(first posted 5/12/2013) Suburbans are jacks of all trades, capable of playing so many varied roles. One like this taught me the valuable lessons of the limits of vehicle dynamics on winding country roads that others might have had in sports cars. Does that not define the name sport utility vehicle?
This body style was built from 1959 through 1966, and was the last to be built on the short wheelbase pickup chassis. In 1967, the Suburban migrated to the long-wheelbase frame, so it would be fair to say that these earlier short versions were really predecessors to the Tahoe.
These were popular utility vehicles at the time, in almost totally different use than today’s plush Suburban. The four wheel drive versions were quite uncommon, unlike today, as that necessitated a drastically jacked up body, a solid front axle, and very harsh springs. It was how lumberjacks were ferried into the wilds, not a passel of kids to school.
As is plain to see, the interiors back then were even more different from today’s Suburbans than the exteriors. Harsh steel almost everywhere. And only two doors.
If you had the three seat version, getting to the rear-most seat required a maneuver Marines are taught in boot camp. The right front seat flipped forward, and one crawled past it and beyond the reduced-width second seat to get to the back seat. No wonder kids weren’t obese; they had a workout every time they got in the Suburban.
I have fond memories of a Suburban just like this. I worked at a tiny corner gas station in Towson on weekends during my junior year in high school, and because of my illicit driving issues, I still didn’t have my license. But there was a Suburban just like this at the station, used for parts and customer hauling. Out of desperation to keep my skills up, I would go back on Saturday nights and take the Suburban out for extended drives in the country, or whatever else was on the agenda.
It had the 250 six and the three-speed manual on the column. This was during the typical teen aged hating-on-stupid-sixes era, when visions of hemis and 427s danced in one’s head. But I was pleasantly surprised; with its fairly low (high numerically) gearing, the well-tuned six was brisker than I expected. And this was a fairly light vehicle. Obviously not fast, but it had a certain willingness that I hadn’t expected in a six. The trick to sixes back then was to avoid the slushboxes.
Anyway, I spent many a Saturday night probing the limits of the Suburban on the winding back roads of Northern Baltimore County. Good experience, and many lessons learned! The skinny little tires’ limit of adhesion was readily explored, the big (unassisted) steering wheel needed lots of flaying, and it had huge amounts of play. It probably replicated what GP racers dealt with in the early part of the 20th century. One just had to use a little imagination, which was never a problem for me.
Inevitably, I got caught, when a customer saw me and snitched to the owner. He had no choice but to fire me. But what I learned hanging on to that steering wheel for dear life was worth the humiliation in the end.
I can so vividly picture such a Suburban being flogged around on winding roads. Perhaps this is part of your fondness for straight sixes?
Yes, along with my Dad’s 170 inch stripper Dart. That was fun to flog on those back roads too, except it had a wretched hole between second and third gear. It desperately needed a four-speed, since the little 170 /6 liked to rev, but was a bit weak on the low-end torque. On the kind of hilly/windy roads I bombed around on, I was constantly looking for that missing cog between 2 and 3.
A nice grunty six is a beautiful thing something that revs out ignores the hole between 2nd and 3rd, my 3.3 B Vauxhall would pull past 80mph in 2nd drop it into top then and it just kept going the speedo ended before it stopped accelerating, awesome cars
1964 was also the first year for Chevrolet pick-up trucks without the “dogleg” pillar and wraparound windshield. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=351107
http://www.pickuptrucks.com/html/history/chev_segment7.html
Yes – I worked extensively with a 1963, as an eighteen-year-old. Always liked Chevy trucks of this era; but the no-nonsense crisp lines of the 1952-66 models, looked dumb as dirt with that wraparound windshield and dogleg A-pillar. It also reduced, greatly, the open space on the door window glass. We had 1962s to 1966s for me to compare, in the DPW motor-pool fleet.
The 1964 cleanup was so natural, it seemed that that was what was intended all along.
