With their squared-off styling and strange proportions, GMC’s aluminum cabover trucks of 1959-68 quickly earned the nickname “Crackerbox.”
It takes only one quick glance at a side view, above, to see how the F-Model GMC tilt-cab trucks and tractors of 1959-68 deserved the name “Crackerbox.” The total length of the cab was a mere 48 inches—so stubby it looked almost like an optical illusion. Constructed entirely in aluminum, the Crackerbox cab didn’t offer much in the way of driver comfort, sound isolation, or crash safety. But it was extremely short and light, enabling longer trailers and cargo bodies and heavier loads. Which, after all, is what trucks and road tractors are all about. Thoughts about the driver’s safety and comfort would continue to evolve.
As the above illustration also shows, there were two basic cab configurations, with or without a front axle setback, allowing a wheelbase as short as 108 inches. There was also a sleeper cab option, though at only 24 inches deep it was about as inviting as a park bench. Configurations were endless: single and tandem drive axles; tractors and trucks. A few upfitters offered tandem steering axles.
Naturally, multiple powertrain choices were available, including the mighty Detroit Diesel 6-71 (hear the unmistakable song of the 6-71 here) and the giant 702-cubic inch V12 gasoline engine (see our feature here). The Crackerbox was offered only as a GMC as there was no equivalent Chevrolet model. For 1969, the Crackerbox was discontinued and a new and improved tilt-cab model from General Motors appeared, which was marketed by GMC as the Astro and by Chevrolet as the Titan.
Good heavens, MCG, you made an old gear jammer smile, then adjust my back brace. Seeing these makes old injuries ache once again. Unless I missed it, the reason they were called “Crackerbox”, is in the 60’s, Nabisco saltine crackers were purchased in a square metal container, to preserve freshness, and resembled the cab of the F model,,kind of. I’ve put in my share of time in old cabovers, never a Crackerbox, mostly in the moving business by the time I got into trucking in the late 70’s, the Astro/Titan was the cabover to have, by then, and believe me, I also put in a lot of time in a conventional with no sleeper, and even a “park bench” in the truck to stretch out, is a welcome addition. We didn’t have the “rolling apartments” of today, where drivers literally live in their trucks. It was a different time, and a short nap was all that was needed, regulations, not nearly as strict as today,, be darned. As overall length laws were abolished in the 80’s, cabovers fell out of favor, and conventionals, with a better ride and aerodynamics, became the standard in trucks today. Not so in Europe, however, where strict weight laws and narrow highways still require a cabover. I did not click on the “sound of a Detroit”, as I STILL have a ringing in my ears thanks to those “fuel converters”,,,they converted diesel fuel into noise. Thanks, MCG!
Thank you, Howard. When I was a little kid, the Crackerbox GMCs always looked to me like the cabs were about to fall over.
As a kid, I always wondered if it would tip forward during hard braking with no load.
That’s funny-I thought the same thing-going down a steep hill & tromping on the binders they would do a nose over !
That,,,would be called a “stoppie”, and I’ve seen an ad by GM showing a Ford Econoline doing one on hard braking( they didn’t tell you there was 500 pounds of ballast in the front) The only way a cabover would do that, is if the tilt latch wasn’t fastened, and I’ve seen that too. Trucks of this era didn’t have the steer axle brakes to do so, in fact, it was common for semis to have no front brakes at all, with the mindset, that front brakes got you into more trouble, and that is true. Later, a switch that limited air to the front brakes could be used, and eventually, full front brakes became mandatory after 1973, I think.
Can’t help but to have Red Simpson and Junior Brown’s Semi Crazy running through my head right now …
Rosey Grier as “Benjy”, and Art Metrano, as “Moose” drove a VERY beat up GMC F model in the 70’s TV series, “Movin’ On”. It was one of my favorite shows, and “Sonny Pruit”( Claude Akins) was sort of a role model for me. I knew right then and there, with the help of Smokey and the Bandit, that is what I wanted to do, and spent 35 years in those tin cans,,,
Out my way, we called those slab-cabs and regular cab-overs were the cracker boxes, except for the orange Schneider ones we called pumpkins.