royal sport service body
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You can always make your own service body custom.
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Neither. I'm pretty sure they were made for a chassis cab only. The shortest cab-to-axle (CA) distance available on a Ford chassis cab is 60", or just a few inches longer than a longbed pickup. So I suspect any you see will look like a longbed.
Trying to put a pickup bed on a chassis cab is a chore, but doable. But trying to put a body made for a chassis cab frame on a pickup frame would be a real challenge.
The Royal Sport bodies were made by Royal Truck Body, which is still in business making other types of truck bodies. But they stopped making and selling the Royal Sport several years ago.
Royal Truck Body
For those who don't have a clue as to what is a Royal Sport body, think of something that from a distance looks like a pickup bed, but with hinged doors covering all sorts of cubby holes accessable from outside the bed. Sort of a highly styled service body, but not nearly as much storage space as the typical service body. Here's one on an F-550:
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Royal Sport Truck Body - Fits Dually Truck in California, United States (IronPlanet Item #314628)
Your prayers have been answered. Here is a link to one up for sale. It should fit an F-450 or F-550 chasis cab with distance from back of cab to center of rear axle 60".
Your prayers have been answered. Here is a link to one up for sale. It should fit an F-450 or F-550 chasis cab with distance from back of cab to center of rear axle 60".
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18,824 Posts
It will fit any chassis cab dually that has a 60" CA, including Ram and GM as well as F-350 DRW. It won't fit on a SuperDuty pickup, which has a CA of 56.3"
Wow... that white Royal Sport Dually Utility bed finally sold... exactly 90 days after Don posted the link above... for $5,500.00 USED. Wow. Just wow. That bed was 11 or 12 years old too, based on the 3 digit serial number. And there were 3 bids on it.
It's an expensive bed. It was up to $8,999.00 when brand new. This particular copy at auction was actually in superior condition. Judging by the auctions location (California) and the license plate on the bed (California), that bed lived all it's life in California, which explains the excellent condition. THat and owner maintenance.
According to one of the former designers of those beds, many of the Royal Sport utility bodys that were shipped to the east coast were sent by truck or rail car primed but unpainted. They were manufactured by Royal Truck Body in Paramount CA, and shipped to various cooperatives of ABC Body, including a location near the Kentucky Truck Plant. This was during the period of time when ABC Body Co had the almost exclusive right to sell this Ford pool upfit through the Ford dealership network. Royal was not handling the sales directly.
The idea of shipping unsold inventory for staging across country was to reduce the time to order fulfilment, but still have the flexibility to paint to match. That was the whole point... for the utility functionality to look as seamless and as contoured as a factory pick up bed... so they couldn't all be white... they had to be in the various colors the cabs were ordered in. The east coast body's were stored outdoors, and painted to match the chassis cab when the customer placed the order. Rust had already begun to form on the skins by the time they were painted. The beds got a bad rap from this mistake. Many rusted carcasses resulted in short order.
However, as the images on that auction show, and as my own Royal bed confirms, the beds that were initially sold to the west coast, and in particular in California, were built to order, when ordered, and then painted immediately. I wonder if the lucky buyer of this auction (someone in Oregon) knew the significance of that California license plate that lingered on the chrome bumper of that bed.
Speaking of bumpers, that chrome rear bumper itself is unusual on two counts... 1) like all the bumpers for the Royal Sport dually... it is about 8 inches wider than the stock Super Duty bumper. A stock Super Duty pick up bed tapers inward from front to rear by about 8 inches. The Royal Sport Dually bed does NOT taper, so as to maintain interior space in the rearmost cabinets. Unlike the Ford pick up bed, the Royal Sculpted beds maintain full cab width from front to rear. Hence the need for a wider bumper. So that was another bonus to that auction, because you can't get a wide contoured bumper anymore. Royal doesn't have em.
The second unique feature of that bumper is that it is chrome. Most of the Royal wide bumpers were black. The earliest versions were actually regular width pickup bumpers with cast aluminum extensions on both ends. The later version widened the contour stamping to eliminate the need for the extension castings. I have both versions, and actually like the look of the castings better.