I spotted on this Brazilian blog, a picture of a 1957 Brazilian Chevy truck with the front end of the “task force” but without the dogleg pillar and using the “Advance design” cab pillars. http://antigosverdeamarelo.blogspot.ca/2010/06/chevrolet-marta-rocha-nacional-1957.html GM do Brasil keeped the “Advance design” until the early 1960s with various designs updates like this 1962 model http://www.flickr.com/photos/machadobrazil/4778260432/
1963 was the last year of the Brazilian version of the Advance design like this 1963 Amazona, the Suburban version of Brazil. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1963_Chevrolet_Amazona.jpg
The chain keeping the hood closed is a nice touch.
Three vehicles ago I had an 86 two wheel drive burban. It was no sports car but I managed too surprise a few sports cars on the back roads late at night. With almost three quarter of a million km on its diesel engine the hills where the only thing that sapped its go. The old thing was a swell handler as long as the skill was there.
I can totally relate to your experience, from learning to drive a stick in Dad’s 1965 C10, “Old Blue” (hoping to make it a Truck of a Lifetime this summer, when I get a chance). The Thinwall Six had plenty of torque down low, and a wide enough horsepower band (maybe it was the small block heads? Those intake manifolds were tortuous) that, with the proper gearing it could give you all it had-an honest hooning partner. Ours could spin the (truck) tires on takeoff, if you really worked it, and topped out at 85. The only impediment was the three-on-the-tree, which wanted you to take your time (one thousand one, one thousand two) on upshifts. The suspension was remarkably soft, but with the coil springs all around had lots of travel, so you could heel way over on a turn and still not worry about binding up or bottoming out and losing your “line.” Yes, the steering wheel was huge, the ball-and-race steering box was loose, and you had about six turns lock-to-lock, but you could always feel what your front tires were doing, even if they were six-ply Co-op’s. Paul, I hope you got to do some gravel roads in that Subie. In the Midwest, you can sometimes find lovely old concrete county bridges that cross the local streams. The roads will parallel the rivers, then turn a big right angle to go down to the river, across the bridge, and back up in a big curve on the other side. We Flatlanders like to think we invented “drifting” on those curves. Big fun, especially with a load in the back.
Minor point of order: the ’64 and ’65 trucks had the 230 six, increased to 250 in ’66 (the pictured Suburban is a ’66). Never got to compare the two directly to see if there was a difference. Dad’s next truck was a ’74, but by then GM was starting to de-smog the engines, and they put incredibly low axle ratios in them to try and get back some mileage-Dad and everyone else complained about how doggy that truck was compared to the previous models. That ’66 in the picture would be about perfect.
I’m pretty sure it was a 250, which would have made it a ’66, but I won’t swear on it. Is this a ’66? Geez; these can get a bit confusing; I though I’d looked it up when I first shot it a while back. Close enough…
I believe the 250 first appeared in full-size cars midway through the 1965 model year. Was the same true for trucks, or did the trucks have to wait until the start of the ’66 model year to get the 250? IINM, the 250 did not become available in “less than full-size” passenger cars (Chevelle, Chevy II, Camaro) until 1967, and at first it didn’t actually replace the 230 in those models, but was an option above it.
A bit of corroboration for mct. Owned a 67 Chevelle and a 68 Nova that had the 230 and I know for sure that there were 250s being made. So it wasn’t an abrupt shift it was a gradual changeover.
IIRC, the 230 and 250 were both available in Chevelles and Camaros through 1969, and in Chevy IIs/Novas through 1970. Chevelle and Camaro sixes starting in 1970 and Nova sixes starting in 1971 were all 250s.
By contrast, at the point when full size cars and trucks got the 250 (mid ’65 MY for the cars, apparently ’66 MY for the trucks) , I believe that the 250 completely replaced the 230.
Agreed-the only difference 64-66 was the C-10 tag on the side. And the 250 6 in ’66. All the same truck, which is fine by me. The “big” change was ’63, when the old stovebolt six gave way to the 230, and the doors and dashboard changed, and I think the brakes became self-adjusting, but that may have been ’64. Somewhere in there was the switch to front coils, and the 327 and air conditioning became available-but even with my devotion to these trucks I’m not ODD enough to keep it all straight. It’s all good!
