(first posted 2/3/2014) As one of the people who’d been rallying for a Big Truck Week, I suppose it’s only fitting that I step up and post some. I’ve got several more for later on in the week, but hey – why not start with the biggest?
I spotted this rig several weeks ago while taking a shortcut I rarely use, coming back from picking up a load of equipment bound for the office.
Given the paint scheme, it seems fairly likely this tractor and trailer spent at least part of their lives together. But given their neglected state, it also seems likely that their service lives have come to a close. Unless some ambitious individual comes along, chances are their next trip out will be their last.
The Astro 95 is my first big truck of the week, and also the biggest truck in my files. But, unfortunately, it’s also the one big truck for which I’m most starved for pictures. I could have sworn I took several of the truck I’ll be attempting to feature below, but for some reason I am unable to find them. As such, several other trucks will be standing in for it at various points.
My client roster once included a manufacturing firm called Ercoa. In past years, it had been E.R.C.O.A., as in the “Electric Reel Company Of America”, maker of battery-powered fishing reels. But somewhere down the line (perhaps in the early eighties) they acquired another line of business: building pontoon boats.
At that time, another local company, Boatel, was looking to divest itself of several product lines so it could focus on its core business, manufacturing yachts. So they dumped their interests in such things as snowmobiles and recreational craft, going hard after that one market they felt was most lucrative. In the shuffle, Ercoa managed to grab the pontoon business and run with it.
And run they did. By the mid eighties, they were doing pretty well for themselves: they’d moved into a big new facility, had expanded their lineup to include such things as portable ice houses and their trademark line of peddle-boats, and of course they were still cranking out pontoons left and right.
(The folks in their marketing department had a thing for using staff, friends, and family in their promotional photos. See that guy at the helm, in the pink shirt? He’s the one that hired me. Great guy… I understand he’s still working on peddle-boat designs somewhere.)
But they couldn’t just let the boats pile up–they had to get them out to the dealers somehow. And so came the company’s latest investment, circa 1987: a fleet of new-to-them tractors with brand-new trailers. All were late ’70s vintage cabovers with sleepers and rooftop air deflectors, painted white, with the obligatory logo on the door. (Ever the penny-pinchers, they opted to apply the same logo stickers to the trucks as they did to their boats.)
Each truck had a slightly longer than normal wheelbase, with tandem axles, a steel flatbed with wood decking, and an interesting low-mounted fifth wheel hitch setup. The trailers, each one brand-new and built to their specifications, were a sort of light-duty lowboy that attached to this odd hitch, upon which the boats could be stacked two high along their entire length of forty-some feet.
Of the three trucks in the fleet, there were two Internationals and one GMC. Guess which one I was most interested in?
Theirs was an Astro 95, of course; a 1978, if I recall. Of course, being a cabover it tilted forward for access to that huge Detroit Diesel mill.
But the pontoon-hauler wasn’t quite as fancy as this one. It had chrome bumpers, a chrome grille, and a single chrome exhaust stack, but the gas tank was steel, as were the wheels. It also lacked most of the personalized touches this one has–no fancy clearance lights or custom paint jobs here!
There was also the memorable wrap-around dashboard, all decked out in woodgrain. It looked similar to the above shot when I last saw it, but I bet its cockpit was much more awe-inspiring in its younger days.
In the seven years I worked for them, however, none of the trucks ever moved. Their heyday may have started in the mid ’80s, but those boom years were fading away by the early ’00s. And when I came on in 2006, things weren’t looking pretty.
My first impression? Right down to the furnishings, the place honestly looked like a time capsule from 1991 (just when I thought I’d seen the last of NetWare 4, Compaq products with a rainbow stripe on them, and the unmistakable beeps and chirps of Merlin phones). I may well have been the only guy in the Yellow Pages who knew what they meant by “thickwire.”
That’s probably half the reason I was brought in: I worked cheap, I was willing to horse around with their archaic equipment, and I could manage to keep a sense of humor about it. Plus, I turned out to be a convenient source of labor for creating the coming year’s catalog, since their marketing department was no more by that time.
These two gals–no idea who they are–made frequent appearances in company literature. In fact, this picture was used to create a cut-out on foamcore, which sat atop their reception desk when it was unstaffed.
