(Updated 7/1/2026) Fred Oliver has found a truck that’s long eluded me: the 1960-1965 GMC B Series short-conventional truck/tractor. This was a way to utilize the standard Chevy/GMC pickup-truck cab in a medium-heavy duty truck, and still keep the overall length fairly short. And it’s the exact format that Ford saw fit to copy with their N Series, starting in 1964.
This one is from 1964 or 1965, as it doesn’t have the dogleg windshield of the ’60-’63 version. And unlike the conventional GMC and Chevy trucks that had torsion bar IFS, it has a straight front axle. Since there’s no badge to tell us what’s under the hood, we’ll have to speculate among a couple of possibilities.
1960 was a big year for GMC, with a number of new products, including the L-series steel tilt cab and the D-Series “crackerbox” aluminum tilt cab, which we covered in great detail here. And then there was the B-Series, up there on the upper right. The other big news was the new 60 degree V6 engine, and the V12 “Twin Six” variant, which can be seen in that yellow tilt cab. The 6-71 an 6V-71 Detroit Diesel was also available.
Access to the engine compartment was via two butterfly hoods.
This one looks to have a RoadRanger transmission, but I might be wrong. Looks like it’s seen some hard work in its day.
The faded sign on the door reads: “Homer MI Bottling Company”. Homer is a rather small (pop. 1,668) town not far from Battle Creek. That would explain all the rust.
These trucks came in a wide range of capabilities. There was even a BW9000 off-highway tandem introduced in 1960, but soon discontinued.
In 1964, the new ToroFlow four cycle 60 degree V8 was available as lower-cost diesel alternative to the well-proven DDs. But it turned out to be a less than stellar engine.
The B series was part of an ambitious expansion at GMC to take on the rapidly growing short-cab conventional market.
In 1963, Chevrolet also got to put their bowtie on the same basic truck, as part of a growing strategy to allow Chevy to compete directly with GMC in the same sectors. Eventually the two would field the same trucks with just different badging. Prior to this, Chevrolet was not allowed to be so competitive in the big truck sector.
It’s probably been a while since this truck made its last delivery, although it seems to be waiting at the loading dock. Homer Bottling Co. seems to have become defunct some time back, so this likely is their former facility.
For that generation there were different dashboards in Chevy and GMC trucks, and the Chevy version changed significantly when the A-pillars were changed for ’64. What’s interesting is that the at least the ’64-66 Chevy versions of these had a proper Chevy pickup-style dash (not sure about the ’63s) unlike later on when both Ford and GM retained old dashboards in the medium-duty line when the pickups got redesigned ones in the same cab.
Tell me why the cohort 4000 series b short would have 2 different spedometers in the dash onegoes to 40 mph the other 80 i believe? Had the v6 4 spd trans
Or is that in the fleet of Hosmer Mt Bottling Co of CT?
https://hosmersoda.com/about-us/
YUP!!!! Connecticut would also explain the rust. Hodmer Mountain Bottling is still active but apparently in the process of being sold to a new owner.
https://thechronicle.com/stories/20191129HOSMER.php
Correction: HOSMER!!!
Yep that’s Hosmer alright.. That must be the main location in Willimantic. Been a while since I’ve driven by. Hosmer makes great Soda too for the record.
Those are my photos. The truck is indeed from Hosmer soda company in Willimantic CT. They are still in business, a scrappy local company that makes great soda.
I found that truck while out on a bike ride. It seemed strange to me that, thought it doesn’t seem to have moved in a while, it was still hooked to a trailer and parked at a loading dock. Perhaps the owners couldn’t bear to send their old friend to the scrapyard after years of faithful service.
The old truck seems to have earned its keep over the years, likely on thousands of short trips because the company only distributes in the local area as far as I know.
Great photos of this great old truck.
Do you know if it is still around?
I live over in the UK and I would possibly like to ship it over here.
Thank you,
Daryl.
There’s one of the almost horizontal shifter canes I was trying to describe in another reply. Had the effect of standing the “H” pattern on its end.
That’s 2-speed axle (electric control) rather than RoadRanger. It’s an Eaton axle rather than GM, based on the visible axle flange.
Makes sense. Road Rangers were more often seen on long distance trucks.
A large local transport company in Southern Ontario (Taggart) still had a number of these in their fleet into the late 70s. It was a rare treat to see these still at work. The owner also ran a GMC Truck franchise, so virtually all of their hundreds of trucks were GMCs. The company was sold in the early 90s, including an inventory sale.
My guess is that the pictured truck has a “5 and 2” (five speed main transmission with a two speed rear axle) rather than a Roadranger. The two-speed button was generally red, and was usually encased in a rubber cover as seen here (with the axle in high, judging by the exposed stem under the button), unlike the controls for a RR. I drove a GMC 9500 with a 6-71 Detroit diesel with the 5 and 2 setup and a shift lever much like the one pictured. Notice that it has a handle rather than a knob, because the lever came up fairly far back through the cab floor and canted forward. You curled your little finger around the 2 speed button and slid your hand forward on the handle to upshift the axle, and slid your hand backward on the handle to bump the button down to downshift the axle, so that you could split shift easily. With a 6-71’s narrow power band, you hardly ever got your hand off of the lever. With a Roadranger, you shifted the button only when going from low range (5 gears) to high range (5 more gears) or vice-versa. So 10 speeds with the RR involved one use of the button, whereas 10 speeds with the 5 and 2 necessitated 10 button shifts, “splitting” each of the 5 gears into 2 more closely spaced gears. When the load was light, a gasoline powered truck often could use just hand shifts, with perhaps a shift of the axle from low to high in 5th gear when road speed had been achieved. Now finding someone who even knows what that third pedal is for is becoming difficult, to say nothing of the complexities described above. And in those days, no one gave it a thought. Every farm kid knew about this stuff from early childhood.
