Chevrolet Cameo 1957 Resto-Mod Truck

Chevrolet’s Cameo pioneered something no pickup buyer had seen before, smooth fiberglass bed panels built by the same supplier making Corvette bodies, wrapped around available power steering, power brakes, and Hydra-Matic luxury. This 1957 example represents one of the rarest model years, with only a few thousand built before Chevy moved on. It is the truck that quietly invented the lifestyle pickup category still around today.

This is a super cool 1957 Cameo Resto-Mod Truck with an all modern driveline and chassis!

Fourteen years before muscle cars ruled American roads, one Chevy pickup was already borrowing tricks from the Corvette factory floor to look like nothing else on the job site. Chevrolet‘s stylists wanted suburban buyers to cross-shop a truck the same way they would shop a car, so they turned to an unlikely material to pull it off, one that had nothing to do with traditional truck manufacturing at all. The 1957 model pictured here represents the final and rarest year of that experiment before Chevy moved on. What made this smooth-sided truck different enough to help inspire an entirely new category of vehicle decades later?

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Built With Corvette’s Own Fiberglass Supplier

The Cameo debuted in 1955 as part of Chevrolet‘s Task Force truck series, styled by Chuck Jordan to appeal to suburban buyers rather than just farmers and tradesmen. To avoid the cost of new steel stamping dies, Chevrolet contracted Molded Fiber Glass Inc, the same Ohio supplier building Corvette bodies, to produce smooth fiberglass bed side panels that were fitted over a standard stepside bed frame.

The Rarest Year of a Truck That Invented the Luxury Pickup

Sales fell steadily after a strong 1955 debut of 5,219 units, dropping to 2,154 in 1956 before recovering slightly to about 2,572 in 1957, the year featured here, which added a new grille and a redesigned spare tire carrier with a metal cover. Along the way, the Cameo introduced features rarely seen on trucks at the time, including power steering, power brakes, and an available Hydra-Matic automatic transmission. That combination of car-like comfort on a truck chassis laid the groundwork for later lifestyle trucks like the Chevrolet El Camino and Ford Ranchero.

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