Equally memorable was a prop which sometimes sat near it: a Dixie cup which contained a spoon and was filled to overflowing with white glue, which had a bit of brown paint stirred in and was allowed to harden. Even upon close investigation, it looked just like an ice cream sundae that had been forgotten and was melting all over the desk! It took a while for me to warm up to that one–I thought it was tacky when I first saw it, but apparently the secretaries got a kick out of watching peoples’ reactions. Apparently, many was the visitor who attempted to dip their fingers into it!
Despite everyone’s best efforts, the business finally went under in 2013. It seemed the final nail in their coffin might have been the failure of a large chain of boat dealers, which happened to be one of their biggest distributors. There was no coming back after that.
So an auction was scheduled, and the company’s assets were bagged, tagged, and sold to the highest bidder. As a result, I finally got a chance to get up close and personal with their fleet of trucks.
But as you can imagine, by this time there wasn’t much left of them. None were roadworthy, only one was able to be started, and perhaps worst of all, no titles could be produced for any of them. It seemed certain that these once-proud rigs would be fed to the crusher soon.
As much as I enjoyed finally getting to climb around on the trucks, I was actually there for another reason.
Among their factory leftovers was a small group of V-bottom boats. There were approximately seven built, all told; they were prototypes for a new line that never got off the ground. I’d been itching to make a deal ever since I became aware of their presence in the back of the warehouse some years ago, but my offers to buy had always fallen on deaf ears. The auction would be my first, last, and only opportunity to snag one for myself.
And so it was that I got my one and only surviving picture of the trucks at hand. It’s grainy and basically useless, but unless I find the others, that may well be all that remains of these rigs.
Of the seven, five were sixteen feet long, and two were seventeen feet. Three of the sixteen-footers were completed and used for testing and promotions; this catalog picture depicts the very same boat seen above, only twenty-two years earlier. None of the seventeen-footers were ever completed.
In a surprise win, I ended up with both the seventeen-footers and one of the two unfinished sixteens for just a few hundred dollars. Given the design and material information I hung onto from earlier, I expect to be able to finish their construction fairly easily. All three are currently relaxing behind the shop until my project backlog is a bit shorter. (Wonder how many other people can say they own not one, but three brand-new, never-used, 1991 model year boats?)
I also lucked out on a few items from their shop, such as this toolbox. $20? Overspray bedamned, I’ll take it! I had wanted to grab the “ice cream sundae” as a souvenir, too, but someone else beat me to it. Or perhaps some do-gooder finally threw it away.
The trucks, however, were not so lucky. An acquaintance of mine who’d recently gone from avid recycler to junkyard owner was also present at the auction, and seemed determined to buy everything in sight. I was astounded when he paid $3500 for the title-less derelict Astro; upon looking it over again (just to see if I’d missed something), I couldn’t understand how he was making money on it at that price.
Turned out, he wasn’t. I happened to be at the yard a few days later, and saw the big old GMC roll in on a lowboy trailer. The yard owner and I were talking at the time, and I congratulated him on his win. But, with surprising candor, he began to lament his purchase of the truck – having now done the math, he was expecting to take a big hit on it, and several other things he’d won at that auction. Still, he remained hopeful that the tons (literally) of aluminum pontoon parts he’d also bought would make up for it.
Speaking of aluminum, perhaps the strangest item offered for bids was the right to sweep the floors–which the auctioneer claimed would yield barrels’ worth of aluminum shavings if done correctly. I don’t recall who won it, but I do remember that they paid $300 for the privilege.
As I left the yard that day, I watched as the dilapidated Astro was being hacked apart by a small herd of torch jockeys. It wasn’t exactly a dignified end for such a long-lived piece of machinery.
But every end is merely a new beginning. Who knows? Perhaps even these Jeeps were big trucks in a past life.
The Astro 95 was the best-styled truck of its time, and one of the best ever. Not surprising, given that it came from GM, although its predecessor, the “Crackerbox” (attached) certainly couldn’t have spent much time in the Design Center.
The Astro was also GM’s swan song in the big-truck sector, and it never sold in the numbers needed to keep GM truly viable. The early ones, like the red one at top, are better looking than the later ones. Clean, classy, and very GM.
