cubic-inch Thriftmaster 6 with 135 hp, or the 283 cubic-inch Trademaster V8 with 160 hp, coupled to a Powerglide automatic or a three-speed or four-speed manual gearbox. The 348 and 409 CID V8s were reserved for the larger Chevy trucks.

The new chassis was a complete departure with the first independent front suspension to be offered on a Chevy truck, using upper and lower wishbones and longitudinal torsion bars. Meanwhile, the rear suspension was two-link with a pair of I-beam section trailing arms with coil springs. The front torsion bars didn’t last long as in ’63 they were replaced with conventional coils. However, the converging-link rear suspension achieved a kind of near-immortality when it was soon adopted by the NASCAR crowd. There, it remained in use in the Cup series through 2021, where the setup was known as “truck arm.”

The redesigned C-series truck was also available in flat bed, stake bed, and tool body versions, and it also served as the basis for a panel delivery and the Suburban Carryall. While this Suburban had only two passenger doors (three-doors arrived in ’67 and four-doors in ’73) it did offer a choice of side-opening rear cargo doors (below) or a wagon-style upper and lower tailgate, and there was seating for up to eight passengers. Chevrolet continues to offer a Suburban to this day, but just as with modern pickups, these are far more luxurious vehicles than anyone in 1960 would have imagined.