Was the 1967-72 Chevy C10 the last “good old truck?” It seems so, as the ’73+ GM pickups became even more car-like and, dare I say it, Broughamy, with the top-line Silverado and only slightly less-plush Cheyenne.
This one, shot by my uncle in Iowa City, looks quite purposeful. Looking good in aqua, too!
A family friend drove a 1973+ Chevy pickup for a long time. I don’t know the actual year of it. It was just a “good old truck” in my opinion. Standard cab, long bed, very plain. It was painted appliance white, but the doorjambs had traces of another color that revealed its history as a work truck. It had been sent to auction because it had been T-boned. He was doing bodywork and paint at the time, so he pulled the frame back out and did the bodywork himself. I do prefer the above body style, though I’ve never got to ride in one of these.
I had a 69 C-10, bought in 74 sold in 80. Just like this only dark green, 6 cyl, three on the tree AM radio. Great truck except for the rust in salty NE IL. It scared me starting it a couple times after work in the winter, but always made it. Had a block heater so plugged in at home. A very good basic truck.
My Step-Grandfather started his trend of buying the “fanciest, biggest engine truck available” trend in one of these, but it was a ’70 CST Custom. Factory A/C, the 2nd biggest gasoline V-8 available (400 small block); THM, two tone, whitewalls, full wheel covers and some dealer doo-dads (cab lights on top like a big rig since back then he DID drive big rigs for a construction firm). Even with the add-ons, I think it qualified as a “good old truck” – steel door panels . . . steel dash (except for the foam-rubber, vinyl covered top crash pad) . . . . very metallic indeed.
It was the last real, honest-ta-gawd TRUCK put out there…the argument could be made that the Ford of the era was as good; and I’ll accept that. But 1973 was the beginning of the new era for both labels, Dodge having beaten them out the gate by a year.
I always liked this truck. I like the 1959-66 trucks better; but these are fine. But they’re gone…not forgotten, never, but gone.
Aqua was a very, very popular color for Chevrolet trucks of that era.
Personally I’d say these were the start of the end of an honest truck at GM as they were when GM started adding the Cheyenne packages, car style interior appointments ect. The 60-66 was the all truck, truck.
Righteous. This is the epitome of a truck to me.
In 1967 my Dads boss at the time bought one of these new .
It was a pretty dark blue with light blue interior, 283 with a 4 speed (i think).
I still remember taking a ride in this truck. It made an impression on me because the truck was quiet, rattle free, and smelled new!
Back when trucks were not cars and the people who drove them understood that. Today, you can get a King Ranch for close to 70K. Crazy. Like with these old trucks, I want my trucks to be durable, reliable and easy to repair…I don’t need four wheel steering and a television/entertainment center in the rear seat.
This generation was the first where GM actively tried to make the trucks more like cars. The 73-87s started out about the same as these, but they were made for so long that although the sheetmetal didn’t change much, the interiors did. Power windows and locks weren’t even available til 77. By 87 they had multifunction column switches and fuel injection. I would class them as 66 & older: traditional work trucks, 67-72 & 73-87 transitional, and 88 up as the modern truck.
I agree with this. Take a look at an 88 chev/gmc four wheel drive trucks front suspension and then take a look at a 98 and a 08 and you eill notice they are all very similar and almost identical. I love the ride of the gm trucks but for real work I prefer a solid front axle, not ball joints that look like they came from a caprice. I would be happy with any gm truck before 88. But a short box 87 two wheel drive would make a nice daily and weekend cruiser.
I respectively disagree. Under the sheetmetal, these were nearly identical to the 60-66 GM light trucks. I had a ’71 and friends had several from the previous era. Working on them, virtually every part interchanged. Yes, there may have been a few comfort and performance options added over the years, mostly for the families with slide-in campers, but none of that made them look or feel like a Caprice inside, not even close.
These are the trucks unknown to the current crop of auto magazine writers, the ones that lauded the latest ‘Ram’ pickup as the first to have coil rear suspension.
Late to the party, but you hit the nail squarely on the head.
I’ll also add that these GMs were roundly criticized as being “un-truck-like” when they first appeared, because of the coil springs.
Their GMC cousins used leaf springs which is interesting. I guess GM didn’t want to put all their cookies in one basket.