The new dash and non-dogleg doors debuted in 1964, not 1963.
Driving back roads at high speeds seems like a rite of passage for most teenagers. Growing in the suburbs of Seattle, I remember there was a 4 mile stretch of road next to one of the Boeing plants that dead-ended. I would drive like crazy on both sides of the road at night, pretty much knowing that there was no other cars and being able to see headlights coming the other way. Who says you can’t get the rear end to swing out on a GTI? 🙂
A couple of years ago my neighbor came by a Suburban remarkably similar to the one shown – the same color with a similar never-washed patina. It was worn out mechanically and the body had too much rustout to save, but oddly enough, the previous owner had kept all the door and tailgate hinges lubricated so they worked as smoothly as new. He’d planned to part it out but iirc someone bought the truck before that happened.
It’s funny how some people can be so particular about some aspects of their car’s maintenance, yet be oblivious to other very real problems. I’m thinking of a Mini that was always regularly serviced, yet had a clutch so worn that only the owner could manage to drive the car. Or a Falcon that was always washed every weekend, engine bay cleaned yearly, yet had a hole in the floor that made me think I was going to fall out onto the road. Makes me wonder if there’s a problem with my car that I’m not seeing.
Cousin owned a 66. Put a 350/350 combo into it in place of the six. Blew up the transmission while drunk. Revved it up and dropped it into low. ATF all over the driveway.
Thing is that it did nothing for chevy reputation but cuz was and is an idiot. Saved his money to equip it and then dropped it the first day because he was drunk. Think I might like the truck better than the cousin.
Thanks for the memory.
The 1960-66 (not ’59. by model year) GM trucks were a more radical departure from the past than even the “Advanced” 1947’s were. The ‘burban may have never gotten the torsion bar front and coil rear suspension, but the Chevy pickups did. I’ve never seen the torsion bar setup in person, only the brochures. I did drive a ’64 C-20 with the full-floating rear axle hanging from trailing arms and coil springs. Long travel made it excellent off road.
Paul, assuming the example above is unmolested, it’s a ’66. The giveaway is the squat rectangular bowtie “10” badge in the lower portion of the front fender.
In 1964, that badge was tall and had the bowtie at one end with a big “10” at the other end…don’t remember which way it went but it was a mirror image of the ’63 fender badge, only flipped the opposite way.
For ’65, the badge moved to the cowl, as a two-box rectangle. One box had the bowtie, the other with the “10” series designation.
Unless I’m mistaken, the torsion-bar front suspension disappeared for 1963 – the last year of the wraparound windshield with the dog leg. 2WD trucks – which was just about all of them back then – would have coils at all four wheels through 1972.
Although improvements were made between ’63-’72, the suspension parts pretty much interchange. Slapping disc brakes on this Sub would be a cinch using parts from a ’71-’72 1/2 ton…long as you’re cool with going from 6 to 5 lug wheels.
Yes the ’67-’72s were a completely different body style but the suspensions from the newer vehicles easily retrofit to the earlier ones.
A college buddy’s calling card (this was 1980-81) was his ’63 3/4 ton Stepside. Like you Paul, he loved sixes and had the 230 with the granny gear 4-speed. We towed a ’56 210 Power Pack 4-door from Long Island to Vermont, where I lived at the time, with that truck.
Eight years, two failed marriages and many health issues later, he’d taken his life. I’d come home from work to hear the sad news from my wife, who was quite upset.
Fast forward a few years and we’re in a classic car scrapyard/dealer in Eastern Ohio. I’m looking at a ’65 C-10 shortbed Fleetside from Georgia. $3000 and it was solid and drivable…right NOW. Take it back to Pittsburgh, get it inspected and enjoy.
Until my wife said “I don’t want it around. It reminds me of Cowboy Joe”.
Eventually I found the ’68 project I still have today. I like that body style better anyway.
