Trucking is a tough way to make a living in 2018, let alone more than a half century ago when this video was made. Certain things have gotten better, like the trucks themselves, the highway system, and driver entertainment, but at the end of the day, it is still the same long distance between California and Boston except now there are more scales, more rules, and more opportunity for big brother to be staring over your shoulder.

This video does not deal with any of that stuff but instead shows off two new GMC cab over truck models for the 1960 production year. The first LCF (Low cab forward) truck is really cool. We love the look with the 2-tone paint, we love the big GMC six cylinder engine under the cab, and we certainly dig the announcer’s enthusiasm when he talks about how superior the cab told mechanism is as opposed to everyone else’s. Funny stuff, really.

The second truck is one of the weird GMC “Crackerbox” torture chambers on wheels. These tiny trucks were basely large enough for a guy to fit inside, let along spend the whole day wheeling around. It seems borderline inhumane to expect a man to spend a day in the confines of that minuscule cab. The talk about the spacious interior of the first truck but they do not dare show you in the inside of the second. Between the ride quality, the lack of leg room, and the scary nature of what could happen if you got into a wreck, the Crackerbox was certainly not designed with the driver as being priority number one. Fleet operators liked them because longer trailers could be legally used and longer trailers meant more freight and more freight meant more money.

This is a fun one-minute look back into some trucking history from the middle of the 20th century. Sounds weird to talk like this but the fact is that every day we’re one smudge further removed from these days. Crazy, right?