I had been awake for close to twenty-four hours when my flight from JFK in NYC landed at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Even though eight hours is a long time to be on a flight, and though I remember having dozed briefly a few times, both the anxiety and excitement (what a combination) of my first international journey to Italy had me playing a whole lot of video poker, the airline software’s version of “Trivial Pursuit”, and Mah Jongg Solitaire. Nevertheless, the sequence of landing at the airport, going through customs, exchanging U.S. dollars for Euros, and finally standing outside the airport waiting for a taxi left me feeling giddy with both joy and exhaustion.
After dropping everything off at the hotel (there was no way I was going to be able to sleep, as it was early morning in Rome and the golden sunlight dazzled against every gorgeous building and structure we passed in our taxi), my companion and I took a stroll down to the nearby Viale Giulio Cesare (Avenue of Julius Ceasar), which has a mixture of shops, restaurants, bars and pop-up vendor kiosks on the sidewalks. Much (though not all) of it seemed geared toward tourists, but we didn’t care. We were tourists, after all! We were also just happy to be off that plane and standing on Italian soil, with a week’s worth of adventures still ahead of us.
Literally within hours of being in Rome, this Blazer happened… a straight-up American, Chevy SUV that looked, save for the side marker lights on the front fenders, like it could have been double-parked just the week before on the side streets of my northside Chicago neighborhood. The height. Those rims. The flares over the wheel arches. Part of me wanted there to be a custom plate out back that said something like “MURICA” to complete the package.
Okay… maybe I didn’t actually want that, but it would have seemed in character with a vehicle that didn’t exactly blend in with its chic, European surroundings. For the record, I do like these Blazers, the four-door versions of which first appeared when I was in high school. I’d consider these a stylistic “Greatest Hit” for GM from the Irv Rybicki era.
I love being an American, and I love many things about being an American. At the same time and while packing clothes for this trip, I was trying to bring items that would help me blend in a little bit more with some of the better-dressed Italians. I wasn’t aiming for GQ or anything, but I wanted to look a little less obviously like an American tourist and also pay homage to the styles of the iconic city we would be exploring.
With that said, I found it a bit ironic that one of the most American-looking examples of a very American type of vehicle announced itself almost immediately after we set foot on the sidewalks of Rome. It’s like this Blazer was reminding me never to forget where I really come from: Chevy-town, also known as Flint, Michigan. So blue Blazer, I say to you, thank you for keeping it real while on soil that was foreign to you. You served as a timely reminder to me to do the same while also respectfully experiencing one of the best vacations of my life. And maybe I was wrong – your gold bow-tie has more than enough class for the streets of Rome.
Rome, Italy.
Saturday, November 11, 2017.
Wow, what a find indeed and I wonder if it actually is a capable offroader as much as it looks? Enjoy your holiday.
Yes they’re pretty decent, perfectly comparable to their contemporaries at the time. This retro Motorweek comparison test is pretty informative:
youtu.be/yaR_D49V6A0
That’s an awesome sighting! We were there in 2014, and saw a lot of Chrysler minivans, 300’s badged as Lancias, and Grand Cherokees. It is great car spotting! We also rented a Fiat 500L and drove from Rome to Paris with many stops along the way. Maybe I need to write that up for CC……
Most if not all Chrysler minivans, 300’s, and Jeeps for the European market are assembled from CKD kits in the factories of Magna Steyr in Austria. It’s a real global business, this…
We get our Chrysler products from Europe probably UK market versions as theyre RHD.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with the 500L… Do it!
+1 Importamation – yes, please. That would be awesome.
I used to make fairly regular trips to Italy to support the USS Mount Whitney in Gaeta. One of the Sailors there, a Chief Electronics Technician, brought over and drove daily his early 2000s F250 extra cab long bed 4X4.
I’m sure there were places he never drove that vehicle. I imagine it was *most of them*.
And Chrysler minivans were surprisingly popular, and nearly all were diesel stickshift.
Good luck with that F-250 on the streets of a Rome. On my visit there a few years back I was amazed how narrow most of the centuries old streets were. Street parking also at a premium. Gasoline was around $5.50 a gallon. Aside from the occasional Mercedes, I never saw anything larger than a Honda Civic.
I was also surprised at the proliferation of stick shifts in Europe. Recall seeing a late model S class pulling up at the hotel a few feet from where I was standing. When the drivers door opened, lo and behold there was a clutch pedal. Didn’t know a manual trans was available in an S class, even in Euro trim.
Stick shifts are…well…standard…in Europe. If you rent a car, you usually have to ask for an automatic.
And if you buy your gas (or diesel) at the Navy base, it doesn’t cost nearly as much as out in town.
In Rome or In Gaeta, the local roads are tight. However, it’s all highway between them, and nice ones at that. Not altogether too different than Interstate (autostrada) and regular highways in the USA.
Translating Euro’s to dollars and liters to gallons, gas in Roma is approximately $6.86 a gallon today. As alluded to above, lets hope the owner is associated with a US military base.