There still seems to be a factory GM radio still installed in that rig, I always thought these had an interesting dash, semi wraparound, isolating the driver in the business section of the cockpit.
Theres a bit more thought put into them now but wrap around dashboards are still the norm, the fake wood is still with us though the 2011 International I was driving was covered in the stuff.
I also have a soft spot for the Astro along with the Brigadeir and General. Back in the 70’s when I started selling parts I had a few customers that ran the BowTie versions called the Titan and Bruin. Every once in awhile I’ll see one sitting on a back lot. But never when I have my camera with me. Here’s a few pics of its predecessors.
Generals were actually a pretty good truck, at least competitive with the Transtar 4200/4300 and better than the various Loiusvilles from Ford.
We had a fair number of Brigadiers with 6-71s in them, not nice to work on. You had to jack the front of the cab up to get the valve cover off. Once you removed the enormous doghouse from the cab you could actually do the back 3 cylinders of an in-frame from the driver’s seat. Numbers 1 and 2 could be done from the engine compartment. #3 was under the cowl and the piston/liner assembly would only just clear.
Changing a clutch was always fun since the rear engine mounts were attached to the transmission instead of the engine. The same bolts held the fuel tank mounts on. By the time you had everything jacked up and secured you could barely work the transmission out of the narrow frame rails. And so it went.
I can’t say I have a soft spot for Brigadiers…
Interesting hearing about truck models from the mechanics perspective. I know the mechanics at the garbage company in Truckee/N. Tahoe where I used to work had a tough time getting to stuff on our Pete 320 LCFs.
My good friend and photography mentor loves them. He ran one as an O/O for a few years in the mid 1970s and then again as a company driver for Thrifty-Payless Drug stores in the early-mid 80s. He told me that when he purchased one in the mid 70s he test drove a Pete 352 (COE) and got the impression that it had inferior build quality to the Astro.
He later ran an early 90s GMC Brig as his assigned tractor for Yellow Freight before retirement.
Out here, the farmers still run Brigadiers, Generals, and Ford Louisvilles. I’ve had the pleasure to drive an LTL-9000, and the misfortune to drive a Brigadier. Our mechanic seems to look at the Brigadiers the way you do. One of the other farms runs a fleet that’s all GMC on the older stuff. When he used to be their mechanic, he claimed that they were always in the shop for something. The neighbor has one Brigadier- a 1979 that’s on it’s last legs. I’ve never run a General, but the Brigadiers don’t seem to hold up nearly as well as the Fords. You see a LOT of dilapidated Fords smoking their way down the road, somehow still going. And you see a lot of Brigadiers out here too. But, they’re almost all sitting in the weeds, done forever.
The day cab version
That’s actually not an Astro. Depending on when it was made it’s Road Expeditor II, an Autocar or a Western Star. Could be there’s more badges these wore. Definitely a product of White Motor Company or one of it’s spin offs. They are very similar at a glance.
Beat me to it…the White was clearly an Astro rip-off, although there isn’t exactly a lot of leeway with big COE trucks in making them look distinctive, at least in the idiom of that time.
If I recall correctly, there were a few of these made with GMC badges on them when White and GMC merged their heavy truck operations in the late ’80s. There are folks who thought the Astro was a rip off of a Mack design from the early ’60s. As you say, it’s tough to be distinctive. A box is a box!
I wouldn’t be so quick to write the Road Commander off as an Astro copy, Larry Shinoda of Mustang and Corvette fame was the man behind the design. The Road Commander cab has certainly outlived the Astro, granted only tangentially as the White/WhiteGMC/Volvo/Autocar/etc Xpeditor, further modified as the modern day Autocar ACX.
Autocar will still sell you a new truck. They were spun-off from Volvo during the Mack acquisition as the combined company would have had to big a share of the Low Cab Forward Truck market.
I got to test drive one with a 9L CNG motor and Heil Frontloading refuse body Dec of 2012 and was impressed with it.
Is this the same model International Transtar?
No; the Astro was unique to GMC and Chevrolet (Titan). Its design was cleaner and slicker than the Transtar.
Weren’t the other two trucks Internationals?
