It’s rare when all the major automakers come up with a great new idea at the same time. The Age Of The SUV in the late 1980s and early 1990s was not one of those times.
Ford, General Motors and even the Japanese had all taken notice of how well the little Jeep Cherokee and its upper-crust sibling the Wagoneer (seen above with its big brother, the Grand Wagoneer), introduced for 1984, was doing in the marketplace.
By 1990, Toyota and Nissan were ready to release four door versions of their successful 4Runner and Pathfinder, respectively. Ford began leaking pictures of its coming 1991 Explorer, soon to be every Mom’s favorite hauler – and perhaps the biggest hit to traditional station wagons since the Caravan/Voyager twins. Naturally, GM wanted in on the action.
The S-10 derived Blazer and its near twin, the GMC S-15 Jimmy, although somewhat long in the tooth by the early ’90s, would have to be reworked into a four door for the time being. In March of 1990, the 1991 four door Blazer and Jimmy were introduced to the public with a 6.5 inch longer wheelbase than their two door brethren. The GM twins, despite their shortcomings were rather attractive little 4x4s, so GM decided to just stretch them out a little. The rear doors were designed to blend in with the original roofline so they would still appear to be two doors, just with a surprise!
The result of this onslaught of “family-sized” SUVs? Toyota and Nissan enjoyed increased sales, but the runaway sales success of this race was the Explorer. The GM models, while competitive on paper, were not much improved over the ones that debuted in the early Eighties.
The GM SUVs did offer a couple of things that you could not find with the other makes, though; the biggest difference being that they offered a luxurious Oldsmobile variant. The Bravada had a much more upscale interior and Smartrak all wheel drive. The other difference was that you could order any of the GM triplets with a digital instrument cluster.
These were really the only reasons one could use to justify purchasing one of these trucks over an Explorer or one of the other ones, unless perhaps said shopper was a GM loyalist. These continued in much the same form through 1994. 1995 would bring a heavily revised Blazer, though it would still be riding the earlier version’s chassis.
Our featured Blazer belonged to an elderly lady that my parents and I knew. She bought it new, and kept it immaculate. I doubt that it rarely left Tawas since she bought it from Schafer’s Chevy Farm. It only has 41,000 miles on it, and it was always garage kept. Once in a while the front fenders would start to rust a little, and she would promptly take it in and have them repaired. Sadly, she passed away a few months ago. She had no children, so her sister is left with the task of cleaning out the house and getting everything ready to be sold, which is why the Blazer is sitting outside.
Part of me wishes I had the money and the space to keep it, just because it is so well preserved. But I already have a small SUV, so I don’t need another one. Hopefully this one will find a good home. It deserves it.
Havent seen this model before theres several of the later 4 door Blazers roaming locally.
I believe that instrument cluster is Chevy Astro Van?
The instrument cluster based on the Astro design was used in the S10 (1986-94) – either with analog or digital gauges. They went fully electronic in 1989 when the speedometer cable was eliminated and a VSS took its place.
My mother had one of those to haul her horses around. A -93 with the 4.3. It was very fun to drive, with that torquey engine and automatic. But it wallowed and wandered around like something crazy. I have never driven a car that hazardous, I was sure I was going to hit oncoming traffic every time I sneezed. And everything seemed to be a bit loose and unscrewed, like it was never put together properly. Rattles and squeaks and something coming from the back window sounding like a nail scraping the glass constantly. I was amazed how paper thin the body was. Being a body on frame, I was prepared that the body wouldn’t actually take up much load. But cleaning and waxing that body, you could make the sheet metal flex just by putting your finger on it. But it was a hoot to drive…
My father had an early two door model for a very breif amount of time as a work vehicle (a rare break from a string of Caprice wagons) but he hated it. Of course given that he was trying to tow routinely with it, his dislike of short wheelbase vehicles and long trailers is understandable, plus his was powered by the oh so wonderful 2.8V6.
