We all know that person who is a walking automotive encyclopedia and able to look at a car or truck, quickly tell us the year, make, model and secretly make us jealous.

These Ride Guides are designed to help with that.

Unlike our Quick Guide to Identifying 1960-66 Chevy Pickup, the differences in the Ford front ends are much more obvious, save the initial 1948-50 first generation.

There is little evidence, aside from VIN designations, that anyone can eyeball the 1948 or ’49 Ford F-1 and be able to tell them apart.

The 1950 is extraordinarily close too, but switched to a column gear shift.

The rest, as you can see, is simply a matter of getting to know your truck faces. There won’t be a quiz. We just figured you might want to.

Be on the lookout for more Ford Pickup Ride Guides as we’ll be unveiling more in the coming weeks up through the 1996 model year.

Ford-Truck-1948-60
Infograph by Lori Sams
Author: Matt Griswold

After a 10-year newspaper journalism career, Matt Griswold spent another decade writing about the automotive aftermarket and motorsports. He was part of the original OnAllCylinders editorial team when it launched in 2012.