It’s interesting to hear about what happens to these manufacturing companies when they close. It seems like there must be hundreds of RV, boat, etc manufacturers that have shuttered or consolidated in the past 2 decades.
Every downturn claims some, Boats and RVs are big discrentionary extras subject to consumer confidence.
I noticed and like the 92 Dark Cherry Metallic Chevy Caprice in the background of the third picture from the bottom.
’94, with LT1 power, velour seating, and a trunk rack. Another future COAL 😉
Looking forward to it!
Didn’t most of these Astro / Titan trucks use Detroit Diesel power?
You could get Cummins and later the 3406 Cat, but the vast majority had 71 and 92 series Jimmys in them.
The Titan was a very rare bird even when new. For some reason most of the few I saw were rag-tag owner-ops out of Quebec. Must have been a big Chevy truck dealer out there.
If these were being built in the late 70s, they weren’t that much before my time… yet I can’t remember ever seeing one. Wild dashboard, what a shame that there isn’t really any use for these old beasts once they get on in years 🙁
They have that in common with a great many other big trucks. One of my regrets is that I wasn’t yet smart enough to try to figure out how to save my father’s old 1947 Autocar 10-wheeler dump truck from the scrap yard. Its Hall-Scott gas engine was still running well, but the truck just was too slow to be competitive in the late 1960’s, and it was actually driven to its resting place in the woods at the local wrecking yard, where it sat for years before being scrapped.
I’m very familiar with both the Astro and the Transtar. They were once very common, particularly in fleet service. They were OK trucks in their day, not bad to work on generally. Dealer service was the biggest issue with the GMC, not unlike any GM product of the day. IHC dealers usually at least understood that an out-of-service truck meant someone wasn’t making their wages. And their parts guys knew the product a lot better. Also in common with GM products of the day Astros didn’t age well, particularly inside the cab. Lots of stuff that rattled, fell off or quit working way too early. They had great visibility though. All in all the Astro proved the old adage that you get what you pay for. It did the job but no one ever confused it with a Peterbilt or a Kenworth.
One legacy of the Astro is the windshields. Many RV’s even up to today use the same glass. One problem with the big windshield was visibility into the truck. You wanted to be sure you had your pants on when you rolled out of the sleeper!
Right on about the crappy service with GMC dealers. The dealer I worked at had a large rural customer base. That’s code word for farmers. A few fleet delivery customers but mostly farmers who only used the trucks come harvest time. The only parts in stock were routine maintainence and some high wear items. And 35 years ago no computerized support systems. Orders went through Ma Bell. I don’t recall the politics of GMs medium and heavy duty truck sales but if you sold MD and HD you could order either Chevy or GMC or a mix of both. This went on after the HD line was sold off. I can remember the day we got in a shipment of tools and manuals for the 91 Syclone. I was thinking WTF? We can order those things? I had a Grand National at the time and it was very tempting for me to consider trading it off for one but I didn’t want another car payment so that was that. I sold off the shop manuals years ago on the internet. I still have a few anti-tamper ECM decals laying around somewhere.
After a short stint as an OTR driver and still holding my Class A CDL I’d like to find a worthy GMC truck just to drive to one of the big truck shows. I don’t think I’d ever consider trying to restore one.
I knew a guy who worked in the service department at a Caterpillar dealer, and he said that some of his customers wouldn’t hesitate to come right over his desk if they got the slightest inkling that he might be causing some delay in getting their equipment back into use.
The payments on bulldozers and other such equipment are pretty high, and they have to be working to keep the cash coming in.
From some of the old Overdrive magazines I’ve seen, Ford was even worse for HD parts and service to the point they refused Ford’s advertising for years over it.
I’d suspect a lot of their business came from a few good dealers, and especially from operators of a small fleet of big rigs but a varied fleet of everything who would appreciate a “one-stop shop” where they could get heavy haulers to get the product out, pickups and vans for *their* service techs and sedans for the sales reps through one dealership and one contract.
These Astro cabs had (exterior) styling far ahead of their time, especially the ones with the smaller grille. They look like something out of the 90s rather than the 60s. One could update the grille and headlights and the “Astro 2.0” wouldn’t look out of place today in a lineup of new trucks on the dealer lot.