The GMCs were supposed to be true work trucks so can’t have any of those sissy coil springs out back where the load is carried. The Chevy on the other hand was going for the car like ride with these.
Note the rear suspension of these trucks, or at least the basic concept, lives on today in NASCAR, it is even referred to as a “Truck Arm” suspension.
I read an interview with Junior Johnson where he was quoted about appropriating an employees pickup’s trailing arms to improve the handling of the 1963 Chevrolet “Mystery Motor” stock car upon noticing how much longer they were than the car’s. Chevy actually started using trailing arms and coil springs on their trucks in 1960.
The most amazing thing to me about the GM trucks of that generation is how low they are while still maintaining good ground clearance and all the load capacity one needs. Note that Chevy is parked next to a Chrysler minivan for comparison. Why do new trucks — even 2WD models — need to be so ridiculously high? Having a lower bed height makes the older truck easier to load, and isn’t that what trucks are for?
” Why do new trucks — even 2WD models — need to be so ridiculously high?”
As some people at Jalopnik would say, “It’s all about stance, brah.”
I recently saw an F-250 from that same era and was amazed how nice and low it sat. The early 1970’s Internationals were the same way.
I harkens back to the day when 4WD trucks were impossibly jacked up, straight from the factory. This era, actually; although the 1959-66 K-series Chevrolet trucks were bigger offenders. Fords were even worse; and 1971 and earlier Dodges as bad. Only the engineers of the day knew why they did that; although I suspect it had to do with clearance for the front driveline; 4WD was an afterthought on those trucks.
But those were serious work-trucks. Equipped, usually, with snowplows; often with a wrecker gantry mounted in the back bed. Those were no-nonsense vehicles for people with work to do.
Why the new idle classes idolize those trucks, and want leather-upholstered crew-cab trucks with sound systems that have that same stance…I have no idea. It certainly isn’t my idea of money well spent.
Yeah it all has to do with clearances. Back when I-beam axles and leaf springs were the norm they used “dropped” I beams that put the wheel’s center above the leaf springs. You can’t get away with that with a driving axle so when you put a driving axle on those same leaf springs you got a 3-5″ “lift” automatically. Since you couldn’t have the front so much higher than the rear a set of blocks was installed out back to level the truck out. Even the early 2wd IFS trucks were set up so the wheel center was pretty close to the bottom of the frame so there was no choice but to go up to have that straight shot between the wheel and differential center lines. Plus you need some clearance for the differential, you can only offset it so much before the frame gets in the way and you don’t want it whacking the oil pan at full compression.
I’m certain one of the big reasons trucks have got so tall is that the manufacturers were getting tired watching the aftermarket rake in the money selling lift kits to fit larger tires. Ford got into the act in the mid 70’s with the factory Hi-Boy trucks that could take a 12-16.5 tire off the showroom floor. The strange thing was they never offered a larger tire to go with lift.
I have a photo of my uncle Fred, door open, feet on the sill, white cane dangling, smoking a roll your own from the cab of his black 67. It was taken in 68 when I was 14. He had returned from the war blinded, missing a few fingers and covered in powder burns. He had survived a land mine and found a farm wife in my mothers best freind. That explains why a blind guy would own a pickup. I love that photo as it is the last that I have of him before he died. I also have a distinct memory of that truck. I always thought that it looked very sharp and the day before my family was to leave to go home back east, the predominant rain of the past weeks had subsided enough that it was time to take it to the fields to collect the now dry, stuked hay bales. My cousins and I had filled the bed about three deep when we crested a rise in the field and then ran into a soft patch on the other side. Bogged down, the only option was to push the truck out. I stationed myself at the back of the passenger side and wrapped my hand around the end of the bedside to begin pushing. Two of my cousins thought that they would have better luck pushing from the back by closing the tailgate. When they slammed the tailgate closed, they cut three of my fingers to the bone. As with any major injury that I have had, it was not ultimately painfull but is was very bloody and alarming. I was given a rag to wrap my fingers in and began my walk back to the farmhouse. When I got there, My grandmother took over. She cleaned my wounds, applied Zam Buk ointment and taped my fingers in bandages. Three days later when we got back to Ontario from northern Alberta, I could already start to bend my fingers. I still have fine scars that run accross the tops of those three fingers but is has not changed my opinion on these trucks. I love their look and I loved their truckiness. Also, I hope that the majority of readers of this site are enjoying their 4th.
