August 1970 Consumer Reports 3/4 ton Custom Camper Comparison Test

[Sicklajoie]

This is a followup on the Custom Camper thread. This test is probably one of the main reasons why GM went to duallies in 1973.

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[fwayne]

Amazing. We forget how far things have progressed. Indeed this shook up a lot of truck design. Even in the 1980's trucks had seriously oversold capabilities. We used to operate tow trucks, and they were massively underpowered, and braking was a joke in stock form, and thats with the toughest 1-tons offered.. We had to modify a lot to make them work. Once Diesel engines in the 1990's became powerful, it forced trucks to become better built, better controlled and better equipped for real work.

[saxart]

Great reading. Thanks for posting these.

I'm guessing it was talk like this that also prompted the switchover to front disk brakes in '71.

[67ChevyRedneck]

Wow... 0-60 in 15 seconds... that gets you run over merging onto a freeway nowadays.

[factorystock]

Thanks for posting this interesting article. IMO,these guys were really pushing these trucks in an unreasonable manner, but that's what they wanted to do, its seems like they had a axe to grind. Any vehicle that is top heavy and has large rear overhang is going to be adversely affected, but to what degree? Basically its on the camper driver to know the capabilities of his vehicle the weight of the camper and drive defensively, be alert and adjust to conditions. But, 10' and 11' campers were being manufactured that were just too heavy and too long for standard 8' pickups, even some 3/4 tons. If the length of the camper stopped at the end of the tailgate, a lot of problems could have been avoided.

[RINC]

That was a hard read.

The hate. So mush hate.

In conclusion, drive a BMW an carry a tent in the trunk.

[Acorn]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing!
I wonder why they picked the 307 for the Chevy. The Ford 360 has 53 more cubic inches but only 15 more h.p. I never understood why no one ever post the torque specs. Especially when they are talkin about trucks. Even with the bigger engine, the 360 is only .5 seconds faster in the 1/4 mile. I guess that's good to know in case I'm ever at the track and see two camper trucks facing off.

[Alex V.]

Very interesting. Chevy was the cheapest and lightest curb weight. And, while the Ford got the best acceleration rating, it was using an engine over 40 cubes bigger than any of the others. Cool stuff!

[FirstOwner69]

Interesting reading! Thanks for posting.

The reason we bought our new 69 with a 350 was to haul an 11' (floor length) cab over camper (picture below). Gross vehicle weight loaded was just shy of the 7500 GVWR. I agree with most of what was said in this review. I've shared some of my white knuckle experiences in other posts and PMs. I remember seeing a new 1973 "Big Dooley" and telling my wife we had to get one. We finally bought a 1986 Silverado 4X4 crew cab dually with a 454. It was head and shoulders above the 69 when hauling the camper except that the giant 454 was absolutely horrible at elevations above 6000 feet. The old 350 was fine at that elevation. We still haul a large camper, but only on a Duramax dually. There was only one time that the 4 wheel drum brakes were a problem. That was on a long 7% or 8% grade in Duluth, MN, with the camper on board and a decent size boat in tow. The brakes faded to virtually nothing when I was trying to maintain the 25 MPH speed limit. Other than that, I have never noticed much difference between discs and properly set up drums.

[dads longhorn]

Wow , what a great read! Dad and our family did all the things pointed out in this article that were wrong! I'm glad we survived! We had a 1971 c20 longhorn that I still have and drive. This article helped me decide not to put a camper on it, and to probably install 3 pt seat belts. Now I also know many of the shortcomings of the vehicle. Good to know. So many good points in the article. Thanks for posting it. Also I'll know better what to look for if I buy a big new truck to carry a camper!

[factorystock]

The camper in this test was a 3100lb Franklin. That's very heavy. Too heavy. I blame camper manufactures for building much too heavy campers for 8' beds, which is the standard length of 3/4 ton pickups with a 7500 lb GVW's. Didn't any body do the math at this magazine? 4400 lb for empty pickup +3100lb camper would be right up to the max. 7500lb but you also have to factor in passengers, fuel and supplies would be right up there around 8000 lb GVW. Then you factor in the long overhang which upsets the center of gravity, you can see right away the problems. IMO, the magazine should have mentioned a better approach would be for the public to travel lighter and shorter, maybe a 9' 2000lb camper for your typical 3/4 pickup, and most of your problems would go away.

