The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Graphic of truck series

Can someone point me to a nice graphic/poster/image that shows the history of the Chevy truck series. I have found some that shows a picture of the various truck designs but it only list the year of the example.

I would like a graphic that has a picture of a sample of an Art Deco truck plus the listing of the years that fell into the Art Deco range. An example of an AD with the listing 1947-1955.1, An example picture of a Task Force truck with the listing 1955-1959, etc.


This is similar to what I an looking for but with the additional series details.

I did do a search here. I found the tech tip page that has the information but I would like a nice graphic depiction of the information. It has to exist. I just haven't found it.

This might interest you.

I have not studied it.
I do not know how good/correct/useful it is.

Here is another "history" website, but I see a few mistakes.

And, here is another site with better spelling.

And, here is one more site.

What?! No 67-72 on that poster! If ever I won a boatload of lottery money, that’s what my garage would look like. A truck from each era... drool.

Dave -- Good question with a bad answer. It may not exist other than what Tim has found. And there are at least two good reasons that immediately jump into my mind why that is so...
1. What you are asking for will be an incredible amount of work for whoever does it. Just doing the graphic for the Advance Design was plenty difficult for me. The hardest part was finding images to work with that met two basic criteria:
-- being a good, high resolution photo (good meaning that it was composed well and showed the truck well without having to be cleaned up, edited too much or cropped excessively)
-- of a good representative truck (had to be a complete original or a truck restored to original specs -- street rods, resto rods, ratrods are simply not useable for a project like this for obvious reasons)

You have no idea how hard it would be to find a good image of an original truck from every year. Try finding a photo of a '47 (Second Series) that's composed well and shows a truck in original configuration ... no tinted windows ... mag wheels ... modern radio antenna ... non-factory color ... chromed things that aren't supposed to be chromed .... etc. Could you scan photos out of each year's sales brochures or marketing items? Sure! But before you try that, read the next part

2. And this is usually the show-stopper ... The General Motors Corporation gets very twitchy about their copyrighted trademarks, names, symbols and imagery. It's difficult to do a project like that without using the word "Chevrolet" or the bowtie symbol. And most printers won't print such a thing without a letter from GM authorizing the use of trademarks. The parts sellers who deal with repro parts have that agreement with GM. We do not. And we have been gently reminded of that in the past by our friends in the GM legal department who also let on quite subtly that they had a very big stick with which to whack us should we not take the friendly hint)

I probably won't ever even attempt such a project because I do not believe it can be done adequately by anyone other than the GM art department -- And I doubt they will do it, either.

FWIW ...
John

p.s. -- Hey Tim, did you notice that every one of those "history" sites stated that the Advance-Design was a "complete redesign?" I guess so if you don't include the drive train ...

I get your point John. I was thinking Chevy themselves would have put something out maybe for the 100 years of Chevy and I just hadn't found it yet. I was not specifically looking for something that had a sample for every year. 1947, 1948 , 1949, etc....

Just a sample of an Art Deco with the years included in that series. A sample of an AD, any one from 47 through 55.1 with the date range for AD listed.

There are a lot of web pages that have the history but a one page poster would be nice.

Dave -- I doubt Chevy/GM would want to put the resources toward such a project. I'm surprised that they still even keep the Heritage Center going. They historically have wanted us all to go away. They would prefer that we all scrap our trucks immediately and buy new ones. Every year. I also think the market research shows that those of us in the collector hobby, as a whole, do not display enough brand loyalty to make putting resources toward cultivating the hobbyist sector a viable business model (other than the Corvette crazies, perhaps). Of our local group of 'Bolters (The ODSS), I think only two have modern DD's that are GM.

Still, if they made one available, they'd maybe sell a few thousand -- hardly enough to make the expense of production worthwhile. And if they did one for the trucks, they'd have to do one for the Chevelles ... and the monte carlos ... and the Camarros ... and the Corvairs ... (ok, maybe not THAT one ... ) it would get out of hand quickly.

Interesting point John and probably spot on.

"I do not know how good/correct/useful it is." Interesting that the three sites from Tim that show 67 trucks show many of them with 66 hubcaps. Was marketing getting photos from early models with leftover parts?

I noticed that every one of those sites completely ignore the '60-'66 trucks.

oops - the original poster asked for "Art Deco" (not a GM name) through 1959.

Here is the one weak reference in the links I posted.

"In 1960, the Chevy C/K line of trucks was released for the first time. One of the most popular models from the C/K series was the Chevy C10, a half-ton, light-duty pickup. Several body styles were available for the C/K trucks, such as the popular Fleetside and the Stepside, which consisted of rear wheels on the outside of the bed, with a step located between the cab and the wheel wells."

Otherwise, yes, that omission seems odd?

Comments/observations from Jim Carter.
Here is a 60-72 Message Board.
Pinterest?
1960-1966 Ride Guides (for walking/talking encyclopedias)?
Classic Muscle - good words/write-up? but no pictures?

Graphic of truck series:

What is the source of those two graphics? The second one is along the lines of the OP's question but still only starts at '47.