Chevy S10 Blazers with two-wheel drive and often lowered and customized have been a popular staple for, well, decades. They were particularly popular with Latinos when I lived in California. Is there any particular reason other than that it invokes the classic Chevy tri-five Nomad?
Frankly, I’m surprised Chevy didn’t offer a Nomad package for the baby Blazer. That storied name was recycled quite a few times, and with a little slanted filler piece in the front window, it would have been a reasonable shot at milking the Nomad legend a bit more.
The ’55 Nomad was a very important milestone in the collapse of the Sloanian price structure of the GM divisions, perhaps the most important one. Priced at $2608, it was $7 more expensive than a Buick Century Riviera hardtop! That’s deep into Buick territory.
I’d take a classic tri-five Nomad over an S10 Blazer any day.
I suspect 19 out of 20 people would.
I’d take a 2wd S10 Blazer over a 55-7 nomad any day.
I can picture a ’78-83 Malibu wagon or El Camino based Nomad.
If GM felt there was a market for it.
It used to be so painful listening to 4 cylinder S-10s under any sort of load.
For me, the only appeal I see in this one, are the Rally wheels.
What a useless vehicle… thanks to the owner. Disgusting colors and of all the cool wheel designs to choose from he picks those stupid freaking generic rally wheels. I’d like to have an unmolested 2wd 5-speed Blazer to beat around in. It’s one of the few SUVs I find good-looking (at a normal ride height).
Agreed. Early S10’s are a piece of junk. And I’m glad they didn’t offer a “Nomad” package for it, as it only would have tainted the rep of the original. But a ’78-’83 El Camino based Nomad could have been interesting….thanks for planting the seed in my brain, Daniel.. 🙂
I’ll second that.
The GM compact PUs and SUVs of this era were junk. One of the older boys in my Scout troop had one as it 1st car and it was always eating $.
Around Reno and N Tahoe there is a roughly 10-1 or 15-1 survivor bias in favor of Toyota and Ford compact PUs. Some days I see more MJ Comanches than S10 PUs and SUVs. It by no means an anti GM thing as I see plenty of 80s and 90s 1/2ton+ models still in daily use.
Like my mechanic said about the lowered first-generation S-10 pickup I helped my daughter’s boyfriend buy, “The motor’s good, it’s all the cheap crap they hang on it that’s the problem.”
The original Nomad was already tainted in 1976 with the “nomad” package on the 1976 Chevy Vega.
If anything ruins a iconic name it is using it on the Vega
Pic stolen from Mr. Ed Stembridge’s CC post on the Vega back in Jan 2013
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-the-many-faces-of-the-gm-h-body/
Hardly. Other than the stupid welded-to-the-body door hinges, these are pretty good trucks. My “piece of junk” has over 300K on it and it’s never been babied.
My ’88 was a totally solid vehicle, with almost zero issues for the 5 years I had it. My friend bought it from me and drove it to the point where it had rusted so badly driving it in the rain was like taking a shower. It had almost 500K miles on the original 4.3. It had survived 22 years, including being stolen twice, and trashed one of those times. Two of his three sons had learned to drive with it. It was the second most trouble free vehicle I’ve ever had, coming up just short of my ’82 K-5 Blazer. It had zero issues in the 4 years I had it. Zero.
I’d say this one’s a little closer to a Nomad.
Years ago, one of the magazines (Hot Rod, Car Craft, or some other of that genre) featured a fiberglass “doghouse” kit for the S10 that was modeled after a ’55 Chevy. It looked nice enough, except it was difficult to ignore the sharply styled greenhouse of the vehicle to which it was mated.
Still a better idea than the S10 Xtreme (!!!!!!!!) package that was sold for both the truck and two door S10 Blazer. Kinda thought the 2-door S10 Blazer Xtreme with V6 and 5 speed manual would have been an OK little performance package.
Didn’t Ford do something similar with the “splash” package on the Ranger where they charged ~$5 for some vinyl graphics and a psudo stepside?
Yes Ranger “Splash” was a stickers and tape package but was very popular with high school kids in the 00’s as cheap first rides.
I;d go with an original Nomad at least it has resale value and style if I want a ute I;ll buy Australian not some cheap US rubbish
I personally think an eigties 2 door rwd blazer would be dive with a small v8 (under 300 cubes) ralleye wheels, 5 speed tranny and some stout 3.73 gears in the rear. A nice vintage 3 duece setup to make it stand out. You could make it look more nomadic if you chopped the top an lowered the roof 2-3 inches and that would better suit the lines. I wouls also look into deleting the lights and build a sort of chunk 80s extenion off the tail lights to act as an 80s modern take on a fin and then put original tail lights in it. For the frill make an grid pattern grill like the 55 and put it on the 80s s-10 and then replace the bow-tie with original decals, and get a custom redesign of a modern winged hood ornimant that really shows this is a modern take on a classic design. If you stick with the body lines and don’t make it look like a hodge podge you can really make a cool car. I like this idea, now I have one more car I want to make.
I like how it looks. I could easily bomb around in that thing.
I wonder if it has the digital gauges. The normal ones usually looked crap.
I would love to fit a LS-whatever there, but let’s be original and fit a whole SIDI V6 Commodore powertrain there. 6 speed manual and all
The ’82 – ’85 gauge setups were actually quite nice, especially when the tach was ordered. The ’82s and ’83s actually had cone-shaped lenses. The pictured cluster was an ’83 model with ’82 model speedometer (white needle).
That up there looks alright, sort of a mini C10.
The first S10 I saw in my life was the ’91, year in which GM started assembling them in Venezuela.
The analog gauges looked more like this.
http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p99/LeeL_05/92%20Blazer/100_0165.jpg
Paul’s observation that the S10 Blazer is a modern take on the Nomad is interesting and I think valid. Various SUV’s and trucks have obviously filled the slots held by larger cars in the past, and the S10 went to a lot of people looking for sort of a sporting wagon bodied car that wouldn’t be confused with an econo box or their grandmother’s LeSabre.
The S10 was obviously more successful in it’s mission, but than it was a lot different from the passenger cars of its era, where the Nomad was an expensive two door station wagon variant of the very common full size Chevy. Different, but not different enough?
Not a look I’d drive, but I don’t think the subject is so bad. The wheels are either Chevy mags or near look-a-likes and the paint scheme isn’t that far off some of the 1955 cars in the Nomad Capsule.
The only interesting ones are badged Syclone or Typhoon!
I’d say probably more Chip Foose influence than Nomad
Agree with johnh875.