We’ve had several articles on the near-immortal Ford C-Series tilt cab trucks, built from 1957 until 1990. But we’ve never featured its direct competitor, the Chevrolet (and GMC) steel tilt cab trucks, which were quite similar in concept. The obvious reason is that they’re hard to find anymore, as they never sold as well as the Ford, nor for as many years. Why?
Because Chevrolet (and GMC) shot themselves in the foot by making torsion bar IFS standard across their whole line of trucks in 1960. Not surprisingly, there were some significant issues with that, and the IFS was gone by 1963. But by that time, the damage had been done.
The Ford C series tilt cab just really nailed it. The combination of airy and roomy mid-century styling combined with Ford’s solid drive trains, augmented later by diesels from various manufacturers hit the sweet spot. And undoubtedly its aggressive pricing made a big difference, as it was significantly less expensive than the competition.
Medium sized COE trucks had of course been around for decades, but the White 3000 of the early ’50s redefined it, by pioneering the tilt cab, as well as one set well ahead of the front axle. It dominated the segment in the ’50s, but Ford seems to have pretty much stolen it away, with supporting help from International.
The Chevy and GMC steel tilt cabs arrived three years later, at a time when GM was also making an aggressive push in the medium and HD truck market. That rather backfired with their very innovative 1959 GMC “crackerbox” DLR-8000, which had a number of very innovative features including IFS, air ride, lightweight frames and aluminum cabs.
GM seriously stubbed its toes on their new 1960 light and medium trucks, which all had torsion bar IFS, which turned out to be more maintenance intensive and was abandoned in 1963 for a conventional solid front axle and leaf springs.
The Chevy and GMC steel tilt cabs arrived in 1960, obviously designed to compete with the Ford. Same basic design, dimensions and applications.
The big difference was the torsion bar IFS, as was used on all Chevrolet and GMC trucks in 1960, and through 1962. It’s quite clear that issues arose; reading through the engineering details of the 1961 and 1962 models one finds several references to changes in the suspension, strengthening various elements and such. The forces of braking on it were apparently an issue, as well as others. In 1962, already the heaviest duty models were available with an optional solid axle front end, and in 1963, the whole line reverted to that, except the light duty 10-30 series, which received a new coil spring IFS.
One thing is for certain: these were better styled trucks, unlike the rather spartan “crackerbox”. I’ve even managed to find a styling clay that’s from 1958, by which time the GM designers had plenty of time to check out the Ford C Series.
We should note two things here: the V6 badge predicts the appearance of the GMC 60 degree V6 engine. And that this clay is of the “tall” version of the tilt cab, as evidenced by the additional filler below the grille and the deeper fenders.
This 1960 GMC brochure shows both versions of the new tilt cab: low (in the back row), and tall, in the front row. A bit of digging confirms that the taller DD 6V-71 diesel engines required the taller cab.
The tall cab (and diesels) was not used on the Chevy tilt cabs in the early years. But then that was pretty typical of the times, as GMC was positioned as the heavier duty specialist within the GM truck family, although that changed in 1968, when GMC Truck essentially took over Chevrolet’s medium and HD design and production, consolidating them. After that point, the only difference was essentially in their badging.
Here’s a tall Chevy tilt cab from 1965, after the DD 6V-71 became available.
As can be seen, there were a few changes to the grille and other details over the years. This is an early version, with twin headlights. The lower control arms of the IFS are quite clearly visible.
Power trains were rather limited to start with. The low capacity T60 could be had with the typical Chevy gas truck engines of the time: the 261 CID six, and the 160 hp 283 V8. You may wonder about a six in these trucks, but the 261 actually had a net hp rating than the 283, and decidedly more torque. It makes one wonder why they bothered with the 283. By 1962, the stouter 327 replaced it.
T70 models had a 170 hp 348 V8, and T80’s had 230 hp version of the 348.
In 1962, the first diesel engines were made available, the DD 6V-53N, with 195 hp. And in 1963, the Toro-Flow V6 and V8 diesels joined the line, as well as the little DD 4-53.
