Purple Trucks on the Canadian Prairies

[davepl]

When I was a teen, if you saw a 396 truck, which you RARELY ever did, it was purple. No idea why.

But up in Canada, in the prairies of Saskatchewan (and maybe Alberta) there was a batch of purple "Special Paint" 396 trucks.

Every couple of years I like to ask if anyone know why, but no one ever has. But I just saw a couple more in the "rare paint" thread and so I figure it's time to ask:

Does anyone know the story? Fleet order gone bad?

There just weren't any big chains or power companies or anything purple that I can think of at the time!

[geezer#99]

What year Dave?
Maybe it was one guy who always had to have that color.
There was a guy in Bassano Alberta who always bought a new truck every two years. It had to be a cloth bench seat and non power. No power steering or brakes. The dealership always dug up and installed the parts needed. They stored the parts they took off so they could restore the truck back to original for easier resell.
There always were some quirky buyers out there!

[davepl]

I think they were 69s, mostly, from what I saw. And I'd say I've seen half a dozen of them over the course of my life, counting the ones on here. So it's not one guy or one little shop with a purple truck, it had to be a batch of 10 or so, as a guess.

[randy500]

There is an explanation of that purple color in the rare color thread, I remember reading about it...

[randy500]

Some purple posts
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=301319&page=5

[crazyjeenyus]

My neighbor had one. Bought it new too, pretty sure it was a ‘69. One day on his way home her swerved to miss a rabbit, and went into the ditch and ended up hitting a large piece of cement that was hidden in tall grass. Luckily, he was ok but that was the last ride for his purple truck.......

[davepl]

Originally Posted by randy500

There is an explanation of that purple color in the rare color thread, I remember reading about it...

Probably me asking about it (not the first time I've asked) but I don't see an answer anywhere... some conjecture about the RCMP but they just weren't purple so far as I know!

[ho70]

The RCMP is based in Regina Saskatchewan (head depot). The RCMP had cars, but trucks were needed for northern deployments. The color of RCMP vehicles in that era were royal blue. GM trucks were ordered and Saskatchewan was the 'test' market. The color was ordered and the trucks arrived more purple than blue. GM added the color as special paint so the RCMP were not charged extra for the 'blue' color. The purple color was an embarrassment to the RCMP so the trucks were not bought by the RCMP and they were sold to locale dealers in Saskatchewan.