This Automaker Built The First Dually Truck

In 2026, if you want extra towing power and the ability to put down crazy amounts of torque, you opt for a “dually,” or a truck with four rear wheels. Duallys have been around for a few decades, but that hasn’t always been the case. Apart from heavy duty tractor trailers or something that would be used in the military, you don’t see dually setups on trucks from say, the 1950s or 1960s. 

But the first commercially available dually pickup truck came out in 1973, and it was made by GM. Looking back at the historical record of giant trucks, it shouldn’t be surprising that General Motors beat both Ford and Chrysler to the punch. 1973 was the first model year of the now venerated “Square Body” Chevy trucks. The option for a dually setup was called “Big Dooley” and was available on the rear-wheel drive C30 and four-wheel drive K30 one-ton trucks. 

Eventually, in 1980, Ford debuted the Styleside “Six-Wheeler” setup on the F-Series. It, like the Chevy, was advertised for towing gooseneck camper trailers. Dodge trucks wouldn’t get the dually option until the first generation of the Ram which debuted in 1981, being late to the towing party by a few years. However, the Ram had the advantage of being powered by the massively popular Cummins diesel engines.

Although other trucks from Japanese automakers like Nissan and Toyota are wildly popular today and have been for some time now, neither the full-size Toyota Tundra nor Nissan Titan (even the diesel models) were ever given a dually option (despite baseless rumors). For now, it seems like an American thing.

Nowadays, duallys can be seen pretty frequently. But 50 years ago, it was a specialty truck and bleeding edge technology when it came to hauling a lot of weight with a consumer-level truck.