21. International Harvester Travelette
For those who don’t know, a crew cab configuration means a truck has four doors and a truck bed. It’s a common option today. But back in the day, they only made trucks in a single cab configuration with two doors.
Back then, it was unimaginable for a truck to have more than two doors or carry more than two to three people inside. Then, in the early 1960s, International Harvester presented the Travelette version of their C-Series truck. It changed the industry as the first-ever crew cab pickup truck.
International Harvester is the famous producer of agricultural machinery and big trucks, but during those days it was active in the pickup truck market. Their products were always heavy duty and for professional use. The idea behind the Travelette was simple. Allow a group of up to six workers to travel together with their tools or machines.
At the same time, International produced an SUV version called the Travellall with a closed roof. Somebody in the company came to the idea of bolting half of a Travellall SUV to a truck bed and creating a crew cab. As with all successful ideas on the pickup truck market, all major companies soon adopted the idea.