Wow, what a find! This one sits up a little higher than I remember these sitting, and those wheels don’t look familar to me. But then I am far from an expert on these. (Other than living in Central Indiana where these seemed to make up 15% of the local vehicle population once upon a time.)
The wheels are definitely aftermarket and it most certainly has a minor lift installed. Speaking of this first gen S10 Blazer and central Indiana, my friend’s father near Centerville torched his in the driveway while doing some rust-repair welding. Apparently a piece of carpet on the floorboard got hot enough and started to smolder after he finished working and walked away. Next thing you know, the whole truck is an inferno.
Glad to hear you had a great trip, Joe – welcome back.
Just as it’s interesting to see an American out of context, it’s fascinating to see a European in its native (sort of) habitat. In the last picture, the Smart car just ahead of the subject Blazer is parked perpendicular to the curb. That practice supposedly helped M-B set a target for total vehicle length.
No wonder: I saw a lot of [original] Fiat 500s parked that way when I visited Rome long ago.
Great post, Joseph. Excellent writing!
Those Smarts seem to be getting a little too cozy for the Blazer. It seems to be saying “Back off!” 😉
Thank you, Gentlemen!
I did actually see more than a few Smarts “perpendicular-parked”. It was after seeing the third or fourth example that it dawned on my why those cars make so much sense in that environment.
(PRNDL – too funny!)
“I wanted to look a little less obviously like an American tourist”
Good luck! We Americans dress like frumpy provincials compared to stylish Italians. It’s no wonder one often finds Italian items in formal men’s wear.
I tried to blend in when I visited Europe several decades ago, but was told my shoes, which were loafers, gave me away. Oh well! I was grateful to be confused for a Briton at one point.
Hahaha!! Neil, I actually think I acquitted myself decently from a sartorial perspective. Unlike some, I’m not afraid to wear clothes that actually fit me nicely and aren’t super-baggy.
It actually wasn’t all that hard to tell fellow Americans strictly from appearances: baseball caps, “True Religion”-style jeans with the white stitching, Dockers… These were just a few examples. I find none of these things bad in their own right, but they were in direct contrast to much of what other Europeans around us were wearing.
Oh… and I even saw a few fanny packs. I am not kidding. 🙂
Speaking of shoes, shouldn’t this Blazer be sporting Pierellis instead of BFGs?
(When in Rome, etc. etc. 😉 )
I consider these to be a shipping crate for a 4.3L V6.
’…for the side marker lights on the front fenders…‘
No, they are actually side turn signal repeaters as required in Italy and other European countries for decades.
Those repeaters in the photos are sourced from Lancia, meaming it‘s grey import, not sold through the GM Europe sales channel. Otherwise, S-10 Blazer would have Saab-sourced side turn signal repeaters and taillamps with reverse lamp modified for separate amber-coloured turn signal indicators.
Excellent – thank you for the clarification! Much appreciated.
Oliver’s right. And the later export versions had taillamps not so hastily kludged. Also note the rear-outlet tailpipe as required by various places’ regulations; even wagons and SUVs and other square-bodied vehicles don’t get American-style side-outlet tailspouts in Europe.
In Norway they did have the side-outlet tailspouts to recently I think. Just the amber turn signals and some other minor changes.
You made me remember my first trip to the U.S. I boarded a cab in Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. It was a brand-new ’00 Impala if I remember correctly…and had the start switch on the dash. Now, a trademark for American cars since my childhood had been that 69-on GMs and 70’s-on Fords and MoPars had their starting switches above the gearshift lever, which was located, as in any honest-to-god American vehicle, in the steering column. You can see foreigners may have looked up to a ’69 Chevy Biscayne as their aspirational car.
On my 2nd trip to Sicily, I was sent back to the U. S. on a change of orders via Rome, Italy. I never got out of the Rome airport, even though I had a near 6 hour layover, thanks to a bad case of dysentery. However, walking around the Rome airport I was somewhat surprised when I saw uniformed men with submachine-type guns walking a catwalk high above the crowd.
What’s so strange about that? It was 1975, not 2001.
Chevy, as some point, was selling S-10 Blazers alongside Corvettes in some markets of Europe. In the U. K. the Blazer was derided for having the steering wheel on the wrong side and for having a plasticy (?) interior. They liked the size, but unfortunately the price was barely competitive, and gas mileage was so-so. (I forget which engine was offered.)
Italy had a lot of violence in the 1970’s and 1980’s with the Mafia and the Leftists. There were a lot of bombings and kidnappings. The country is very safe now but 40 and 50 years ago it was a different story
Yeah, it was called Anni di piombo (Years of Lead) from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.
Dan, I did notice that in the airport and in various piazzas and other historic places I visited, I saw a substantial amount of military presence with what looked like semi-automatic weapons. At first it was jarring, but I soon came to see it as somewhat comforting.
I bet that Blazer, in Roman context, looks as big as the Colosseum.
Reminds me of 22 years ago when I watched from the window of my sister’s flat in Queensway, London as an ’86ish Chev Caprice wagon made something like a 77-point left turn down in the street below.
You see its bigger cousins Tahoe and Suburban pretty often here in Norway, weirdly enough it’s been ages since i saw a blazer though.