The vehicle that replaced his beloved Bonneville was a four door Blazer from the end of production which he purchased after the GMT360 platform (TrailBlazer) had been out for a year or so. His favorite used car salesman had located a 2002 Blazer that had just come off lease and was being offered at a steep discount. It was a pretty loaded up model and dad found the 4.3 Vortec to be a darn good improvement over the anemic 2.8. This was the first family car that mom had the majority of input in purchasing and suddenly we were going from sedans to SUVs. They kept that Blazer till late 2011 and replaced it with a 2008 Pontiac Torrent with everything but AWD.
I’ve spent an extensive amount of time in a 2000 Jimmy SLE on district business and my comments would echo the others here that found these vehicles excessively wallowly. The Jimmy rolls like a ship at sea. The seats are comfortable, the interior is decent, everything works after 12 years… but it rides like a Chris Craft as a storm comes across the lake.
The 4 door SUVs popularity seemed to come as a surprise to everyone back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Once the 4 doors came out, the 2 doors almost vanished.
This car and the Explorer are almost polar opposites. In a showroom the Explorer had loads of appeal, this one did not. Sitting inside, the Explorer seemed to ooze quality, while this one was all about cheap, squeaky plastic. But put these cars out into the real world for a decade or two, and the situation reversed. It was the Explorer that rusted like a 57 Plymouth and munched head gaskets like popcorn while the Blazer (and its brothers) just kept running Bubba to his job at the factory every day without a lot of drama.
You can probably tell that I didn’t like these much when they were new (although I always considered the styling on the 4 door to be quite cleverly executed) but I like them a lot more the older they (and I) get. Someone is going to pick up a really nice old Blazer from your family friend.
Considering how many were sold the surviving population of 90s Explorers up here in Snowlandia is small. They are easily outnumbered a good 10-1 by Cherokees and 4 Runners.
They did have nice interiors, a friends family had 2 of them in the 90s. The 1st had the Pushrod V6 and was a pig while the 2nd had the V8 and was dangerously overpowered relative to its handling and brakes.
ISTR that mid-’90s Explorers were by far the mostly commonly traded and destroyed vehicle during Cash for Clunkers. Chances are that the people with Cherokees and 4Runners preferred to keep them, but people with Explorers wanted to dump them in favor of something else. All things considered, I don’t think that’s irrational.
You know, if people were dumping Explorers and similarly-aged Blazers in order to put more ’09 and ’10 midsize cars on the road, I’m actually pretty okay with that. That’s a nice upgrade for the national vehicle fleet.
Up this way they both seem to rust at about the same rate. There is a slightly older two door version that runs around here that is just as nice, but they are truly the exception. It’s too bad. For some reason I have always found the Bravada appealing, maybe it’s because I’m such an Olds guy, who knows…
Nice Blazer, there- CLEAN!!!
I sold Toyotas briefly in 1987 and I definitely sold a 4-door 4runner while I was there. I think it was new for 1988.
that blazer is very very clean. i am actually the new owner of that exact red and white blazer in the picture. it must be a coincidence but i ran into this page thinking that that exact blazer looked similar to the one i recently purchased and come to find out the plates matched and everything in the discripion about it is true
That is too funny!!!
I’m the author and photographer of this subject. I knew that lady that owned it. She bought it new and kept it in the garage. I found it odd that the family left it outside for several months before the sale.
It on occasion would develop a little rust around the wheel wells on the front fenders, and she would promptly have it repaired.
It would be nice to get to do a follow-up on sometime. Stay in touch!
Three words; I hate it.
Man, if I had the cash I’d snatch that thing up right now!
I know there’s a lot of hate for the S-10 and the 4.3 here but I’ve never been let down by either.
The only trouble my S-10 4×4 gave me was a dead front axle actuator, a grenaded CV joint(my fault), blown heater core and a fried power window motor in the 50,000+ miles of on and off road abuse.
