For decades now, the Ford pickup has been the best-selling vehicle in North America, and that story begins with the 1948 F-1, the automaker’s first new postwar product.

When Henry Ford II took control of the Ford Motor Company in September of 1945, he had a number of serious challenges facing him, not the least of which was overhauling the company’s aging and obsolete product portfolio. Shrewdly, Ford and his management team chose to tackle the trucks first.

Trucks took less time to develop than the passenger car lines, allowing the company to get new product out in front of the public sooner. They offered comfortable gross margins, too, and as the USA was enthusiastically returning to a peacetime economy, the commercial truck market was booming. On January 19, 1948 in Dearborn, Ford proudly rolled out its all-new F-Series. (The F stood for Ford.) Billed as the “Bonus Built” trucks, the F-Series was an entire range of commercial vehicles from the half-ton F-1 to the three-ton F-8, but here we’re going to focus on the F-1 pickup.

We don’t often think of vintage pickup trucks as revolutionary, but for the Ford engineering department on Oakwood Avenue, the F-1 was certainly that. While most previous Ford light trucks were based on passenger car platforms, the F-1 frame and chassis were purpose-engineered. Henry Ford I’s old front and rear transverse springs, a legacy of the Model T, were retired for good, replaced by parallel leaf springs and double-acting tubular shock absorbers. The classic Ford torque tube was abandoned as well, in favor of an open driveshaft and Hotchkiss drive. A number of these features had been introduced on the 1942 Ford trucks just before the USA entered World War II and civilian production was halted, but the exterior sheet metal was all new.

The F-1’s standard engine was not the familar Ford flathead V8 that dated back to 1932, but the more up-to-date L-head inline six introduced in 1941, here labeled as the Rouge Six. (See our feature on the Ford six here.) Displacing 226 cubic inches, the six produced 95 hp at 3300 rpm. A 239 CID flathead V8 with 100 hp at 3800 rpm was available at extra cost, but in many ways the six, which offered the same 180 lb-ft of torque at lower rpm, was probably the better engine. (The larger F-series trucks were offered with a new 337 CID flathead V8 that would soon be the powerplant for the redesigned 1949 Lincoln.)

The F-1’s cabin might not look very accommodating to modern truck buyers, but in 1948 this was a little bit like heaven. A full seven inches wider than previously and with larger doors, greater headroom, and a taller windshield as well, it was touted by Ford as “the million dollar cab.” Luxuries included a fresh air heater and a full set of instruments. “Now! Living room comfort!” the ad writers cried out. In 1950, the three-speed shifter was moved from the floor to the steering column to provide more legroom, and a larger rear window was introduced in ’51.

Assembled at Ford’s Highland Park, Michigan and Richmond, California plants, the F-1 was offered from 1948 through 1952, when it begat the stylish 1953 F-100, one of the USA’s classic pickups. More generations of F-Series pickups followed, and in 1975 the first F-150 appeared. Today the F-Series is the best-selling light vehicle (car or truck) in North America, and it all began with the 1948 F-1, the Ford Motor Company’s first new postwar product.