I still remember the time when I was on an air conditioning call and the lady decided to compliment me for my service. She said that when she wanted work done she normally tried to find an ugly old man because she knew the job would be done right. I did have a surcharge for the privilege of making compliments like that. However, I knew what she meant and feel much the same way about trucks. If you cannot see why this truck deserves the same sort of compliment, read on.
This truck currently resides at the same car lot/mechanics shop where I found the 1957 Studebaker a couple weeks ago. We don’t have many tin worms down here so this will probably continue to happen a lot. I’m pretty sure this truck is qualified as old. I make it to be an 81 because of the grill and single headlights. It might not really be ugly but it is a plain old truck with no pretense of being pretty. I very much like the looks and the dings and dents are minimal. You have a choice of 50 years or so of engines that work. In Texas at 25 years you are done with the sniffer test. Just has to have the mandated equipment attached.
It probably couldn’t find fuel economy with a dictionary but it wouldn’t cost much to keep on the road. The 10 on the side makes it a half ton but that’s a joke. I think this truck has the energy to haul anything most of us have the energy to load. Like an old man, it might be slow and old but I believe it will get the job done just the way the lady wanted.
Living in the midwestern US, it is really strange to see one of these with a body anywhere close to intact. These were really, really rustprone trucks, one of the worst ever. I much preferred the prior series (that concluded with the 72s).
I have a BIL with one of these, only with a short stepside bed. He has owned it since maybe 1990 or 91. It has had some major bodywork a couple of times in its life. 6 cyl with auto. I drove it a time or two. The interior plastics on these were among the worst ever. One thing I like about these is that they were still called the C10. I think that “Silverado” is affected for a pickup.
Every time I see one this color, I think of butterscotch pudding. Now I am hungry. 🙂
I don’t get hungry but I sure do like them. Hate to pay for the fuel they suck down.
… “she normally tried to find an ugly old man because she knew the job would be done right.”
Gee thanks sweetheart! Right back atcha!
I guess it takes all kinds. 🙂
Regarding the truck, I haven’t seen one of those in that condition in a long time. That looks like an 8 foot bed, too. I’d love to have something like that for Home Depot duty, for sure.
I think it’s unfair to automatically categorize this truck as an insufferable gas hog. It may well be equipped with a 250ci straight six, or maybe the “big” 292.
I wouldn’t be shocked if a truck so equipped could pull down 20 MPG in mixed driving.
In mixed driving I don’t think even a 250 would get 20. I am sure that the 292, as good as it was, was a gas hog. For this to do well, it would need a transmission swap as well and the luck to have a 250. With the gearing that was standard for a small engine the economy still reeked. The 307 that I had in my 68 got 10 or less even on the highway. It would pull a house down.
My 1982 K-10 had the 250 with an overdrive auto. Unloaded on the open road it did 20-21 mpg. It also downshifted out of OD on the slightest upgrade, which maybe did not help. A. C-10 on flat ground would do better I think. So it depends on your definition of mixed driving. Mine looked identical to this other than the front hubs and dark green paint. A perfect truck, although I got much pleasure out of GM’s name “Custom Deluxe”, which meant Basic Strippo.
My ’73 Chev averages about 17mpg (US) in everyday driving with the inline 6 and three on the tree (3.73 rear end). I doubt that it would do much better on the highway as she really starts to rev above 65. Chev did have an overdrive option in the 60’s that would really reduce the highway rev’s, which would do 20mpg, but didn’t offer it in the ’73 and up models.
Granted the interior plastics were crude on these models, but I just had a look at a new Camaro convertible (loaded), and the interior door panels were a hard plastic ABS (probably only available in dark gray or black) that were hardly better than my cheapskate truck.
Front view
I said it already but I really really really like your truck.
There are a couple of these utes locally but I never see em hauling anything but the driver the paint jobs are too flash and at $2.19L its cheaper to get whatever delivered than pick it up.
I haven’t seen an old Silverado in ages.
I miss the days when a truck was a truck and didn’t need to be flashy. I used to borrow my friend’s dad’s 84 Ram. Mind you, this was in 2004-2005 when it was already 20 years old. It was a workhorse, nothing more. The slant six was unkillable (though the carb definitely was).
These days, even a basic F-150 XL has keyless entry, power locks, windows, and mirrors, and loads of electronic extras. And that’s considered a work truck! Granted, we also have a Silverado that actually has vinyl seats and manual windows/locks, and a Dakota with manual windows/locks.
But it doesn’t compare to the days of vent windows, bland paint, and engines that were built to work and to keep going with nothing but the routine maintenance.
I love these old trucks but hate that grill. The headlights look downright lost.
Interesting to me how GM figured out it was actually cheaper to install ornate grill pieces in place of the lower headlights on the stripper work trucks. I’d think that today it would be the other way around.