Oddly enough they still use what cabovers are left for boat transport. The funky hitch is called a stinger and it’s usually used on car haulers.
I actually had to call Ercoa once working a claim on a boat. As I recall they were much easier to deal with than most boat companies who prefer to use their dealers for all customer support. I’ve spent my whole life in the marine industry and it’s amazing that I still find new boat companies all the time. Much different then cars boats are still a little bit in the wild west of manufacturing.
On the sweeping floors it may be profitable. I had a friend who was renting shop space in a building next to a marine machine shop. When the shop was sold and moved out of town his land lord offered him 300 bucks to clean out the space. He told me he took out over $2500 in bronze copper and aluminum shavings. Not a bad days work.
By the way nice buy on the boats. I wish I had shop space for those kind of projects, my wife gets annoyed when I leave a boat on our property for more than a few weeks.
Yes! That picture is pretty much a more modern version of what they were running.
The Ercoa staff were good friendly folks. It was a family business – dad, son, and grandson could all be found down the same hallway. Too bad they were unable to weather the recession.
Interestingly enough, the people in the front office weren’t just strategizers and makers of budgets and blueprints. On various occasions, I walked in to find the President working a welder and the VP forming sheets of aluminum ahead of him! Needless to say, everyone there knew their products VERY well.
This must be the Astro’s counterpart from across the pond, the English 1974-1986 Bedford TM. (Bedford being a GM division.)
COEs have been the standard in Europe since many decades, a conventional truck is rare. In North America it’s the other way around.
An uncomplicated and clean design, that’s what makes a design timeless. Just like this big Bedford and the Astro.
Thats an Isuzu Bedford the TM was a heavyduty TK with a double bumper, I saw one of those on Sunday a dead one they are too low powered and small for todays applications
Isuzu Bedford might be the name down under, the blue one is very clearly a (Euro) Bedford TM.
Here’s the (much older and smaller) Bedford TK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedford_TK
I’m very familiar with TK Bedfords I drove them years ago. I was assigned a 81 model with a 63 as a backup spare truck
The TM had 4 head lights and double bumpers to differentiate it and they had larger more powerfull engines than the TK range but the cab was shared.
You mean this one Bryce ? 4 head lights and double bumpers.
As far as I know this is a Bedford KM, the “heavy-duty” TK.
Great truck and photo. That thing is so deliciously 80s.
The GMC truck in the fourth photo immediately reminded me of the cigarette truck barelling down the streets of Detroit in Beverly Hills Cop to the “Neutron Dance” soundtrack by the Pointer Sisters.
The Ercoa advertisement featuring the paddleboat and bikini-clad women was exactly what I was hoping to see! For the paddleboat, of course.
My extended family has owned and used that exact model of paddleboat on various lakes in Minnesota for close to four decades. It doesn’t have the sunshade, but otherwise it is a dead ringer.
Thanks for the history of the company. From the second picture on, I knew it would be enjoyable!
Every time I see one of these old Astros, I think of Food Lion supermarkets’ fleet back in the 80’s. They were mostly Astros, these older small-grille versions, in dark blue. White trailers with a big “Food Lion” graphic.
Ever since those got retired (replaced by conventional White-GMC or Volvo-White rigs) I’ve seen few to no Astros. They were indeed good-looking trucks. COEs in general seem to be on the way out, though there is a big black Kenworth COE that hauls container trailers to and from the local port on the James River.
GM originally intended to offer an Allison gas turbine engine as an option in the Astro 95 alongside the various Detroit and Cummins diesels when the truck was introduced. After a couple years of testing the idea was dropped due to the turbine’s poor fuel consumption. I always wondered if the design of the original small grille on the Astro 95 was supposed to suggest an air intake rather than a radiator grille.
I love the GM Astro 95/ Chevy Titan 90.
I drove many 10’s of thousands of miles in the late 70’s. Some of the time in a cabover International and the rest in an Astro 95 then a Chevy Titan 90.
The International was brand new when I got it 1978, had a 290 Cummins and 10 speed Roadranger transmission. The truck had plenty of power and did a good job on the New England highways that I drove on. The top speed was right around 60 mph, the speed limit those days was 55 mph so many trucks were geared to keep the top speed down. I thought the International Cabover was somewhat claustrophobic. Visibility was not very good and made life tough in some of the tight spots in the old cities and towns I delivered to. To make matters worse this truck was built without power steering! Maneuvering a big trailer was a real workout. The sleeper seemed tight and on the same claustrophobic scale as the drivers side of the cab. Still, it was a new truck and I was pretty happy with it.