[Already Gone]

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[mike16]

not sure they had an axe to grined. Kinda surprised with the issues they did have. I'm surprised that the chevy had only a 307 and not a 350 or 396. Did they outfit these trucks base on advice from dealers and factory reps. I bought a brand new 1 ton K30 back in 83. Took almost a week just to figure out which options were part of a package and which were separate and which was cheapest. It also took 3 months to arrive. the dealer had no clue as to what i was ordering. when it came in, he almost sold it to a towing company. rather than let me know it arrived.

I think it was a shot accross the bow for american manufactures that initial build quality and warrenty must change.. Initial build quality has improved dramatically and still has room for improvement but the love hate relationship between the consumer and the dealer still is as bad if not worse than ever before.

[Alex V.]

I believe the article says the trucks were equipped per manufacturer's recommendations for hauling that type camper. Obviously, they were optimistic about the 307, though I believe it says from test time to publication time (overlapping a model year) Chevy's recommendation changed to the 350. I'd hate to see over 3,000 lbs in the back of my '85 C3500, let alone a 3/4 ton small block truck! :O

[Sicklajoie]

I have a lot of old issues of Consumer Reports and like to read back on them. You can say what you want about today's vehicles versus those of almost 50 years ago. But the build quality of today's are heads and shoulders above what they were back then. It wasn't unusual for the magazine to find some vehicles with 25-30 defects during their stay with them.

[Coley]

Originally Posted by Sicklajoie

I have a lot of old issues of Consumer Reports and like to read back on them. You can say what you want about today's vehicles versus those of almost 50 years ago. But the build quality of today's are heads and shoulders above what they were back then. It wasn't unusual for the magazine to find some vehicles with 25-30 defects during their stay with them.

Yep.
I often run into people at show'n shines that go about how much better these vehicles were...and I always find myself at odds in my reply.
Truthfully, vehicles have never been better built, safer and more reliable than what is coming off the assembly lines today, truth be told.
However....the tipping point is that these older vehicles are like interesting mechanical art to me...and for that reason, should not be compared on a practical basis. Plus, they are just a lot of fun to have, own, drive and putz around with...which is something quite different than straight up transportation.
My two bits.

Coley

[Alex V.]

Originally Posted by Coley

Yep.
I often run into people at show'n shines that go about how much better these vehicles were...and I always find myself at odds in my reply.
Truthfully, vehicles have never been better built, safer and more reliable than what is coming off the assembly lines today, truth be told.
However....the tipping point is that these older vehicles are like interesting mechanical art to me...and for that reason, should not be compared on a practical basis. Plus, they are just a lot of fun to have, own, drive and putz around with...which is something quite different than straight up transportation.
My two bits.

Coley

Ditto, except I contend new cars are engineered as MUCH more a closed system - less room to be used, repaired, or modified outside of exact replacement parts or full component replacement. Yes, they're light years better when they're new, but once aged and worn they're much easier classified as just plain "done" than an older rig.

[truckster]

So, what I got from the article is that you shouldn't use a Camper Special for road racing. OK, got it.

I wonder how their rating of BMWs for carrying campers went.

[factorystock]

Loading vehicles to the max and expecting them to perform like a car was the agenda in my opinion. They knew what the results were going to be, before the tests were even run. They had an axe to grind. Probably against the camper craze that was in full swing by 1970. Sure, there was a problem of overloaded vehicles, some pickup owners didn't know about GVW's, they just knew that they had a pickup with an 8' box. Some campers were just too dam heavy, never shoud have been sold and installed on typical pickups. Most people that read this article would come away thinking all camper pickups were unsafe at any speed. A reasonable test would be to run a more typical normal weight camper 2000lb vs. the very heavy not typical 3000lb camper on these 7500lb GVW vehicles, but that wouldn't have been dramatic enough for the editors of the magazine. They deliberately used the extreme situation of loading these pickups to the max GVW. ratings. They used the criteria for testing passengers cars and applied it to pickups loaded to the max. and came to the conclusion none of the pickups were satisfactory. About the 307 Chevy, that was the standard V8 for 3/4 ton Chevy pickups, that's what they chose. The standard V8 for 3/4 ton Ford pickups was the 360, that's what they chose. The 302 Ford V8 (about the same cubes as 307 Chevy) was not available in 3/4 ton Ford pickups, only available in 1/2 ton Ford pickups). Optional engines should have been ordered for better performance on all of the trucks.

[truckster]

Remember, too, that these are the same folks who staged the rollover tests to make sure the Suzuki Samurai would fail. They were successfully sued by Suzuki, but you have to wonder how many other of their tests were staged to meet a set agenda.