Wow! Interesting post. Thanks for sharing this.
Work had a 1972 C-30 with a service body, it was the “shop truck”. I got to drive it around the Bay area a number of times. The truck was purchased in 1999 by the company I worked for, a princely sum of $4000. With a reciept from the week before for a Goodwrench crate 350 plus installation from the local dealership, totalling $3995. Add in the community college fresh coat of white paint, it was a hell of a deal. The only problem I had was the carb dripped and the damn thing dieseled for five minutes before it finally would shut off. A good honest truck that didn’t complain when we tossed 2500 pounds of cast iron in the back.
The ’68 Chevrolet is my favorite truck of all. They are absolutely beautiful and this is a nice example (less the hubcaps).
Maybe someday I’ll find a turquoise ’68 fleetside. I’d be happy finding a blue, green, or plum-colored one…a 6-cylinder/3-speed would be just fine so long as it’s not a stepside or powerglide.
The very first two vehicles my father bought after he opened his scrapyard were a 1970 Cadillac SDV and a light blue/white top LWB C10. He gave the farmer that brought them in $75 for both of them.
He asked me to look under the hood of the Chevy and tell him what kind of engine it had. I could not believe my eyes when I opened the hood and saw a dusty but complete 396 engine. It was 100% original and nothing was missing. It also had a THM400 transmission & A/C: all there.
I begged him to haul it to the house and he did. I did not have any money or knowledge about how to fix cars at the time so I assumed it would just sit there indefinitely. A couple years later I come home and the truck is gone. He sold it to some guy for $500.
What a loss. It was such a rare machine and was relatively rust-free and easily restorable. It oddest feature were two very strange “396” callouts mounted just over each front marker light. They are different than any other 396 badge I’d ever seen: truck or car. Its font/style was exactly like the smallblock callouts on the passenger cars. I’ve seen pics of other ’68 396 trucks but none had the emblems. I find no mention that these were ever made and I can’t find a single picture of them on the internet. It was this style:
Strange. In ’68, the CID callout was under the marker light in a bright metal rectangle with black CID callout.. Maybe it wasn’t a factory BB truck to begin with. It wasn’t unheard of then for dealers to swap or upgrade engines, this being the pre-smog period. That’s how Joel Roesen got started right?. Maybe someone needed a BB truck that day, and some dealer made sure he got one.
WRT to the engine callouts, it sounds to me as if someone broke the faunt off an Impala emblem, throwing away the flag motif and sticking it on.
One of many mid-80s part-time job college memories revolve around one of of these in ’71 weathered white and turquoise 3/4 ton Longhorn version (sliced and spliced bed)
We dropped newspapers off to the kids who carried them, and normally drove reasonably modern Chevy Vans, unless one of them was out of service. “Trock” as my boss Bil and his drivers referred, apparently had a quite a storied existence.
I so wish I had a camera back then…but I also never thought my dad would sell the truck either. It was a legitimate original big block truck with faded original paint. The SPID sticker affixed to the glove box door was still readable and listed the 396 listed along with its other options.
it’s a real mystery because to my knowledge, this style of 396 emblem was not applied to any Chevrolet passenger car ever. I’ve only seen ‘283’, ‘327’, ‘350’, and ‘409’ emblems and all were placed just above the crossed-flag emblem. The crossed-flag 396 cars had ‘396’ etched into the left flag’s tail like this:
These have always been favorites of mine. I am currently on my 4th one. I had a ’72 with a 350/TH in ’75, a ’69 with a 6 cylinder/3 speed in ’84, bought another ’72 this time with a 350/3 speed for my son’s first car in ’94, and currently have a ’70 with a 350/TH. It has rust issues and needs a lot of work, but it is very reliable. Plus I have come across many others in my years in the car business. As was said earlier, they are honest trucks. They ride very well, and nearly every part is now reproduced. On the downside, they are very thirsty. The color of the truck pictured is officially called ‘Light Green’, code 503. I wouldn’t call it aqua, but that is just my opinion. GM produced many of these and their GMC cousins, so there are many still on the road. But now that they are all over 40 years old, good originals are hard to find. There was a nice ’67 with a 283 and powerglide original down to the hubcaps for sale earlier this year about 3 miles from my house. I drooled over it but I am in no position to take on another vehicle.