Not sure that one can build one for less than the $5,500. that used one sold for. The doors are all double walled, with about 1.5 inches of insulated space between the inner wall and outer wall of the doors. The sheet metal is thicker than the factory door skins, and thicker still on the bed plate, and thicker still on the cross sills, and thicker still on the stiffeners. It is a lot more than slicing up the skin of a pickup bed and adding hinges, locks, gas struts, a box structure, sculpted corners, and lids.
But it would be very cool to see it done again. I've often thought of where and how the limosine coach builders stretch the Excursions a block long. Where ever and however they get the long lengths of sheet metal that matches the contour of the Super Duty line would be a good place to start for material.
Royal Sport Truck Body - Fits Dually Truck in California, United States (IronPlanet Item #314628)
It's an expensive bed. It was up to $8,999.00 when brand new. This particular copy at auction was actually in superior condition. Judging by the auctions location (California) and the license plate on the bed (California), that bed lived all it's life in California, which explains the excellent condition. THat and owner maintenance.
According to one of the former designers of those beds, many of the Royal Sport utility bodys that were shipped to the east coast were sent by truck or rail car primed but unpainted. They were manufactured by Royal Truck Body in Paramount CA, and shipped to various cooperatives of ABC Body, including a location near the Kentucky Truck Plant. This was during the period of time when ABC Body Co had the almost exclusive right to sell this Ford pool upfit through the Ford dealership network. Royal was not handling the sales directly.
The idea of shipping unsold inventory for staging across country was to reduce the time to order fulfilment, but still have the flexibility to paint to match. That was the whole point... for the utility functionality to look as seamless and as contoured as a factory pick up bed... so they couldn't all be white... they had to be in the various colors the cabs were ordered in. The east coast body's were stored outdoors, and painted to match the chassis cab when the customer placed the order. Rust had already begun to form on the skins by the time they were painted. The beds got a bad rap from this mistake. Many rusted carcasses resulted in short order.
However, as the images on that auction show, and as my own Royal bed confirms, the beds that were initially sold to the west coast, and in particular in California, were built to order, when ordered, and then painted immediately. I wonder if the lucky buyer of this auction (someone in Oregon) knew the significance of that California license plate that lingered on the chrome bumper of that bed.
Speaking of bumpers, that chrome rear bumper itself is unusual on two counts... 1) like all the bumpers for the Royal Sport dually... it is about 8 inches wider than the stock Super Duty bumper. A stock Super Duty pick up bed tapers inward from front to rear by about 8 inches. The Royal Sport Dually bed does NOT taper, so as to maintain interior space in the rearmost cabinets. Unlike the Ford pick up bed, the Royal Sculpted beds maintain full cab width from front to rear. Hence the need for a wider bumper. So that was another bonus to that auction, because you can't get a wide contoured bumper anymore. Royal doesn't have em.
The second unique feature of that bumper is that it is chrome. Most of the Royal wide bumpers were black. The earliest versions were actually regular width pickup bumpers with cast aluminum extensions on both ends. The later version widened the contour stamping to eliminate the need for the extension castings. I have both versions, and actually like the look of the castings better.
Not sure that one can build one for less than the $5,500. that used one sold for. The doors are all double walled, with about 1.5 inches of insulated space between the inner wall and outer wall of the doors. The sheet metal is thicker than the factory door skins, and thicker still on the bed plate, and thicker still on the cross sills, and thicker still on the stiffeners. It is a lot more than slicing up the skin of a pickup bed and adding hinges, locks, gas struts, a box structure, sculpted corners, and lids.
But it would be very cool to see it done again. I've often thought of where and how the limosine coach builders stretch the Excursions a block long. Where ever and however they get the long lengths of sheet metal that matches the contour of the Super Duty line would be a good place to start for material.
Royal Sport Truck Body - Fits Dually Truck in California, United States (IronPlanet Item #314628)
I just started working at a company that makes service bodies. We are making them for chassis/cabs and for bed deletes. custom lengths are no problem.
I am doing research today to figure the best way to weld the under side of our frame rail setup. I am guessing a rotisserie is the way to go.
I am doing research today to figure the best way to weld the under side of our frame rail setup. I am guessing a rotisserie is the way to go.
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