I was passing a field in a semi-residential area last week and snapped a quick shot of this Chevy pickup and 1978-79 Monte Carlo. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized the truck was actually a GMC Sierra. But was it a Sierra Grande or Sierra Classic?
With this burning question in mind, I returned for a second look. It is in fact a Sierra Grande, which I think is a great name for a truck. Doesn’t it just roll off the tongue? Sierra Grande…I like it.
I really don’t remember seeing many GMC trucks around here until the mid-to-late ’80s models. Just what made a buyer choose a GMC over a Chevy truck in the ’70s?
This one proves they were available, if perhaps not as popular as the Chevrolet version. Judging from the high clearance, this one appears to be a 4×4. And check out those ’70s graphics!
I’m not sure when this stopped being so, but the reason one chose a GMC over a Chevy was that a GMC was heavier duty. Before the sbc a hot ticket for an engine swap was a GMC six with three two barrels. Torque in abundance. Another reason for selling them was that it gave the buick and pontiac dealers a truck to sell. Then it all changed.
Sometime while I was overseas in the Navy, GMC trucks started coming with chevy engines. For all I know they could have come off the same assembly line. For my money there is no difference.
By 1973 there was no difference whatsoever. They all had 4 bolt main motors, though. They were pretty tough units but prone to rust.
Was 1973 the last year for the big GMC V6s? I thought I had read about them being available at least into the mid-late 70s… though maybe it was just in the big commercial chassis stuff…
I think the only reason GMC has soldiered on, and largely succeeded, is probably because since they stopped being a unique product from Chevrolet sometime in the 70s – America’s demand for all types of trucks has also grown exponentially. The only difference I can tell now is that GMC has more upmarket stuff at the top end, while the lower priced trim levels seem exactly the same… and it appears the difference is getting less and less as time goes on. For example, before the dawn of the Escalade, the Yukon Denali was a very unique product for a few years… now you can get essentially the same thing from Chevrolet depending on what options are checked off.
…or does it make more sense to just say “GMC is the Oldsmobile of GM’s truck line” ??
I think the last year for the 305 cid big block V6 in a GMC was 68 or so at least for conventional light duty pickups, it was produced in displacements as big a 478cid, production of the GMC Big Six ended in 1978, there also was a 702cid “twin six” which was a V-12 based on the V6.
Its interesting to note that the original 1998 GMC Yukon Denali was spawned off a Cadillac design proposal for a full size luxury SUV, Cadillac could have beaten the Navigator to market, but they decided to pass on it, and GMC picked it up and the Denali was born, a little later Cadillac was screaming for a luxury suv after the Lincoln Navigator came out, which is why the first generation Escalade and Yukon Denali are virtually identical.
I remember an announcement from GM (about six months before the Navigator came out) that luxury trucks would be GMC’s, not Cadillac’s. Which was the first time in a long time that GM did something rational and intelligent in terms of brand differentation.
Then the Navigator came out. Guess how long that ‘intelligent decision’ lasted?
My dad had a 1973 GMC Sierra Grande as our work truck around our little hobby farm when I was a teenager. He bought it used around 1977 and it was still in perfect shape. The West Coast climate is easy on vehicles and this one had not yet succumbed to the rust problems these trucks were notorious for.
What struck me as a kid about this truck was the extremely plush cab fittings. It really nice nicely fitted out, with thick carpets and very good materials. That was the good; the bad was, being a half-ton, it had the horrid, first generation emission controls, which hobbled its performance. By the time I was 14 or so, I had read enough stuff to figure out how to disable them! With dad’s permission, I got eight manifold plugs, removed the air pump, ran the spark advance straight from the vacuum source and plugged the EGR. It transformed how the truck ran!. It was then a nice, 350 four barrel with THM 350, the best powertrain GM has even made in my opinion.
Another thing: Getting this truck started was always a pain in the butt. Dad didn’t drive it that much because he had his 1974 Corolla 1600 to bop around in and the truck loved to use gas. Getting it started and warm enough to run often took half and hour of idling. Looking back he should have put a block heater in it, even with our mild weather. This was not an HEI engine and that was probably the reason for the poor starting.
