Chevy Longfoot Pickup: Granddaddy of Truck Beds

Almost all trucks these days come in either 5′ 6″ short beds, 6′ or 8′ long beds with a few exceptions. However, this hasn’t always been the case. For example, this Chevy Longfoot pickup with a 12′ bed length. Yes, twelve feet!

Back in the 70s, special camper editions of pickups were a thing. These trucks often offered an additional foot in the bed to accommodate putting a longer camper shell on it. Taking the thinking of longer is better, aftermarket companies started building all sorts of different bed lengths.

The various Longfoot pickups found online have various lengths with the longest we have seen at 12′. Chevy trucks back then were less complex than they are today making the conversion quite simple.

Converters would weld metal from different beds together and paint the new bed to match the truck. Then, they would weld additional metal on the frame and bolt the bed on top of this new frame. Finally, they would install new extra-long metal brake lines and extend the electrical for the tail lamps. You now have an extra-long pickup frame.

The truck we found was powered by a big block 454 engines to handle the extra weight.

While the conversion sure is something, we have to wonder what the steering was like with this extra long truck and how much strain was put on the wheel bearings and transmission. Sure adding length to a bed can be handy, but at what cost to the other components. At any rate, these Chevy Longfoot pickups are pretty rare and are an interesting truck to see in person. Have you ever seen one?