The next year I was put in a brand new leased 1979 GMC General. It was a nice truck but harder to get into tight spots and I was partial to the cabovers. My boss arranged to swap out the General with an older model 1975 Astro 95. I was really taken with the Astro cab. I thought the truck fit me perfectly and I became a part of it whenever we were on the road. It had the red and white paint scheme but but was otherwise pretty plain, with cast spoke wheels and painted fuel tanks. The Astro 95 had superior driver visibility. The big windshields and door glass gave a full view of the road. I liked the little window in the passenger door. The engine dog house was shaped with a wide slot that allowed the driver to look down to the little window and see the blind spot on the right side. The wrap around dash and placement of the controls and instruments was perfect. The sleeper was scaled like the cab and was roomy and comfortable. The doors were a little wider on the Astro than the International and I thought the Astro was easier to get into and out of.
My Astro had an 8V71 Detroit and a 13 speed Roadranger. It could go maybe 65 mph tops. This truck had plenty of power and I was able to easily beat a friend on mine driving the International cabover out of a toll plaza. I am partial to the old 2 stroke Detroits. Nothing on earth sounds as good to me as a screamin’ “Jimmy Diesel”. My Red and White Astro 95 being an older truck was pretty well broken in and she was hot (A/C permanently broke) and noisy to be in 10 to 12 or more hours a day. One summer day I lost one of the rear ends coming in off the highway. I got a blue Chevy Titan 90 replacement while big red was in the shop. The Titan had a 290 Cummins and 10 speed Roadranger and the A/C worked! This truck was tight, the Cummins was purrfectly quiet and smooth and I was liking that. We could only make about 59 mph but I was cool and comfortable as I cruised the highway. I was only supposed to keep the Titan until the Astro was fixed but I couldn’t go back to that noisy sweat box now.
So they let me keep the Titan 90 and I drove it till fall when I decided driving full time wasn’t for me and I went back to being a mechanic.
I still think about those days and whenever I see a picture of an Astro 95/ Chevy Titan 90 I know first hand they were one of the best designed and nicest looking trucks on the road. The Astro/Titan design is so timeless I think they could be parked next to the newest trucks built today and not look out of place. A truly excellent truck!
I’m retired now but own a few Detroit powered ’73 GMC 9500 10 wheelers to fool around with. What can I do, I have diesel in my veins and Detroits in my heart.
Picture of my Titan 90 north of Portland Maine 1979.
I can remember seeing many of the Astro tractors around until Kroger closed the Fort Wayne Indiana Distribution warehouse. One of my old neighbors was one of the mechanics that worked there until retiring shortly before the warehouse closed.. (I think the warehouse closed during the early 1990’s) If I remember right, he told me most of the ones at Fort Wayne were Detroit powered, although there was some Cummins powered as well, with 7 speeds.
i have being looking for a astro or titan would you be interested in selling one
Thanks for the pics of the Astro interior, forgot how nice the dash was.
Mine was a great truck, simple and reliable. Made money.
To this day I still drive a cabover, 48 years and never owned a hood.
Late reply I know…
My Mom ran a truck leasing operation in the 70s-90s (NationalLease/LendLease) and back in the 70s when the 95 came out it was a VERY big deal. No other semi had that much glass, and the fact it went down so far gave the driver better vision of things real close, like someone in a crosswalk, but it freaked some drivers out at first because you do feel “exposed” compared to say a Kenworth or Peterbuilt Cab over of the time. Anyway, I drove one when I was 12 years old around the lot, and I will never forget that dashboard of that windshield, or how sharp of a turn it could make.
Her fleet of 95s did cross country turnarounds with two drivers, Indiana to California and back in 5 days over the Rockies, the drivers loved them.
