Model History and Information: The forty-foot box is the workhorse of world trade. Containerisation began in 1956, when Malcolm McLean loaded fifty-eight truck trailers onto a converted tanker and cut the cost of loading cargo from several dollars a ton to a few cents, but the early years were chaotic: boxes came in twenty-four, twenty-seven, thirty-three and thirty-five foot lengths. The International Organization for Standardization settled the matter with ISO 668 in 1968, fixing twenty and forty feet as the standard lengths. Forty feet was the longest that could move by road in most countries without special permits.