The Chevrolet 366 and 427 V8s were commonly seen in these in the mid-late ’60s. And after the consolidation with GMC in 1968, the HD gas engines were typically the GMC V6s, with Chevy V8s in the lower weight class, starting with the 350V8. There were so many changes over the years, that it would be difficult to list all of the power trains over the two decades.
In its final year, 1980, engine choices were quite limited, to just three Chevy V8s: the 350, 366 and 427. Sales by this time were very modest.
In their day, these were used in a wide variety of settings, and this one even sports a sleeper cab.
This the state of the art in 1962 for car carriers.
Regional distribution was a prime application.
Southern Pacific used both the GMC crackerbox and the steel tilt cabs for their freight services. Makes for a graphic representation of their respective heights.
This example I found is a 65 Series. It must be a ’75 or up model, as in that was the year the engine offerings reverted back to Chevy V8s, and no longer the GMC 60 degree V6s.
As to its engine, it’s quite easy to make out the wide valve covers of the Chevy big block; this would be the “tall deck” 366, a smaller bore version of the 427. It developed a rep for being a tough engine, and powered untold number of school buses and other medium-duty Chevy trucks well into the 1990s.
As to its transmission, I assume it’s the typical 5 speed with a two speed axle. I seem to remember comments that the shift linkage in these was far from ideal. FWIW, the first two years had a cable linkage, and that was changed for a rod-type linkage in 1962, so presumably the original was even worse.
A view of the other side of the cab. Room for two, in a pinch?
Pennington Crossarm provides custom services for the lumber industry, including dry kilns, planing, custom sawing, etc., so this truck has hauled some lumber in its day.
And as a bit of a double treat, it’s sitting here at this automotive service shop next to a Chevy B-box wagon, one I’m familiar with as it lives not far from me and is still a daily driver.
I’m assuming this truck is here for some service too, and will soon be back to work.
Related reading:
That B body wagon looks to be a 1986 version as it has an updated grille design but no composite headlamps and no stand up hood ornament.
The introduction of composite headlamps as well as the reintroduction of the stand up hood ornament would occur for model year 1987.
Thanks for this, it is good to get some background on these. I will confess that I had forgotten these existed, but no I can recall seeing them here and there over the years.
That torsion bar episode is a fascinating one. It seems that International was able to get the kinks worked out, at least for lighter trucks. And it is interesting that Chrysler, the Land Of The Torsion Bar never attempted to fit them into the truck lines. Was GM the only company that tried to make them work in trucks this heavy?
I don’t think that the torsion bar suspension on the light-duty (C10-30) trucks was really all that problematic. The issues were mainly with the heavier duty trucks. And I suspect that GM could have eventually worked out the kinks, but clearly there was a big push at GM in 1962 or so to get away from the experimentation and focus on the tried and proven. Which was also cheaper. Truck operators, like taxi operators, are not keen on being guinea pigs.
The light duty trucks switched to coil springs because undoubtedly they were a bit cheaper.
I drove an 80 series chevrolet with the torsion bar suspension. I was 18 yrs old this was a single axle tractor pulling a 35 foot trailer hauling lumber out of the woods and driving 100 miles to the steel mills. it had a 409 eng. 5 speed with 2 speed I put glass packs on. I never had any problems w/ the bars loved the truck would love to locate it today.
I kind of wonder whether the Chrysler engineers were thinking “Just you wait….”.
Chrysler built a cab over that used the cab of a Dodge A100 pickup (think Little Red Wagon wheelstander). I last saw one about 15 years ago. Like the Chevrolet, it could not compete with the Ford C series.
The Chevy competed with the Ford for over 20 years.
International made a nice looking COE. It had some drawbacks. When entering the vehicle, upon opening t door, I used to bang my right knee into the curved part of the lower door. OUCH! They also offered a five-speed column mounted manual transmission. You had to see the linkage for that contraption. Great when working but always need adjustment. The attached picture does not do justice to the graceful lines of the cab design. It had good visibility and was comfortable.