My uncle had a 1967 short box, with 250 six and 4 on the floor. It was the same colour as the one pictured here. That truck commuted well over a hundred miles a day for years and I doubt it had more than one oil change in two years. It hauled big coils of electrical wire and anything an electrician would need. It simply never broke as there was so little to break.
The engine finally blew from neglect in1980 and he sold it for scrap. He bought a new 1980 Chevy long box with a 350, the downsized one. I remember how fast it seemed to me at age 17.
Was the 1967-72 Chevy C10 the last “good old truck?”
No, the Toyota Landcruiser 70-series is still in production, although in recent years the front end has changed to house the larger radiator demanded by the V8 turbo-diesel engine but it is still recognisably the same vehicle that has been in production for almost 30 years. It is diesel and manual gearbox only, still solid axle front & rear, still as strong as the proverbial ox. The Nissan Patrol pickup is in a similar boat although the cab on that is only 12 years old or so, not 30.
A family friend bought one of these new in 1972 and stopped by the house to show it off on the way home. It was the most beautiful pickup I had ever seen. It was a top-of-the-line Chevy with whitewalls, wheelcovers, and the woodgrain decal on the side trim. Inside, it was carpeted and even air conditioned. My mother was shocked and amazed that anyone would ever get an air conditioned pickup.
The guy owned a paint store and his regular driver was an Olds 98, so he was used to some comfort. It was the nicest pickup I had ever seen in my life up to that time, and the first time it dawned on me that someone could drive a pickup instead of a car because this one was just as nice as a car.
I like these because these were the last Chevy trucks that really felt like they were made entirely of metal. When you slammed the door, you got that “clack” sound that assured you that you were in a Chevy truck. The ones starting in 1973 seemed to take a real downward step in subjective feel. Sort of like the 1969 Fuselage Mopar after the 1965-68 C body.
I agree with you on your perception of the ’73-’87 generation of trucks: they don’t seem to be near as solid as the ’67-’72 generation. Panel gaps were suddenly all over the board and they seemed to be more rust-prone.
What baffles me is that GM decided that their customers ought to pay extra for a dome light beginning in ’73. All ’73-’87 trucks got a single “courtesy light” mounted under the dash which shed some light on the transmission hump: controlled only by rotating the headlight switch counterclockwise. I’m pretty sure the dome light remained an option all the way through 1987 on the lower models which is ridiculous.
Other than the ’67-’68 models, the ’73-’87 bodystyle is my favorite generation of these trucks despite their many flaws.
I’ve owned 3 of these, a ’68, ’69 and ’70 and loved them all, especially the ’69. It had the park brake that operated on a drum in the drive line. I think the early years of the 73-87 style are fine too, but I had a 1980 as a long term driver and it turned me off of Chevy trucks. It was also a bare bones truck, and a real lemon!
The other interesting thing about these trucks is that they are like the 55-57 Chevy of trucks, there is ALWAYS bound to be one at a car show or cruise in, and they have enough aftermarket support that you can almost pretty much mail order the entire truck.
I like the styling on these, I remember that these were one of if not the first trucks to offer a bucket seat interior.
I believe the ’65 Ford Ranger was the first to offer buckets: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/1965-1966-ford-f-series-ranger-a-bit-too-far-ahead-of-its-time/
Well, there you go, never had seen one or an ad for one, but I did recall the Chevrolet ad with the bucket seats.
Dodge had a Sport Truck in ’64 that had buckets . . . . and a Ramcharger 426 Wedge to boot!
We had a 64 with buckets, wish we still had it!
My dad had a two-tone copper/white ’74 Cheyenne C20 that had the same hubcaps, bought in ’85.
It immediately needed the top half of the 350 rebuilt, stranding us halfway between Tampa and Gainesville.
We called it the “Tank” because it survived two wrecks with only a few bumps, while the other cars were heavily damaged. (Neither were Dad’s fault.)
My parents and I slept in the truck’s bed on long trips.