It looks like a 5 and 2 to me too. The tires are all aired up and it’s backed into a loading dock so I’m going to guess that this old beast is still earning it’s keep as a yard truck for ferrying trailers around.
I agree. 5+2 was much more common for use like this.
And I drove quite a few 5+2s, so I remember them well. Shall I split all the gears or be lazy? 🙂
In addition to the GMC B series and Ford N series, the Dodge C series and International Fleetstar also fell into the short conventional with a pickup based cab genre. For some reason while Chevy saw fit to borrow the B series from GMC for their diesel LCF’s, they designed their own L series for their gasoline versions:
https://www.imcdb.org/v273621.html
Was going to mention the Dodge LCF trucks, which also had the swing-out side panels like these B series trucks, but included the fender.
Of course they were saddled with the C-Series cab and its wraparound windshield until the end in 1975, but they were tough trucks. The suburban town I moved to in 1976 used theirs well into the 80s.
The GMC/Chevy heavy duties with 6-71’s, Cummins 855 or 3406 Cats also had the laid over shift levers, we often took the torch to these and bent about the last 8″ of the lever more or less straight up so the H pattern was normal. The laid over lever was so long on these that they were kind of ‘springy”. The bending of the upper area took that springy feeling out. Bent a lot of shift levers back in the day.
There were some auxiliary gearboxes still around in the 70’s and early 80’s. These would have two shift levers. The most common we would see were medium duties with a 5 speed main box and a three speed aux box. Usually sporting a 427 engine.
Those twin sticks must have been crazy to drive. I was taught to run my left arm thru the steering wheel and grab the main gear box shift lever and use my right hand to operate the aux trans lever. The whole time your feet are two stepping the clutch, gas and brake pedals. I did a lot of skip shifting as I was just moving empty trucks and road testing. I can’t imagine driving a dump truck all day listening to that bellowing 427 and jamming those gears.
The other one was the famous Spicer 16 speed gear box. This was a 4 speed single countershaft gear box with the 4speed aux gear box mounted directly to the rear of the main box. One large long assembly. I worked on one of those but it had the air shift aux box. Luckily it was in an Astro so swinging the trans out was a piece of cake. The big headache on those were all the needle bearings, hundreds of them.
Hi, does anyone have technical drawings/ dimensional drawings of GMC 3500 and 4000 for model year 1965… many thanks
The “40” was rpm the “80” was mph
When the B7000 was introduced in ’60, the 6V-71 was the only diesel offered. For truck buyers wanting the in-line 6-71 in a short conventional GMC continued the ’58 vintage D860 through ’62. In ’63 GMC heavily modified the cab and began offering the 6-71 in the B7000. I believe the reason some operators preferred the 6-71 over the 6V-71 was because the in-line diesel could be tuned for more H.P. due to limitations of the 6V’s cooling system, specifically the block water passages.
This type of heavy duty diesel short conventional was all the rage in the early 60’s, cheaper than a cabover but still able to pull long trailers in states with length limitations. They faded from the scene rather quickly because aside from the 6V powered GMC B series they were notoriosly difficult to work on, particularly for major engine work. Many didn’t make it beyond needing their first major overhaul, and often the cab had to be removed just to get the cylinder head(s) off for an in-frame. I was told the Ford N series with a Cummins NH diesel was particularly bad.
Interesting old Yard Goat, nice to see they’re not scrapping it .
I remember twin sticks & ‘Brownie Boxes’, I never got the hang of smoothly shifting them tho’ .
-Nate
We had one of these in the company fleet. It was a 1960 5500 tandem. It had a V6 gasoline engine, probably a 351. The transmission set-up was a 5 speed main with a 3 speed aux behind it. It had air brakes but no power steering. The truck was equipped with a 1200 gallon tank for transporting and applying road tar. It had a diesel fired burner system with a Rootes blower for heating the tar, along with a multi-function pump for suctioning tar aboard, circulating it, and then spraying it onto the road surface. It had a hose and wand for spraying and a spreader bar. The burner and pump systems were driven by a separate Continental 4 cylinder “Red Seal” power unit mounted on the rear of the truck.
This truck was bought new by the county road department. It was pretty well whipped by the time I bought it at auction in the mid 1980s. Top speed was about 45 and it took a while to get there, especially with a full load of tar. We used it for several years and then it sat for several more. I finally sold it in the late 1990s to a fellow who needed an engine for his dump truck. I think he cut the remainder up for scrap.
There was a local excavating contractor who had a single axle B Series dump truck. It was the Chevrolet version, the only one I ever saw. It was powered by a 4-71 Detroit Diesel.