Interesting range of anwswers...
Here's my input...
To me, now 38+ years old, grew-up in suburban MD (was "rural" then, is metropolitan sprawl now), the "quintissential" old truck will always be the '47-'53 Advance Design pick-ups...there were still plenty of these on the roads in the early '70s, during my "formative years"
Now for personal experience:
During the above-mentioned "formative years", my Grandad had a '54 Chevy 3600 3/4 ton 5-window pick-up; a very tired, plain-jane stripper of a truck. From what I can tell, he bought it somewhere around 1968, and it had at least 121,000 miles on it then. Where there was still paint, it was chalky Juniper Green; elsewhere (top of hood, top of cab, fender crowns, was surface rust).
I vividly remember riding with Grandad in this jalopy, and was small enough that I could stand on the floor, hook my little fingers into the defroster vent of the garnish moulding, and just about see over the hood...I preferred standing over sitting, as the orignal seatcovering was mostly gone, and the horsehair stuffing was pretty "picky" against my tender little legs...
I also remember the smell of that truck: that wonderful GM combination of horsehair seat stuffing, faint whiffs of gasoline, and a hint of exhaust...
Grandad gave me that truck around 1976 (I was about 9 years old at the time) and I still have it.
I generally prefer the '47-'53 AD styling over the '54-'55-first, but an AD is an AD.
My next old Chevy pick-up was a '64 C-10 short stepside that I picked-up off the used lot of a local Chevy dealer for $195 around 1990. The original owner had traded-it in on a used S-10.
Also "juniper green"...it looked fairly solid, ran (230 six), and had a valid inspection sticker.
This truck was a great runner, reliable as sunrise, and I liked it a lot.
What I didn't care for was that the cab was short on leg-room (more so than my AD), so it wasn't very comfortable for longer trips.
Then there was my '41 Chevy 1.5 ton dump truck...an old yard-goat from a local junkyard that also served me well...I really like the Art Deco trucks for their styling...
Would love to have an Art Deco Pick-up.
For the record, other trucks I have owned or would like to own:
'36 Chevy pick-up (owned)
'48 International KB-2 ( owned)
'49 GMC 100 pick-up (own)
'51 Chevy 3600 (owned)
'55 Chevy first-series, 4400 dump truck (own)
'61 Willys 6-226 4WD (owned)
'70 Ford F-100 Sport Custom (owned)
'72 Chevy C-10 8' fleetside (my "new truck")
'48-'53 Studebaker (like to own)
'48-'52 Ford (like to own)