Total pieces of ball joint eating crap. GM just needs to go away quietly…
My 92 with 220, 220,000 mi still has the original steering linkage no slack that replace the A-frame bushings still goes straight down the road doesn’t work tires garage chip regional paint no rust .12 years now
As a former GM dealer mechanic, I echo the other’s sentiments of these vehicles’ nautical handling. They seemed mechanically quite solid, but the interiors were apparently made by Fisher Price.
A typical piece of crap GM contrivance that sold for lots of money, was cheap, poorly built and then promptly disintegrated. That is the reason there are so few of them around now. Having worked for GM, I can personally attest that these things are total garbage. Sure, they are 4X4’s but the front diff would grenade at like 1 km over the warranty and cost a fortune to fix. Ball joints were so weak that they would actually break in two. The 2.8 was gutless wonder and the 4.3 was a gas hog. The interior was also horrid.
Abysmal pieces of junk, GM at its worst and I will never, ever buy the GM slappie line:
“Well, they are really much better than they used to be… ”
They are not!
Well. In Norway it was sold some of these Blazer S-10, and mostly they are on the road still. They rust in the doorbottom and the inner front fender, but the engine and drivetrain is nearly bulletproof. I have never heard of problems with the front diff and bad ball joints. I have changed balljoints on some of them, but the parts are so cheap and it is a very simple vehicle to repair.
Problems with the S-10 Blazer is mostly the digital dash, the electronic 4Wd actuator and the heater core. But the cars are now over 20 years old and if you can find one with less than 250.000 km for sale you’re lucky.
You americans are way to harsh on your own carindustry. GM and Ford especially. Chrysler Corp. have made a lot of bad cars, but also a lot of good. GM and Ford have mostly made good cars, and no car in the whole world would match an conservative constructed american car with V8, automatic og solid rear end in and BOF construction in long time durability.
Originally the 1995 Blazer/Jimmy was supposed to come out in 1990-1991, but due to money woes at GM 90-91 a bunch of projects were scrapped or pushed back, but I recall seeing pictures of production ready 95 style Blazer in 1989, interestingly the original design had the tailights up in the D-pillars like a APV/Trans Sport.
I Looked at a few of These when I was used car Shopping… I Liked The Idea of all That Room. Something Stopped Me ~ I Remembered Consumer Reports grids were Blackest for this, Bravada.as well as a few other Olds Pontiac models.
But I had no need for all that room. Just like now I ride around in an empty full size car, because it was more car for less money used. The nicer 2 door cars alway excited me more, until they all but disappeared.
Wow, strong feelings about the Blazer being expressed today. GM wronged me personally! A Blazer actively sought out and murdered a member of my family with malice aforethought! A Jimmy broke into my house and stole Grandma’s pearls! GM should rot in hell for ever conceiving this vehicle, much less foisting it on an unsuspecting and innocent public!
Jeez, people, they were S-10s with a backseat. Settle down.
Well, compared to any of its competition, the S-10 was also junk. The Ranger, for example, was infinitely better, not to mention a Toyota.
Toyota 4-Runner was a noisy car who rusted at an impressive pace. The Blazer S-10 holds up way better in Norway, with salt on the roads.
Ha ha ha! Comment of the week on CC! Beautiful!
An old co-worker bought one of the original S-10 Blazers and soon, with malice, it tried to burn him up when it caught fire and when that didn’t work, tried to kill him by rolling over and playing dead. Of course, this was all the vehicle’s fault, too, nothing about how the boss’s spoiled kid drove the thing…(wink, wink)…
Design-wise, I never quite warmed up to the four-door version, and looking at the divider bar, was skeptical how far the back window rolled down. Keep in mind that this was still in the days of “GM halfway-mentality” of windows only rolling down halfway and sometimes not even that much. When I found one at a local Chevy dealer, my fears subsided a bit, but felt they should have done better – the Japanese OEMs sure did.