The main reason for the purchase of the truck was to haul firewood that we were poaching illegally off of Crown land. By 1979 or so, I was getting much less interested in falling, bucking, splitting and loading wood while dad watched. I was starting to work a lot a job that actually paid for my labour, so the heating the house with wood thing suddenly ended when Dad realised his free labour source was gone. He then (quite correctly) rationalised that it was in fact much cheaper to either heat the house with oil or buy wood instead of maintaining a truck.
Used car prices in Canuckistan where surprisingly high in those days as easy financing was unheard of and the Canuckistani Peso was not that strong. In addition, our incomes were something like two thirds of the USA at the time (how times change). Anyway, Dad then decided instead of having two vehicles he would splurge and get One Good One. He factory ordered (on my recommendation!) a 1979 Impala with F-41, 3.08 rear end with posi, 350 cid V-8 and a/c, the first time he’d ever had it. In fact, it was his first passenger car with power steering and brakes! The total price less tax was, and I still remember this, of $8248. The truck went for $2500 and the Corolla $2000 so he had a more than 50% down payment, rather important in those days when we had 14% interest rates on loans.
And after that, he never had a truck again.The Impala stayed with him for five years, when he decided it was too hard on gas and bought a 1984 Jetta GL turbo-diesel for like $15,000, ostentatiously to save money!
Dad loved cars!
The carbs on those had plugs on the bottom of the float bowl that would slowly leak out fuel. It took a bit of cranking to fill the carb after the thing sat for a while.
Looks like a Sierra Madre to me… better call Humphrey Bogart.
We don’t need no stinking rust patches!
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In Illinois farm country it was more common to find GMC truck dealers than Chevy dealers. When I was growing up I remember going to visit Grandma out in Sycamore(20 years before it went and turned into a college town), there was a Buick store, a Ford truck (no cars at all!) dealer and GMC dealer all within walking distance of downtown.
Reminds me of Alberta and Saskatchewan today. At the Ford, Chevy and Chrysler stores (no ferrin’ stuff allowed, along with poufters, of course) you’ll see 90% trucks, 5% minivans and one car!
Except for all the Hyundais and Kias.
Ford and GMC only stores are kinda strange holdouts from another era, down in Fla we have an all truck GMC medium duty and a light and medium duty Ford dealerships by the airport, no cars, just trucks and there is an “only GMC” dealer up in Ft Lauderdale too.
Weirdest combo I’ve ever seen is a dualed Chevrolet -GMC store….why?
GMC was for BOP dealers in small towns to have a truck to sell. It’s supposedly always been the ‘Buick of trucks’*, but to me just a rebadged Chevy.
* Or Olds, Pontiac, Cadillac, whatever grille/tail style floats your boat.
I prefer the GMC styling of every year that Chevy and GMC have been in production together and based off the same platforms. Heck I prefer the GMC styling over the silly Cadillac “trucks” that correspond. If I bought a Chevy Avalanche I would have to change the front clip to GMC.
“Just what made a buyer choose a GMC over a Chevy truck in the ’70s?”
I don’t know overall, but for a year or two in the mid-70’s, if it had large decals on the rear sides of the bed that read “Gentleman Jim”, you could’ve signed me up! That was a nice trim package.
Also, that burnt-orange color was really sharp and they must have gotten a sweet deal on the paint color, because I couldn’t count all the Chevys and GMCs that used it, seemingly more than any other color at the time.
The burnt orange hides the rust better, dontchaknow…
The Gentleman Jim, Beau James and Desert Fox type trucks/utilites were special edition trucks that GMC made in the 70’s to try to establish that they were different from Chevrolet, even though they were forced to use essentially the same truck design, GMC at least tried to offer some specialtly type trucks that you normally couldn’t get at a Chevroet dealer, not tom mention GMC’s unique FWD motorhomes that GMC was selling at the time too.
Heres a Desert Fox Jimmy.
My great-grandfather got one in rural Tennessee in the late ’60s because the GMC dealer (a very small one, a converted gas station that sold only GMCs–and when did you last see that?) was closer than the Chevy dealer. (His was a ’69, “hospital” green, with no A/C, no power anything, and no radio–a true farm work truck.)
