For a moment upon seeing this 1972-ish Chevrolet 3/4 ton with Colorado plates, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was an intrepid CC reader heading to the meet-up in Detroit.
It wasn’t.
Whoever this adventuresome soul is, he was prepared for anything. With a bed full of tools and a gas-powered generator, he was equipped to do nearly any repair on his old Chevrolet. But something tells me that fine-looking Chevrolet got to wherever it was going with nary a hiccup.
These are likely a rare sight on the Interstates these days.
Are those wheelcovers from a Ford truck out of the early 80s? It is hard to tell, but those don’t look like any Chevy/GMC parts I am familiar with.
Yep, those hubcaps are from a Ford.
Definitely not GM wheel covers but macht nichts, it is still a handsome truck. It wears its 40+ years of patina well.
I remember when we saw that guy, it put into perspective for us just how few actually “old” cars we saw in the rural areas between large metropolitan ones and how much they stood out. Very few people rely on older cars for longer distances away from home.
I noticed that he has the window open and elbow out, because that was a very hot weekend and I was sweating away in my VW heading for Detroit.
Window open, elbow out and a long-sleeved shirt!
Those side marker lights indicate to me that this is a GMC pickup. At least the way I remember it. Could be wrong. Been a while.
It is a Chevy truck
If you look closely at the tailgate it says Chevrolet. It is faded but you can still see the stamped letters.
There are two GM trucks of this vintage around the corner from my house. Firstly, a very original looking and in rather good condition for its age turquoise GMC Custom Camper, which the family that lives there has had for years. Then over the holidays a red early 1970s Chevy pickup showed up. The Chevy has bigger wheels than the other and looks to be four-wheel-drive. I don’t know enough about these trucks to know if it’s been modified or if GM offered a factory 4×4 with bigger wheels back then.
I think those lights were on both Chvy and GMC, depending on year. The truck appears to be a ‘Longhorn’ 8.5′ bed model. Those usually have a Dana rear axle with leaf springs, most of the Chevys these years had an Eaton axle with coil springs.
I’ve pondered why the trucks used both Spicer (Dana) and GM’s own (HO72 type) axle without obvious rhyme nor reason to the choice.
My speculation is that it was either for the Spicer’s wider range of ratio options (the GM carrier only offered a few choices) or Spicer’s “posi” unit. It seems like many (maybe all?) GM trucks equipped with Spicer axle had a posi differential.
Maybe the Spicer rear use started as a necessity to sync Spicer 4×4 front diffs of ratios that were not covered by the GM-built rear axle?
In ’67, GMC used Spicer and Chevy used Corporate or Eaton rear axles. Except for their panels and Suburbans, GMC had leaf springs in the rear, Chevy had trailing arms and coils. In later years, coils became optional on GMC’s, leafs became optional on Chevy’s. Rule of thumb was leaf spring Spicer, coil spring Corporate or Eaton. As near as I can figure, that seems to have been GM’s intent, but there were exceptions. I did once see a 3/4 ton Chevy with a Spicer 60 and coil springs, so maybe there were some supply issues from time to time. ’67-’72, all 4X4’s used Spicer 44 front axles, but many Chevy 4X4’s had Corporate or Eaton rears.
Yes, many of these trucks with Spicer rear axles had ‘posi’, my ’67 GMC included.