My lengthy comment on the S-10 Blazer: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/11/curbside-classic-gms-deadly-sin-54-1983-chevy-s-10-blazer/
Imagine if GM just put a little effort into designing a decent interior for all of it’s truck line… well that and designing a better braking system… they would’ve toasted Ford. But cheap was the name of the game at GM in the 80’s… thin plastic everywhere, horrible seats and an overall flimsy feel were the reasons that ultimately put customers in Ford showrooms. A great lesson that sometimes, things that might look good on paper (or on a screen) don’t always turn out well in the final product. And those bar graph style gauges still make me wonder what the heck they were thinking…
It’s now 8:45 in the evening, I’ve had a long day. Had to work, and then I got to spend the afternoon pretending to be a dad to my six-year-old godson. He and his dad and brother are up from Dearborn for the weekend. The doc’s say that after this sickness that I probably won’t get to have kids, so it’s been a good day. I say all that because I’m just now getting to checking this out.
I have been wanting to shoot this car and write about it for some time. After the lady died I figured it would never happen, but lo and behold, there it sat in her driveway, so I moved in for the kill!
Richard, it certainly started a good conversation, didn’t it? There seem to be a lot of differing viewpoints on these rigs. I had a short experience with an S-10 4-cylinder pickup – my mechanic summed it up: The motors aren’t bad but the parts they hang on them are pretty cheap – that is, water pumps, alternators etc.
Indeed it did!
Carmine bait here. 🙂 Not to defend these GM rigs, but the Explorer should be a Deadly Sin. Anything the popular ’86 Taurus did to save us from Bro-hamitis, the equally popular Exploder undid. The Taurus said an American family car didn’t have to be a wallowing whale; the Explorer said, “J/K.” By the late ’90s it even had script badging to match the pushrod V8 and sloppy chassis.
Around here BOTH BOF Explorers and S10 Blazers and Jimmys are the “cockroaches of the road” in the SUV sense. Can’t seem to kill ’em.
Just the other day, I sold a 1993 Mazda Navajo with only 134k miles for $1500. One owner model at that with cold air.
My thoughts? What a rolling wreck. I can easily understand why the prior owner took it off the road and used it exclusively for farm duty. The only things that lasted were the powertrain. Everything else? Garbage.
You can keep these early 90’s SUV’s. They all had steering issues, performance shortcomings, and abysmal fuel economy.
its hard to believe but i am the new owner of that exact red and white blazer in the above pictures. i recently purchased that 1991 Chevy s10 blazer from McKenzie auctions about 3-4 weeks ago. i was looking at pictures and just happened to come across this here site and realized that the blazer in the pictures look similar to mine. come to find out its the same plate and everything in the description about the 41000 miles and it being clean is true. it must be a coincidence that i ran into this
Michael, congratulations on your find!
Yeah there’s a lot of Blazer hate here…not without good reason…yet at least you can hold your head high in that you don’t own a vehicle designed with too-high a center of gravity, making it rollover-prone…and then once the manufacturer figured out the vehicle was unsafe, they, uh…kept on designing and told everyone to run the tires at 26 instead of the normal 32 PSI!
Here’s looking at you, Ford Explorer…
I still think Firestone took the brunt of what was really Ford’s problem, but I digress.
Having driven both the Explorer and the Blazer, guess it’s easy to tell which I prefer…and having owned S-10s/Blazers for over 20 years…couple pieces of advice…
1) When your ball joints go (and it’s a WHEN, not an if) replace them with Moog or similar. Don’t get the AutoZone/Advance stuff, even with the lifetime guarantee, the boots won’t hold up. Been there, done that.
2) If you have the “Advanced” Vortec…easily identified by the intake runners and “Vortec” semi-cover instead of a conventional air cleaner atop your engine…watch out for the fuel spider. (under the intake manifold) They are known to fall apart and shoot fuel all through the engine. If ever you smell fuel around the front of your Blazer but can’t identify the leak…that’s a good place to look. If you have the regular Vortec, no worries. Lotta low-end torque and decent mileage with that Turbo 700 overdrive automatic.
