The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Old Navy and Bass Pro Shops

This may seem like a weird posting, but I have noticed that Old Navy and Bass Pro Shops use old 52-54 ish chevy and GM pickups in their stores for displays. These are actual trucks with the drive train and powerplants removed. The one I saw yesterday at Bass Pro Shops had better running boards than my project - I was jealous. Does anyone know how/where they find these trucks and what they do with the parts they don't want/need??

Went to get parts at a local antique car boneyard and the owner said that old navy sent a guy around about 10 years ago collecting these truck bodies. Also there was a place a few miles from me that was making repro cabs out of fiberglass. They weren't functional but they were pretty convincing. It's a shame. Thats a lot of parts out of circulation.
Jim

One of the buyers is Billy Doyle - I am pretty sure MT knows him. According to Billy, he produced as many as 100 trucks at a time at an average cost of about $800 a truck, painted and ready to go into the store. . . If you look the trucks over - you will see that they are in many cases total hack jobs.

Motors were often removed by torching the cross members and yanking them out . . . just keep waving that torch around until anything left holding the motor is gone.

I bet he wishes he had kept a lot of that iron around till now - scrap prices are waaaaaay higher today than they were a few years ago.

There is an old Chevy here in Joplin MO at the Old Navy store, and I have looked it over pretty close a couple of times, and your right, they are pretty much thrown togather. I don't remember all the details, since it has been a while since I was in there, but it seems that the truck is a 54, and has a new 47-53 chrome grille. They just did the basics to make it look cosmeticly good, and called it done!
Kevin
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1949 3/4 ton Chevy

I have seen 4 or 5 old Navy trucks in stores in TN, KY and IL. They all had 47-53 Chevy repop chrome grills and 53 style 3100 hood side emblems. At least 2 were GMC's in disguise. The one in Decatur, IL is a 54 GMC with that flat dash. Body work, fit and finish are poor. All the knobs, levers and pedals removed from inside. At least one had a front hubcap missing and I saw that the wheel was welded to the hub. Some of the beds were sheet metal fabricated, not reproduction or original parts. It is good and bad - at least they didn't go to the crusher. I do kinda' like that flattened blue paint color.

There is a '50 Chevy in the Oklahoma City "Fish Shop" (I have nothing good to say about "Bass Ackwards Fish Shop"!). I've been in their store once. The truck looks good from 25 feet. A nice life-sized diorama!

The greedy pols here in OKC government PAID the fish store $17 million dollars (yes, that's right!) to locate their fish store here. In NO OTHER LOCATION has this happened! The city took funds from schools, fire, and police to bring these crooks to town. Bass Ackwards said they wouldn't locate here otherwise (they couldn't "afford" to otherwise. And, NOW they have the $$$ (and the gall!) to sponsor a NASCAR team!!?? Give me a break! I have no need to patronize these unethical yahoos! BTW, the former mayor is running for US Senate! There is some cajones!