[blucar]

Through the years I have noted a very strange difference between Ford and GM pickup bed floors. Ford favored steel decks on the majority of their pickup beds throughout the product line, whereas GM was a diehard with wood decks until about 1968 when GM started to offer pickup beds with either wood or steel.
The reputed reason why GM preferred wood decks was that the wood decks held up better in farming applications than steel. Steel decks are very slippery when wet, especially when they are wet with body waste products.
Ford made the claim on many occasions that he attributed much of Fords success to the number of Ford products purchased by the American farmers.

It is a known fact that large animals stomping around on a steel deck will bend the deck, whereas wood will not bend under the same load.
I guess the material used on the deck of a pickup box is not what the customer wanted, more of a case as to what H. Ford wanted,