Five on the tree? Wow, I thought only Alfa Romeo had that. As always, CC provides a great automotive education. I’d never heard of the 366 big-block Chevy either, until today.
I know some of the French car companies also had 5 on the tree manuals, like the Renault 16. They are not uncommon on Japanese kei cars either, where space utilization is a premium.
That’s a new one for me too.
Toyota HiAce vans had them, at least in the ’90s when I occasionally drove them for a job I had at the time. Add to that right hand drive and it took some getting used to.
Te craziest column shift is probably the 80s MAN heavy trucks that had a 16 speed ZF transmission. Granted the main box is only a 4 speed but most versions shifted from low range to high range via a double gate making it 8 on the tree with a splitter, although the column shifts may have had a Roadranger style switch instead.
Worst truck IH ever made.Shift linkage was impossible.345 v- 8 was a very poor engine.Control pull knobs on dash would constantly fall of,springs were never up to the job for the gVW of the truck.
I am amazed that these trucks were built through 1980. They were always sort of seldom seen, but into the 80’s were usually only seen parked and out of service. Roadway was still running Ford C Series rigs into this century and I still see them in use as line painting trucks and other special applications.
comment and question
I love the overhead cab corner lights on the styling buck as opposed to the more traditional amber circles that made it to production. Kind of reminds me of Icarus’s crown.
Where is the fuel tank on the featured truck? It looks like there are two tool boxes going down the frame under the body.
What would be under the squared off section inside the body of the truck? It seems that is where the fuel tank would be on a ld truck but there is no fuel filler to be seen on the cab. Also seems like alot of wasted space that would be greatly appreciated for a Bergstrom style seat that rocks back and forth and goes up and down.
I don’t know. I assume it’s the square unit behind the cab, and that the filler is hidden in the shadows. I didn’t think to look at it specifically.
I too found the torsion bar story interesting. It looks like it would be fairly easy to service; I wonder what the problems were that they had to replace them with coils? Did they just break?
“As to its transmission, I assume it’s the typical 5 speed with a two speed axle.”
Knowing nothing about HD trucks, could the axle be shifted on the fly?
No. One had to release the throttle pedal for it to shift. Kind of like an overdrive.
It wasn’t the torsion bars themselves; it was other issues with the IFS. The forces on it from a loaded truck were problematic. It required more maintenance (alignment, etc.). There’s a good reason almost all big trucks have used solid axles for almost forever.
Very few of the GMC versions had the torsion bar IFS, I believe the feature was limited to the 4000 series. Chevy however had IFS on all of theirs up to the 80 series. A number of engine options required the high mounted cab, both the 6V-53 and 6V-71 Detroits, the Toro-Flow diesel V-8, the 637 gas V-8 and 702 gas V-12. The box structure behind the seats usually contained the coolant header tank and diesel air cleaners. I don’t remember the early versions having a cable shift linkage, they quite possibly did. But, the versions with the rod-type linkage and shift lever on the stationary frame mounted tower between the seats shifted a lot better than the Ford C series with it’s lever on the floor-shaft and U joint linkage.
All my sources say that the IFS was used on all GMC trucks (except 4×4 and forward control chassis) up through the 5500 series. Here’s a shot from a 1960 brochure for the L5500 with a GCV of 50,000lbs with IFS. This was the case with the GMC conventionals too.
9000# capacity would be extremely light if it means per pair.
I checked some of the information I have, and you are right. The 5000’s did have IFS, except for the W5000 tandem axle models. Purely anecdotal, but I remember seeing a lot more medium and heavy duty Chevy’s with IFS than GMC’s.
Buenas tardes ..
Quisiera saber por qué la numeración del chasis viene incompleta en el chasis ..
Something odd these trucks had was that the clutch housing was “mirror” from a conventional truck, with the release mechanism on the passenger side, rather than the usual LH location. Although it appeared there was plenty of room for the usual LH location.