There is a Blazer forum online if you want to learn more.
I used the MasterPro lower ball joints (both sides) on my S10 Blazer 4 door – one of the joints (on the RH side) was eaten up despite the use of Mobil 1 grease where I did a prybar test – ended up pulling the joint where a MOOG K6145T is now in its place (im currently rebuilding 2 salvaged lower a-frames from a 95 Jimmy which will be swapped since the second gen S10s have thicker steering stops)
It’s truly a small world, isn’t it???
For years, two doors were considered ‘stylish and sporty’, so GM and Ford avoided making 4 door SUV’s. Also, the 4 door Cherokee was “not invented here”, but at lowly AMC of all places! But there were waiting lists for them.
When new 4 door Blazer came out, a friend said “Why isn’t it called S-10 Suburban? That’s what the 4 door big Blazer is”
Its still kinda hard to believe i found this page. Just happened to stumbe across it. The blazer is truely in almost mint condition. Besides a dent or 2 and minir Scratches (which i have repaired allready with touch up paint) it is truely in mint condition. My email is mfk10grk@yahoo if you want to stay in touch. How did you know the lady? I purchasse it from mckenZie auctions
First year of the four-door body. First (and only) vehicle I not only bought new, but ordered as I wanted 4-door body, two wheel drive with locking diff, and 5 speed manual transmission. Salesman said you’re hurting resale. I didn’t give a darn about resale.
I drove it steady for more than 11 years racking up 250,000 miles (on the original clutch.) It liked to eat alternators until I replaced the belt tensioner, replaced the gas tank and a bolt-in frame rail due to rust (lots of salt here.)
Paint started delaminating – remember that problem? No rust, just ugly. GM had it repainted at a local body shop at their expense – down to bare metal from the side-trim up in 1996. Body shop did a piss-poor repaint: I could have done better in my garage. Went back to them four times for more paint work. After their crappy job the rust set in.
Stopped driving it, but still have it – SLOWLY working on it, but having a kid has slowed projects down.
Love(d) that truck. Enjoyed driving it. I though it handled just fine for what it was – better than the Bronco II and Explorers I have driven. Happy with the 4.3 – lumpy idle didn’t bother me.
One thing I really disliked was that horrid gauge cluster. I always wanted to get one out of a Typhoon or Cyclone for my truck. Wish I had ordered a rear wiper, too.
Day I brought it home in June of 1991 below.
Wait a minute, these can’t be that much worse than the equivalent Explorer. Those cars didn’t “ooze quality” at all, and the 4.3 was a great engine in comparison. You can bitch about these cars being warmed over S10s all you like, but the Explorer with the twin I beam and enlarged Cologne V6 wasn’t anything to brag about.
I’d choose a Cherokee or Pathfinder in the early ’90s, but I fail to see how these are any worse than the Explorer.
Goodness Perry, I really didn’t try to write this from the perspective of these being an inferior product!
The point I was making was that the four door versions were just slightly revised two door models, which had been on the market largely unchanged since 1982. Yes, the Explorer had lots of carry over mechanicals underneath, but they received all new sheet metal, and to lots of the buying public, that’s what mattered most.
I owned a used 1987 S-10 2 door 4wd Blazer from early 1990 until mid 1992….The truck had the gutless 2.8 V-6 and 4 speed automatic and got 10mpg city…17 highway…..combined with the small 13.5 gallon gas tank, gas station visits were frequent.
Trying to pass someone on 2 lane highways required planning and plenty of time…..You floored it well in advance of the actual passing maneuver and watched the speedometer slowly climb and hoped for the best.
I traded it in on a 1991 Full sized Blazer with 350 V-8 and almost gave the car salesman whiplash on the test drive…..I was so used to having to step deep into the throttle from a standing start with the S-10 that I used the same technique the first time I drove the Full sized Blazer and the truck took off like a rocket in comparison with its 210 HP compared to the 125hp of the S10…..I was so much happier with the Full sized Blazer.