In Canada GMCs sell at about the same level as Chevrolets. Just another little quirk of dealer distribution and less brand adherence.
“Sierra Grande”
You sure that isn’t the newest taco or burrito at Taco Bell?
James “Rocky” Rockford, Jim’s Dad, drove a nicely modified steel gray/maroon GMC 4×4 regular cab short bed from 1974 up through the made for TV movies….that’s enough reason to buy a GMC over the Chevy in my book!
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Oh, and don’t forget The Fall Guy!
I remember reading or seeing an ad for a fairly current GMC and it was marketing the GMC trucks as heavy duty work trucks with extra outlets, a generator etc to help bring the power to one’s power tools and such. This was about a couple of years or so ago now.
I know that for a long while, at least through the 1960’s, GMC trucks had the quad headlights and a slightly different grill, the Chevy trucks had the dual head lights and a different grill, but were identical in every way, up through 1972. The 1973-81 bodies were more or less identical and I think the 82 on up had some differences between GMC and Chevy, in at least the grill, and perhaps elsewhere but were identical otherwise.
That much I DO know.
Good family friends once had a green ’68 GMC truck, 3spd manual (on the floor), AM radio and not much else and it was I think half ton that we’d borrow on occasion to do a major dump run, some ex inlaws had a ’65 Chevy 3/4 ton truck, with an automatic that we’d also sometimes borrow and my best friend for a couple of years or so had a 62 GMC truck, a regular quarter ton truck that he bought in the mid to late 1990’s. It was primered when bought it and had it sprayed at I think Earl Scheib in a bright aqua blue and it had (when he bought it) later dog dish hubcaps, I think from the 70’s on the rims and it was a 3speed manual, originally on the tree but converted to a floor shifter.
I remember an outing we had in it whereby it began to cook the battery and died a mile or so down past a small town where we’d stopped for gas and ended up being towed into Enumclaw late on Saturday during the summer of 1997 and got stranded until we could get picked up by some family members of his. By the time we got to his parent’s house to borrow his dad’s car to get back to Seattle, it was after 10pm and I don’t think we got home before midnight. Fun times!
A retired friend bought a maroon and white Sierra Grande with duals and a 454. He tried having the differential gears replaced, to the tune of $500, to improve the fuel economy, to no avail. He hauled a fifth wheel and later a huge truck camper, and the truck took him back and forth across the country for nearly 20 years.
And yes, Sierra Grande is one of the best vehicle model names ever, in my opinion.
I have a 2011 Silverado LT “Florida Edition”. I too prefer the GMC front end to the Chevy. But when I bought mine Chevy was more willing to deal. I like the local Chevy dealers free oil changes for life program as well, If you look closely, the current Chevy and GMC’s fenders and bed are different as well. The “blisters” in the fenders have a different shape.
As a LONG time F150 driver, I have to say, the level of customer service from my local Chevy dealer is night and day compared to Ford. Darn near Lexus level. Are you listening Ford Motor Company? I left you after a several year relationship due to your BS no loaner car policy.
Out of curiosity, whats the name of the Chevrolet dealer?
Attached are two views of my ’73 Chev Deluxe bought off the original owner. It is a bare bones 6, with no discernable options, and I had to add the rear bumper after I got it. The addition of a Pertronix ignition really improved the drivability, and it averages around 20 miles per Imperial gallon, which is reasonable for a parts chaser. The original bill of sale showed $3300 out the door, including licensing, taxes, and ownership transfer.
2nd view
She’s purty. That’s my favorite style rear bumper. The first truck I ever rode in was my dad’s rusty ’73-5 Custom Deluxe — the same color as yours. I was probably only 8 or 9 years old but I really liked it. I remember it was a 350/automatic. Unfortunately I never grew up and there’s eight of these dudes lounging around my house in various flavors: Cheyenne, Custom Deluxe, High Sierra, Sierra Classic, & Silverado. Oh..there’s a rusted out GMC Suburban out back too.
Interesting that GMC actually called their version the ‘Suburban’ instead of making up their own name.
Carmine it is Rosner Chevrolet in Melbourne FL
I’ve always liked GMC’s styling better, including the current models.