The fallapart bellhousing that XR7 recently commented on can be seen in sixth from last image. Only a couple of the bolts were through bolts, actually connecting engine to clutch housing. The rest of the bolts held via the thin plate seen between block and housing. If everything wasn’t 100% perfect it’d jetison the housing.
The adapted-to bellhousing bolt pattern did not seem related to any other engine. No, not V6 either.
As far as I know it did not bolt directly to any block, always connected via an adapter.
I sometimes wondered where the pattern came from, and why the struggle to keep it. It’s as if coffee splashed a pattern on the blueprint and they just went with it. LoL
As great as the common “’55” Chevrolet bolt pattern became, it had a serious shortcoming in heavy applications in that it wasn’t conducive to larger diameter flywheels.
“We should note two things here: the V6 badge predicts the appearance of the GMC 90 degree V6 engine.”
Wasn’t it a 60 degree V6? Only way a 90 degree could have been practical in that large an engine would have been offset crank pins, and I don’t think they existed yet.
Didn’t one of the Detroit Vees have, or should-have-had offset crank pins? It didn’t fire “right” so to speak.
All GMC and Detroit V-type engines were a 60 degree angle. That made the V-8’s uneven firing.
60 degree, of course. Typo. Fixed now.
Torsion bar IFS went dormant until the ’88 model year GMT-400 4×4 light trucks. My 2000 K2500 has it. Coil springs would get in the way of the front driveshafts, so torsion bars are a good solution.
Nice looking truck. One thing I remember of all these cab overs was the rattling fit of the doors. Everyone of these were drafty and cold. I would guess the fuel tank is located on the right rail behind the cab. I think it is hiding in the shadows with that station wagon in the foreground. A fairly decent truck, appears the engine has been apart, Silicone squeezed out at rear of intake manifold. Points distributor with spinning gov in the base. One of the easiest fixes was cleaning the breather vent that is screwed into the dist housing. These didn’t plug often but when they did it really cut the power. First thing you checked if the engine ran good but lacked power. Radiator work was not fun. Shifting was better than the Ford but that’s not saying much. We referred to these as a stick in a box of rocks. Stir the stick around and see what gear you find. 2 speed rear axles very common in these. Nice work for the shop. Drivers rarely operated them correctly, no fault of their own as the driver was rarely trained on its operation. I could pull the shifting mechanism off blindfolded an its probably been at least 30 years since I did my last one. We were located in the heart of the industrial area and there were tons of medium duties to work on. Beverage trucks, tanker trucks, department store trucks, Nabisco Cookie trucks – our favorite!
GM brought the Isuzu in as a replacement in the mid-eighties. It was a huge improvement over the old model. The Isuzu’s had their issues but build quality was superior.
A large shipping company based in the town where I spent part of my childhood, had a number of these in their fleet, well into the 80s. The owner also had a long time GM car franchise, as well as a GMC Truck franchise. So, it made sense all their trucks going back a few decades, were GM. I thought these were better styled than the Ford C-Series.
At the time, I appreciated the firm didn’t update their livery for years, so the dated 50s/60s era graphics suited this cab design nicely.
Say Joe, we got a call that one of our trucks was seen driving through fresh concrete and took out a newly-poured curb. They say the unit number was your 4080, what do you know about that?
There was at least a 1981 brochure printed up for these, and some sources say they ran to around ’83-4 before being replaced by the Isuzu-based design, so I wonder when they actually did stop making them.
The gas tank on FC Corvairs was below the driver’s seat. ’61-’63 the shift linkage was a convoluted affair getting around the tank and shifting was loosey goosey. ’64-’65 they put a hole in the gas tank and ran the shift rod directly to the transmission, resulting in much better shifting.
