All-American
Trucks
Thirty-one years. Thirty-one trucks. A die-cast metal parade of the most iconic American pickups, car-trucks, and off-road vehicles ever built — from the 1956 Ford F-100 to the 1995 Ford SVT Lightning, every one with turning wheels, holiday cargo in the bed, and the authority of "The Car Guy" behind the sculpt.
The Car Guy and the Gap He Saw Coming
When Don Palmiter moved to Hallmark's Keepsake Ornament division in 1987, he noticed something immediately: there were very few men among the avid ornament enthusiasts, and nothing masculine in the offering. He began to wonder what men would be enthusiastic enough about to start collecting — and looked no further than his own first love: cars. He had first gotten behind the wheel of his brother's pedal car at age 2 — a 1948 Steel Craft Pontiac station wagon, burgundy with cream trim, a detail he recalls with the warmth and emotion usually reserved for describing an old flame. That devotion to automotive specificity became his professional signature. He earned the reputation around Hallmark and with ornament enthusiasts as "The Car Guy," and the All-American Trucks series is the clearest expression of that identity: thirty-one die-cast metal trucks, each one a specific model from a specific year, each one researched and sculpted by the man who has loved cars since he was two years old.
The series launched in 1995 with the 1956 Ford F-100 — a truck with front and rear license plates dated 1956 and 1995 respectively, marking both the model year and the ornament year, with turning wheels and Christmas trees in the bed. The debut established the series' format and its audience: truck enthusiasts, automotive historians, and collectors who had been waiting for a Keepsake series that spoke to them specifically. The series has not disappointed in thirty-one consecutive years.
"I want the series to have a variety. I don't want it all to be the same kind of pickup."
— Don Palmiter, on the deliberate curatorial range of the All-American Trucks series
1956 Ford F-100 #1 (1995) · 1957 Dodge Sweptside #5 (1999) · 1959 Chevrolet El Camino #7 (2001)
Don Palmiter — The Car Guy at Hallmark
Don Palmiter's automotive obsession began at age 2, behind the wheel of a pedal car, and has never fully resolved into anything less than a career-defining passion. He joined Hallmark in 1967, one week after graduation, producing and embossing greeting cards. By the mid-1970s, he had moved to sculpting. In 1987, he made the jump to Keepsake Ornaments — and immediately identified the gap: nothing masculine in the catalog, no series for the men who would enthusiastically collect if the subject matched their interests. His solution was the Classic American Cars series, then the All-American Trucks series, both born from his own lifelong love of American vehicles.
The 1959 Chevrolet El Camino box copy, preserved by The Henry Ford museum, shows Palmiter's approach to each truck: "Proudly introduced as the 'handsomest thing that ever happened to hauling,' the 1959 Chevrolet El Camino combined the dramatic styling of a passenger car with the cargo capacity of a pickup. Long, sweeping lines, accented by a bright chrome strip running from the front fenders to the gullwing fins, gave the 'Elky' the appearance of being in motion while it was standing still." He doesn't just sculpt trucks; he writes their histories with the fluency of someone who knows exactly why each one matters and what made it different from everything that came before it.
1995 Ford SVT Lightning — 2025 (#31)
The 2025 All-American Trucks entry is the series at its most self-aware: the 1995 Ford SVT Lightning, chosen specifically because 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of that truck's model year — and because 1995 was also the year the All-American Trucks series launched. Die-cast metal in classic white, with turning wheels and a bottlebrush Christmas tree in the bed. The front license plate reads 1995; the rear plate reads 2025. The series' 31st entry is simultaneously a tribute to a specific truck and a quiet birthday celebration for thirty years of collecting.
Shop the 1995 Ford SVT Lightning — 31st Entry →The Truck That Every American Has a Story About
The All-American Trucks series works because trucks are not just vehicles in American culture — they are identities, inheritances, memories. The series features a deliberate range of what "truck" means: classic pickups (1956 Ford F-100, 1953 GMC, 1948 Ford F-1, 1940 Ford Pickup), car-trucks (1959 Chevrolet El Camino, 1957 Ford Ranchero, 1968 Ford Ranchero GT, 1970 Chevrolet El Camino SS), performance trucks (1979 Dodge Li'l Red Express, 2003 Chevrolet Silverado SS), and specialty vehicles (1970 Ford Bronco, 1982 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler, 2004 Chevrolet SSR). The series spans model years from 1936 to 2004, covering seven decades of American automotive truck design.
Palmiter stated his curatorial philosophy directly: "I want the series to have a variety. I don't want it all to be the same kind of pickup." The El Camino and Ranchero entries reflect that commitment — they are not rugged work trucks but car-trucks, vehicles designed for a different kind of American life, more finessed than functional. The 1982 Jeep CJ-8 Scrambler takes the series off-road entirely. The 2004 Chevrolet SSR is a retro-styled convertible truck that barely looks real. Every year, the definition of "truck" is stretched a little differently, and every year the fleet gets more interesting for it.
Each ornament is die-cast metal — the same material used in high-quality model cars. The wheels turn. The beds carry Christmas trees and presents. The dual license plates — one for the model year, one for the ornament year — make each entry a time capsule of two different moments in automotive and ornament history. Thirty-one trucks, thirty-one time capsules, all parked and ready.
Tips for the Collection
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01Display by make for a brand-loyal arrangement — or mix for maximum variety. With 14 Fords, 12 Chevrolets/GMCs, 4 Dodges, 1 Jeep, and 1 Mercury across the 31-entry fleet, brand-organized display creates three distinct sub-collections. Alternatively, chronological display by model year (not ornament year) creates the most visually interesting arrangement: the 1936 GMC next to the 1937 Ford V-8, progressing through the decades to the 2004 Chevrolet SSR.
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02The 1995 Ford F-100 #1 is the series' founding entry and most historically important truck. The debut established the dual license plate format (model year front, ornament year rear) and the die-cast metal construction with turning wheels that has defined every subsequent entry. It is the truck that told collectors in 1995 that something worth collecting had just arrived.
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03The El Camino and Ranchero entries are the series' most unexpected vehicles. Don Palmiter's insistence on variety brought two entries of each "car-truck" type into the fleet — the 1959 El Camino (#7), the 1957 Ranchero (#8), the 1970 El Camino SS (#17), and the 1968 Ranchero GT (#20). These four entries are the ones that most reward the collector who knows why they were included: not just to fill slots, but to capture a specific chapter of American automotive history that a pure pickup-truck series would have missed entirely.
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04The 2025 Ford SVT Lightning #31 is the series' most self-referential entry. The 30th anniversary of the 1995 model year — the same year the series launched — makes the 2025 entry a quiet birthday ornament for the fleet itself. The front plate reads 1995; the rear reads 2025. No other entry in the collection performs that kind of double-temporal elegance.
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05All 31 trucks, 1995 through 2025, are at Already Christmas. The complete fleet — from the first F-100 to the SVT Lightning — is in the collection. The 32nd truck has not been announced. The lot has space.
Every All-American Truck — 1995 to 2025
Die-cast metal. Wheels turn. Christmas trees in the bed. Click any truck to shop.
A 1956 Ford F-100 in 1995 — the truck that started it all, with a 1956 license plate on the front and a 1995 plate on the back, wheels turning, Christmas tree in the bed. Then the 1955 Chevrolet Cameo. The 1953 GMC. The 1937 Ford V-8. The El Caminos. The Rancheros. The Bronco. The Scrambler. Thirty-one trucks, die-cast metal, thirty-one consecutive Decembers of American iron on the Christmas tree.
The lot is full. All thirty-one here.
✦ Part of our Series: Hallmark Keepsake Official Series, Explored ✦