It’s hard to imagine, but there was actually a time when people didn’t buy trucks for daily transportation and four-wheel-drives were a relative rarity. If you wanted a 4×4, you typically bought a Jeep. Companies like Marmom-Herrington focused on larger vehicles for industrial use, but in the early 1950s a company called Northwestern Auto Parts Company developed and began selling a 4×4 conversion kit for 3/4 ton trucks. By 1956 it caught the eye of GM and the conversion was offered as a factory option on GMC trucks. In 1957, it was introduced to the Chevrolet line and could be had on 1/2-tons and up. This video is awesome and shows a NAPCO equipped Chevy wheelin’ up Pikes Peak without ever using the road!

The true money shots come deep into the video as the trucks near the summit of the mountain and are rock crawling across huge fields of strewn rocks and boulders. The tall, skinny, tires on the trucks look so cool combined with the raised stance. We wish we were there!