With gas prices going up during Desert Shield/Storm, in addition to needing the bottom half of the motor rebuilt with a slipping transmission, “Tank” was traded in on a ’91 Toyota Pickup during a “Push-Pull-Drag It In” sale.
I certainly have good memories of the 1968 Chevrolet pickup I had. It was a former Forest Service truck, short narrow box, 6, 4-speed with a couple of minor heavy-duty options. It had been used in central and eastern Oregon, which is a good thing for two reasons: Dry conditions most of the time, so not much chance of body rust, and the most important one – distances are long and many areas are quite remote, so vehicles used there tend to be quite well taken care of, even government rigs. My truck did have a perfectly straight body, without even any dents on the tailgate. There was red dirt all over the undersides of the body and fenders. Paint color was forest service green with a gray top. Before I’d had it very long it became lime gold metallic with a white top. I owned it for a couple of years, and sold it mostly because it was a time in my life when I didn’t have any real need for a pickup.
Great truck! A friend had one of these in the mid seventies and you could hear the gasoline sloshing around in the tank.
My boss’s dad when I worked at a hardware store had the exact truck shown, in that same color. He is no longer with us. That picture brought back some fine memories.
My brother owned one of these. It had a clapped-out 350 with a very low rear 4.11 differential. Cruise control was a cinder block on the gas pedal… the fasted that truck would go was about 45 mph.
“Was the 1967-72 Chevy C10 the last “good old truck?” It seems so, as the ’73+ GM pickups became even more car-like and, dare I say it, Broughamy, with the top-line Silverado and only slightly less-plush Cheyenne.”
Speak for yourself. I am currently borrowing my uncles 74 C20. Aint nothing Broughamy about this generation either. I’ve been hauling 2500+ pound loads to the scrapper and one would think the ride would be smoother either loaded or empty but this isn’t the case with this truck. It axle skips over the most mundane of imperfections in the road and when fully loaded beats your kidneys to death over those same imperfections. Oh and mines a CustomDeluxe20. The only option is a AM radio that doesn’t work It even has the wood bed which I think was optional in that year. And a 350-2V.Can you believe this truck has only 34K on it?
Wow, that’s a dead ringer for my grandfather’s ’73 C20 that he bought new, with the painted bumpers and everything. It had all of 19K miles on it when my dad inherited it 20 years ago (along with faint traces of the new-truck smell inside – it spent its entire life up to that point indoors).
It was a no-frills truck: rubber floormat, AM radio, no dome light, crank windows – oh, but my grandfather did get a rear bumper and an aftermarket second fuel tank with a manual valve located on the floorboard that you could reach down and flip to the main tank (always ran the secondary dry first as it had no fuel gauge), without stalling the engine, IF you were quick enough! It did have power steering and power disc brakes.
The low-compression 454 4bbl couldn’t (and still can’t) break even one rear tire loose, and I don’t think that the rings ever properly seated as it likes to drink a lot of oil. The automatic choke never did work right. We finally converted to a manual choke which my dad never seems to set properly (despite having grown up with them).
The driver’s door hinges were so badly misaligned from the factory that about a third of the latch pin was already ground off when we got it.
My dad still has the truck, and he uses it for occasional dump runs. It starts to ride nice with about 1500lbs. in the back.
The painted bumpers and no-frills base layout suggested a work truck; but the way it held up under rough conditions demonstrated it was anything but.
Place I worked at had about six of these, from 1973 to 1978; plus a 1974 C60 with a dump box. A big dump box; it was easy to overload that one.
In addition we had about five 1963-66 Chevrolet trucks; and two of the 1967-72 genre. Those last two were seldom used, for reasons that don’t matter. But the difference between the 1960s trucks and the 1970s rigs was breathtaking.
Our village (my employer) also bought a 1975 Blazer for the police. Inside of a year, the frame had multiple cracks and breaks. From patrolling on somewhat-rough secondary roads.
Nope…those weren’t good work trucks.
My favorite trucks are the late ’60’s to early ’70’s Fords, but I’d be happy to give one of these a home. A six with a 4-speed, please, but I’d have no complaints about a well-tuned small block either.
Some could say the 1996 F-150 was the last ‘trucky’ Ford p/u.
The 97’s were like Tauruses with pickup beds.