Well, it is now officially fall, and it’s definitely starting to look like it, at least around here . In Alberta we don’t get too many reds, but lots of yellows and oranges. In keeping with this theme, here’s a rather fall-colored GMC 1500 truck I came across–and it looks to be a working example rather than a pampered restoration.
This generation of GMC pickups were built in the same factories as their Chevrolet siblings, but with a unique grille that maintained their GMC identity. While the Chevrolets sported a different grille every couple of years, GMC simply kept the same basic grille theme with subtle tweaks. Those on this grill indicate that this is either a 1969 or 1970 model. A helpful fender badge tells us this one has a V8 engine under the hood. The 1500 trim and six-bolt wheels denote the half-ton version.
This generation of the C/K series reflected GM’s new emphasis on comfort. This example is a base-trim 1500, but GMC also offered a plusher Sierra trim level. Even on lighter-duty two-wheel drive Chevrolet pickups, rear coil springs came standard and harder-riding leaf springs were optional. At GMC, the opposite was true. Back then, people thought of GMC as more of a work truck, so with GMC models the leaves were standard and coils optional.
I, at 46, have yet to see a GMC of this vintage with rear coils.
I never really paid much attention to the grille on these trucks before, and they’re an uncommon sight in the rustbelt today. When I saw these pics the first thing I thought was “Dodge grille”. Dodge has used the crosshair grille design since 1986.
When I first got the modified Dodge pickup shown here, I arrived at a 300 Club meeting, and the first guy who saw it wondered if it was a GMC!
That is way cool.
Back before political correctness and corporate greed commenced the slide into the depths of despair for many folks who used to revel in the new model offerings in the fall of each year and mighty Mopars roamed the roads shaming the wannabe’ competitors with their bow-ties, Indian heads, 3 holes in the fenders and those Found On The Road Dead.
Yeah.
All that.
Those were the days…when trucks were TRUCKS; and girls were clean and soft…cuddly…endearingly clad in short-short skirts with something silk and clean underneath…
When you could afford either, on almost any sort of steady work.
> When you could afford either, on almost any sort of steady work.
Live the Dream, my friend. I hear those days are now long past, even in America. Not that I’d know. Those days never existed here.
Overloded on government; and government bureaucrats.
That’s all I will say.
Weren’t the 1500 series known as “910” north of the border?
I believe this was the earlier ones.