It was years before she got over the association between our college buddy Joe and 60-’66 Chevy Trucks.
you can even drop in the K-member from a 91 Suburban (last of the old 70s style boxy ones) onto one of these and get real rubber bushings. Not quite a bolt in affair but doable with only a couple new holes in the frame.
I barely remember one of my uncles and his wife and kids, from El Paso, Texas, who came to visit our family in ’68 or ’69. He was driving a ’64 Chevrolet Suburban, white and red; I don’t remember if it was a four-door, but I vividly remember that it had air conditioned, tinted glass and automatic transmission. My father wanted to buy it from his brother but it was not possible to register it in the local (Chihuahua) transit department because of the new legislation forbidding the import of foreign vehicles. Anyway, my uncle and his family were our guests for a week, in which I was able to ride several times on board the Suburban. It had a cavernous third seat compartment and the most rear windows could be opened sliding them backwards. Later, my father told me that he knew that Chevrolet México would start producing this model, but in a basic way and in the most recent chassis, which would be 1978 and later. Anyway, my father wasn’t able to get one, because they were intended to serve the southern markets, as minivans for the crowded roads of México City. You can see here an example of the body sold in our country in those years.
Readers need to blow that picture up, to see how other-worldly that proto-Tahoe is.
I’d seen that rear-end treatment in Mexican Chevrolet pickups in Baja; but never saw a Suburban derivative like that. Not here; not there.
Here you have a close-up of that rear-end treatment. What do you think of it? You can see more potos at
http://ciudadguadalupe.olx.com.mx/chevrolet-carry-all-iid-262909149
It probably is a Monterrey (Nuevo León) car, very clean. The caption says “few in México and in this condition”.
Yes – the taillights are as I remember on the pickup box. Those are 1967-72 lens inserts, just plunked into an abrupt ending of the body.
The pickup trucks made for Mexico are as crude; the box just ends – and the tailgate is like an old stepside. One sheet tin, hooks and chains; name stamped into it.
I’m surprised GM didn’t at least keep the lines and lights that Stateside vehicles got. I don’t know if you’re in the States now or in Mexico…but if you don’t know, the body lines on pickups of this vintage, for the American market…just wrap around. The center bulge-band continues through the tailgate or rear doors; the rear light housing wraps around and provides a side marker light also.
Actually…looking at that one, the Carryall body kept the lines on the rear doors and quarters that the States market ones had – if not as pronounced.
Not the pickup box, if memory serves.
I’m in México, and yes, they are crude. Those treatments were made not by México’s GM-Chevrolet, they came from a custom car business that made up from these arrangements to hearses (from pick-ups). But in later years, when GM, Ford and Chrysler realized that it was neccesary to give a fresh image to their vehicles, started to use the US models as templates for their products in our country. Maybe in ’85 or ’86 they started to show the round rear light lenses and all, and not any more chains or hooks. Since about 25 years Mexican vehicles have been the same as those sold in the US and Canadá. And those this vintage that remain, are a sad memory of what an absurd and out-of-this-world the reaches of politicians can be when they are only looking their own wellness.
I also heard then Ford did their own “Suburban” version in Mexico derived from the panel truck version of the F-series trucks known as B-100/B-150 like this 1977 model http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifhp97/4973419000/
And here more “truck oddities” from Ford in Brazil
http://caughtatthecurb.blogspot.ca/2011/03/weird-ford-trucks-from-brazil.html
I saw some of the Ford B-150’s when my wife and I went to Mexico in 1992…along with more VW Beetles than I’d seen in Canada in years.
I had a 3/4 ton ’66 Carryall in college. It was a old Dept of Agriculture truck with a 292, straight six, 3-speed with granny assist stick and doors in the back. It had Rochester 1 barrel carb and I had to carry a box of spare parts in a box.
I had many an adventure in that thing. I had an orange Barracuda previously that all my friends still remember but the Carryall is the one that owns my heart.
This could have been the Blazer, if they had thought of that earlier, then a longer one with back side doors would be the Suburban. Would have been interesting seeing that during the earlier GM days.