At least these had the shift linkage (and some other controls, as I recall) mounted on a stationary “island” which made the linkage simpler than the Ford’s, in which the shift lever tilted with the cab. This necessitated that it ran alongside the engine along the frame rail and then moved back to the center of the truck to connect to the top cover of the transmission. This complex mechanism was sloppy or balky, or alternated between the two, and required constant lubrication. Its unpredictableness made split-shifting the two speed rear axle more challenging than on a conventional cab with the gear stick emerging directly from the top of the transmission. In contrast to these trucks, the Fords had suspended pedals for clutch (hydraulic) and presumably for hydraulic brakes, although I can’t attest to this personally, since the rigs I drove had air brakes with the traditional bottom-hinged treadle type brake pedal (long before the new style hanging AB pedals that are now nearly universal. My guess is that the Chevy/GMC pedal linkage was somewhat akin to the Ford’s Rube Goldberg shift linkage – less than ideal but worth putting up with in exchange for the visibility and maneuverability of the Low-Cab-Forward tilts of the era, from any of the manufacturers. Good memories from my young adulthood.
Most cabovers had some short comings to deal with because of the tilting cab. One of my favorites was the fuel pedal on a GMC Astro. The pedal operated a “paddle” hanging off the bottom of the cab, there was a roller on the end of the throttle linkage that was attached to the engine. So when you step down on the throttle the paddle pushes on the roller and away you go, except when you are empty or lightly loaded the engine torque causes the engine to torque and twist changing how much throttle you have asked for, gives you a nice herky jerky ride until you get it under control. Another weird one was the CL series Ford cabover, air ride cab all four corners. First one I drove was bizarre until you got used to it. Had my hand on the shifter going around a corner, cab leans or tilts some and the shifter is mounted to the frame of the truck so you get this feeling that the shifter is either popping up thru the floor or its going to disappear into the floor. My brain feels the shifter moving rather than the cab movement.
Anyone see one of these Chevy/GMC with an auxiliary trans? Shift rods over the right side of engine, I assume?? Thanks
I don’t recall specifically GM cabover linkage, but by this era lots of auxiliary boxes were shifted via Morse cables.
The shifter control would have the usual look feel and “H” pattern, but instead of linkage rods cables were routed from control to box.
The cables worked well, extremely smooth. Think outboard boat engine steering and controls.
The 90’s vintage White Road Commanders (Road Commodes) used Morse cables to shift the transmission. The only problem they had when new was the control mounted in the cab that operated the cables. It had barely enough travel to engage the gears in the transmission. The stick was also pretty short not giving you much leverage. So after market gear shift extensions were installed and then we lengthened the attachment points for the cables to get some additional travel in the cables.
Also dealt with a lot of Morse cable controls for plow trucks. The cables would get moisture inside the housing and then freeze up. Eventually we dumped cable controls and went with joysticks and electronics for controlling the hydraulic functions, that brought on many new problems.
My name is Lonnie Abrams,
My brother and I are in our late fifties.
Our father owned a 1970 chevrolet C60 COE tilt cab tractor and 42′ ribbed trailer.
My brother drove the truck around the house and to the local quick mart. I never was given the opportunity to drive it because I was to young.
We are asking anyone that can provide us with any useful documentation like drawings and exact measurements of this truck. We are going to recreate this truck in a 50% scale of the original truck to use in parades and for our grandchildren to enjoy. We are very eager to start this project. I would be very grateful for any help or direction that we can use to get this project under way.
I had a ’65 GMC DLAH 5000 that was an ex-oil delivery truck. I put a 14″ platform body on it with a hoist and used it as a silage truck. I really liked the styling, much more than the Ford C series. My truck had a Clark 305 5 speed along with a 2- speed axle. The engine was the DH-478 V6 diesel – shake, rattle & roll. It was a good, maneuverable truck but was well worn when I acquired it. Mine was still equipped with the DD3 rear brake chambers that I changed to spring-set brakes. For some reason, GM never pushed these – you hardly ever saw advertisements for them. The stationary center island in the cab was a good idea. I learned the hard way not to tilt the cab when there were bolts or wrenches sitting on the shelf behind the seats – there goes the windshield!