I can’t speak to what other people have done for or against the GMC Astro 95’s but I still have mine and it is the only one that I have seen “anywhere”. My son and I still drive this truck and trailer every week from San Diego California, to LA. We had to do allot of work to use it in the state of California. The California Air Recourses Board made me put a 2002 N-14 engine in it and a super large catalytic converter/particulate filter, but it dyno’ed super clean and the Astro 95 can be used until 2027.
We/I cant go anywhere without people coming out with cameras and cell phones to take pictures of my truck. I love my truck and it will be around for a long time to come.
That’s a nice one! A lot of the later Astro 95’s were Cummins powered.
I am actually the current owner of the truck on this article. Can anyone tell me where this picture was taken. I am trying to see if by some chance this trailer is still in existence.
The red/orange one?
Somewhere on the back roads near Pine City, MN, as I recall – can’t give more detail than that without actually retracing my steps.
I vaguely recall it being at/near a “T” intersection. The truck and trailer were plainly visible from the road. Also seem to recall some connection with carnival equipment.
Did find the high-res original of that pic, but alas, no GPS information or other pictures for context.
At the time I was trying to obscure the truck’s location to prevent unwelcome tourists (as I commonly did with any roadside pics). Guess I did a better job than necessary, in this case!
The location makes sense. Old Dutch plant located in Minneapolis. MN. I would bet my paycheck that the truck and trailer were originally owner by Old Dutch Potato Chip Company. They would haul trailer loads of potatoes in from Idaho with these rigs. I might have even worked on this one. Old Dutch was a really good customer.
When I worked at Peterbilt in the late ‘70’s to early ‘80’s, we definitely paid attention to some of the features of the Astro as well as Ford CL9000, especially the cab air suspension of the latter. The Pete 362 cabover launched in 1981 featured cab suspension as well as a wraparound dash that I worked on, which may have been subliminally inspired by the GMC.
I read somewhere that Larry Shinoda had a hand in designing the Astro 95. They were quite popular, particularly with fleets. Production ran from 1969 until late 1987, when GM merged their heavy truck operation with Volvo/White the Astro 95 was replaced by the Volvo version of the White Road Commander II, probably a step backward. The only GM heavy truck that was built after the merger was the Brigadier, and it lasted until the Pontiac heavy truck plant closed in late 1989.
I understood that much of the interior and the dashboard were designed by a woman named Martha Jayne Van Alstyne, who also worked on the interior of the ’68 Corvette. It was supposedly a big advance in truck design for its time. Van Alstyne was one of the female designers mentioned in the book, “Damsels in Design,” by Constance Smith which came out a couple of years ago and which was mentioned on this site and on others.
The wrap around dash was a natural because it sits on top of the engine. Nothing else you could do there anyway. The one weak area for the Astro was the cab tilt mechanics. It used a single hyd cylinder on the right hand side of the frame. As the trucks aged the cab had a tendency to shift to the right as it lifted, older ones would snag the safety hook.
Sometimes you needed a prybar to get the rear cab mounts back into there saddles. What was always fun was tilting any of these cabovers to there full tilt range. There was a point when the cab would go over center, meaning gravity took over and the hyd system that was lifting the cab was now used to control cab movement by restricting the oil flow. You always had to check the interior before flopping one of these things open, you never know what you may come across, but a coffee cup was enough to take out a windshield. The cabovers were nice for doing a lot of repairs although I hated pulling radiators.
One of my most exciting or tense days involved a White Road Commander. Had a fairly new one in for service, it had the largest sleeper size available, I think it was a queen size mattress, maybe king? Any way it was big.
Cab is up in the air, a crack noise followed by some crunching sounds. The left front cab mount failed, the cab has swung around to the right some and landed on the motor. What a mess. Luckily the shop we are in was originally a heavy equipment shop. We have large over head hoists and we can slip a second trolley hoist onto the beam from the next hoist over. We opened the doors, bolted together 2 10′ shelving beams, wrapped the beams with rugs for cushioning, stick them thru the cab hook up the hoists and gently reposition everything back in place. The truck was still in warranty, the service rep didn’t want to replace all the parts we planned on replacing. I was a little concerned about the pieces that were twisted on the right front, yea they looked fine but I couldn’t see taking a chance on this happening again. I had lots of scares over the years but that one was probably the most tense because it took a quite of bit of time to pull this off and get that cab sitting back down on its mounts.