I think ’62 was the last year for the torsion-bar front suspension.
Wasn’t the Chevy Blazer, which was introduced in the late 60s also on the short wheelbase truck chassis ?
Nice old ‘Burb .
I covered nearly every road in new england in one of these in the mid to late 1960’s .
We had a K10 (4X4) one too we used for snow plowing .
Great trucks ! .
-Nate
Wow! Thanks for the B150 photos. Never seen or imagined such utility vehicles existed. A shame Ford never offered them in The US or Canada. Imagine the crowds they would draw at the local car show. Looks like some even came with a conventional car trunk. That’s a lot of groceries. “Yes Sir, Mr Butcher, I would like a half a cow wrapped up. I’ll trim it at home. Got a large family, ya know.”
The perfect definition of the phrase “drives like a truck”.
My father had one of these when I was growing up. Bought it brand new in ’65. Shame he wrecked it a few years later and had to buy a very impractical Dart.
First car I bought with my own money, in 1973 at a used lot in Jacksonville. Good SUV, didn’t use it for much more than partying but good SUV.
Love the Caryall! Looking for a 1963 GMC Carryall custom with V6 and 4 spd.tran. and 3 seats. In March on our way to California during the gas shortage of 74 my family and I spent the night at the gas pumps in a snow storm in Cisco Utah. I had removed the center seat and put a crib there for our youngest to sleep in while traveling. The other two kids spent travel time on the third seat. My wife made curtains which i hung in the back for privacy.I worked on it for two weeks before we left from Minnesota and the only problem we had on the whole trip was the speedometer cable broke about 150 miles from home, at the beginning of our trip. The truckers were convoying at that time with cb’s so they got me through to Cal. with no problem. I have a sweet spot for the carryalls and would like to find another one. Thanks! Bill @ 612 325 4098
Always thought the “Three Door” versions were cool…
I had a summer job with an engineering firm in Towson in 1971 and I would run errands in a c. 1966 Suburban that had been pretty much used up as a survey crew truck, The column shifter linkage would frequently get out of alignment and I would have to open the hood and manually manipulate the linkage arms to get it so it would go back in gear.
The locked column shifter was a problem on all Chevies dating back to the first one so equipped .
A few of us Geezers know how to “Square Shift” so this never happens .
-Nate
I’ve been around these vehicles my whole life (mostly the pickup variants), and I never realized that the Suburban rode on the short wheelbase prior to 1967. A number of my friends drove 60-66 Chevy pickups when I was in high school in the mid 1990’s… the default seemed to be a long bed, Fleetside with a 6 cylinder and 4 speed. Short beds weren’t uncommon, but creature comforts like an automatic transmission, power brakes or power steering, big back window, were. The Custom Cab trim option seemed to be selected a bit more often later in the production run, though it still felt much like riding a a two ton paint can even with the glitzy interior. The ride was surprisingly good civilized with coil springs in the back.
The only one of these trucks that I’ve personally driven was a 1960 in the default configuration, and it was pretty likable. The old 235 ran smoothly, relatively quietly, and with ample power up to about 50mph. The only area where it fell off was if you wanted to pass on the highway or something… there was that dead area between 3rd and 4th gear, pretty much like 2nd and 3rd with a 3 speed. I later had a 1976 K10 Stepside with a 250, and it was exactly the same. The 6 was notably less hungry than a comparable V8, though that’s relative (15mpg, FTW).
I’ve always admired Suburbans, and might could want one if I had a family or people to haul around. I think you could keep one of this or the 1967-72 generation running until the sun burns out if you’re so inclined. There’s so little to them, and, rust monster be damned, repairable by anyone with a room temperature IQ. How cool is that?
T.A. :
_VERY_ cool for those of use who spent many years riding in these ~ I remember a blue & white ’63 C10 Suburban crammed full of screaming unhappy brats as we were taken all over New England and into Canada in the late 1960’s to go camping etc .
Great if cheap and flimsy light duty trucks .
-Nate
Noisy ride, too!