I liked the original 70s version of this better than the 80s one…which saw its zenith with Rocky Rockfords tricked out step side sans completely unnecessary but cool roll bar. Always looked good parked next to Jim’s Malibu manse…
People used to karate chop Jim a lot as soon as he opened the door to his trailer. Surprised he didn’t put in a burglar alarm at some point
I loved Rocky’s truck!
One of the trucks in my working life was a 1979 Chevy Cheyenne C20. Standard cab and a long bed. It had a 454 cubic inch V8, 4 speed manual transmission and 4.10 rear end. I bought it in 1981 and soon the camshaft went south at 50,000 miles. My brother rebuilt the entire engine, it ran real well after that. It was a real gasaholic, 8mpg was the norm. I beat on that truck for 5 years, hauling over it’s weight rating almost every day. I gave up in 1986 and sold it to a subcontractor of mine. He still owns it. His excuse is that it just won’t die. Like a rock…
In the L.A. Cragslist there’s a ’73 GMC stepside selling for $1250. It has a straight rust-free body. Only downside is it has no drivetrain.
I do happen to have both a spare 350 smallblock and 250 I6 in my parts stash. Hmm…
Headache bars on a half-ton? No Cowboy Cadillac there. I’m permanently stuck in a time warp where I want my honest work truck to be a 1950-ish Advanced Design model, but sadly that’s just not reality anymore. Guess this will have to do.
GM should have just locked it’s doors on Dec.31st, 1979, and done the world a favor…
I had a ’76 Cheyenne short wide box truck with a 350 and automatic. It got about 11-13 mpg in general use (no heavy hauling). This was kind of a pita because it only had a 14-gallon tank, which meant that I was in the gas station leaning over to put gas into that low-mounted filler far too often, every couple of hundred miles. I could see why so many trucks in that era had extra gas tanks.
I went to Hawaii the year after I got it, and saw ones like it there that were already rusted out above the rear wheel cutouts. Thus warned, I learned how to make sure that those areas on my truck were kept clean.
How about that — I actually drove my version to the orifice today. It’s an ’86 C20 & a bit more truck than the ’83 S10 that I usually drive. The front tag was a $5 score at an estate auction.
It’s the Custom Deluxe version which means bottom of the barrel. I appreciate the rubber floor covering (no carpet) but don’t appreciate GM being too cheap to offer a freaking dome light standard. Can you imagine taking delivery of your brand new pickup truck only to find out it didn’t have a dome light? Who would NOT want a dome light? I prefer the ’73-’79 versions but still like the ’81 – ’87 models
“Can you imagine taking delivery of your brand new pickup truck only to find out it didn’t have a dome light?”
Especially if you come straight out of today’s Ford F-150 Platinum luxury pickups…
@psfm-
Those 73-87 CKs didn’t seem to have much range in stock form, now that you mention it.
Now … if I were to purchase that engineless ’73 I mentioned earlier I would give it a pro-street theme, including a big honkin’ fuel cell mounted in the bed forward of the wheelwells, discretely hidden under a fiberglass tonneau cover.
With a built LS1 motor hooked to a 700R4- Hot Rod Power Tour, here we come!
Odd. My reaction was, that’s not old enough to be a CC.
It is, of course. It’s just that as I age, my clock stops…1981 was, if not yesterday, certainly last week. In those days I had a job driving a tow-truck…we had three wreckers; and the newest one, which I sometimes drove, was a shiny-new leased C-30 with a grille just like that one.
I see something like that, and I think…Nice truck…how’d the paint get faded so quickly? (or, the body so rusty?)
It’s not at all ugly. It’s Plain Jane…and sometimes the plain ones are the winning pick. A truck like that, you could work like Paul does his…and feel no guilt.
I feel your pain. I really do. I had to think for a couple before I realized that 1981 was fair game. It’s tough for me to realize that the 91 I drive is over 20yo. If you take care of them and live in Texas or another State where Snow is sort of rare (southern part anyway), vehicles like this are common.
I went to Conroe today without my camera and had to pay with lost opportunities. I keep saying “never again” but I will I am sure.
That, to me, is theee UGLIEST Chevrolet truck grill E.V.E.R.
But it’s also the easiest to fix, by either going to the attractive 4-lamp setup or swapping in a set of ’83-’84 bezels with the parking lamp/turn signal directly below the headlight.
Those, I really like, to this day. In 1993, I bought an ’85 with the 4.3 Vortec V6 and 4-speed w/OD. After a good tune-up, 19MPG highway was pretty common.
Thing is my ’68 C-10’s (which came from Houston, TX) not all that mechanically different – the rear suspension’s the biggest thing – and a lot more attractive to me. In fact, for a 2wd, it’s not all that uncommon to swap the front crossmember off the newer trucks as they require very little modification. You could conceivably go as late as a ’91 Blazer/Suburban or an ’87 C-10 pickup. The steering boxes also interchange across those years.