After World War II, car and truck building cranked back up in full gear with automotive manufacturers dusting off the pre-war blueprints and turning on the manufacturing line, cranking out the older designs until GM could get a major redesign in the works. What came out of this effort was the Chevrolet Advance Design series which promised a stronger truck that could carry more with a more modern look than the AK series.
This worked well as the Chevy trucks were number one in sales from 1947-1955. During this period Chevrolet continued to work on an even more dynamic truck design, the Task Force Series, to replaced the aging Advance Design trucks.
Two series of Chevy trucks were actually introduced in 1955 and are identified as “first series” and “second series.” The first series was simply a carryover of the 1954 model trucks with a newer three-speed manual transmission and open driveshaft that would carry over to the second series trucks.
The second series truck, many times referred to as the 1955 1/2 model year truck was a completely new truck. Sporting Chevrolet’s new 265ci V8 with a 12-volt electrical system, the same as Chevy’s passenger cars, was a major change from the past.
The transmission had a Warner overdrive option in the half-ton trucks, which was basically a two-speed planetary gearset mounted in the tailshaft of the transmission, while power steering made its first appearance in Chevy trucks.
The wrap-around windshield and wrap-around rear glass that the mid-century Chevy trucks are known for made their first appearance in the 1955 second series. Other body styling features include running boards that concealed behind the cab doors and the classic egg-crate grille that was prominent in the 1955 passenger cars.
Arguably, this is one of the first attempts to make the light trucks look and behave more like a passenger car, and that is why we rank this pickup as one of the top five Chevy pickups of all time.