Assembly line/dealer photos

[toms68cst]

This post is getting to be a real bandwidth hog!

Here are some concept vehicles by Harry Bently Bradly.

67 Custom sport truck. 67 Blazer that was ALMOST produced! (Minus the engne in the back!) and a couple of custom rods. I think the van is based loosely on the "DEORA". That was another concept vehicle by Bradley.

[toms68cst]

P.S. Don't they look alot like early Hot wheels???

[toms68cst]

I have about 50 of these prototype pictures. A lot of them are pretty much duplicates. I've posted the most interesting of them.

The full picture of the 67 has a cool CST emblem on the front of the bed just above the trim. It's hard to see in this scan.

The ceiling picture that I posted earlier had a vinyl headliner. (It's a little hard to make out in the scan.) As far as I know 67's and 68's never had headliners.

[Edmond]

Yeah the pic with the console is great.
Too bad they never made them like that.
Thanks for the pictures. Love seeing them.

Cya,
Edmond

[72c10step]

Originally Posted by toms68cst

I have about 50 of these prototype pictures. A lot of them are pretty much duplicates. I've posted the most interesting of them.

The full picture of the 67 has a cool CST emblem on the front of the bed just above the trim. It's hard to see in this scan.

The ceiling picture that I posted earlier had a vinyl headliner. (It's a little hard to make out in the scan.) As far as I know 67's and 68's never had headliners.

Do you think you could email me those pics? It would be sweet to check them out!

Also, did anybody else notice that there were two trucks in those pictures? There were two different steering wheels shown, and one had 4 knobs on the instrument panel, the other only had 3 (maybe a later prototype?). Also the one with 3 knobs had the side A/C vents, but not the center one over the radio, and look how wide the hole for the Heater controls was on that one, compared to the skinny hole a few pics up. I'm glad they didn't go with the taillights, but the glovebox lock, and exterior door locks would have been sweet. And about that cowl and pillar piece being the same, it almost looks like it extends far enough to include the front fender too ?

There was a lot of small changes made, but a few of the prototype ideas would be cool enough to incorporate into my truck when I customize it if I can make them look good and work at the same time .

[skokie]

Can you copy me on that email to?

Originally Posted by 72c10step

Do you think you could email me those pics? It would be sweet to check them out!

Also, did anybody else notice that there were two trucks in those pictures? There were two different steering wheels shown, and one had 4 knobs on the instrument panel, the other only had 3 (maybe a later prototype?). Also the one with 3 knobs had the side A/C vents, but not the center one over the radio, and look how wide the hole for the Heater controls was on that one, compared to the skinny hole a few pics up. I'm glad they didn't go with the taillights, but the glovebox lock, and exterior door locks would have been sweet. And about that cowl and pillar piece being the same, it almost looks like it extends far enough to include the front fender too ?

There was a lot of small changes made, but a few of the prototype ideas would be cool enough to incorporate into my truck when I customize it if I can make them look good and work at the same time .

[BraveDave]

I remember when the 67's were first introduced. My uncle said the thought they looked like a bunch of Studebakers with the sloped hood!

[john@thepier]

Im going to stop working on my old trucks ,and start working on building a timemachine.I guess I could charge addmission for rides back to 1967.

[Longhorn Man]

I like the lock in the button on the door handle, but with all the door handle buttons falling off today, I'm glad they didn't.
There are some interesting ideas there, I'm kinda on the fence on the console...I do like the bow tie high beam indicator like on the 59 bell air, don't care for the off center glove box latch though.


I wonder why they painted the floor a different color...I know the wooden floors on 67 and early 68 was painted black, and the later ones were painted body color...I wonder if all 67's had black floors, steel or wooden.
Also, look at the odd shape of the wheel tubs in this pic...

[Stryker67]

Here's something to put a little mystery to these trucks. My Dad loved Studebakers, and every so often we would go to shows across the U.S. At several of these shows, it was said that the 67 model truck was actually designed for the Studebaker corp. It is well known that Chevy provided engines for Studebaker in the early sixties, and they had a good relationship with each other. It was even rumored that the small block was originally designed by a Studebaker engineer that left the company for greener pastures at GM, and took his design with him. Some Studebaker engine gaskets actually fit the small block Chevy. If you look at the steering wheel with the inner chrome ring, it has an odd looking emblem in the middle. I can't quite make it out, but it looks similar to some I've seen on Stude's. The dash pics also make me think of the Stude's.

[gonebad2]

Somewhere around here I have a magazine that did a rather long interview with the guy at GM who was in charge of the design of these trucks. He talks about how his budget was real low and some of the things he had to fight for in the design. Nothing much. Just stuff like how management didn't want to go with squared off lower corners on the rear window. Management also wanted to do a double stamp on the back panel of the cab for the small rear window with the sorounding metal to be stamped for the big window. Similar to how they did it with the previous series of trucks they made.....Sure glad he won that battle.

[toms68cst]

Gonebad. That's the article that was done by Jim Aust and printed in Sport Truck Magizine a few years ago. He interviewed Harry Bently Bradley. Bradly was a well known automotive designer for GM in the mid and late 60's. He left GM around 67-68 to start designing the first series of Hotwheels. It's been said he made a fortune off of Hotwheels. (Hence my comment about the hotwheels in a previous post in this thread.)

I've heard about the studebaker/67 Chevy truck connection before. We discussed it here a long time ago. I don't know if it's really made it past the urban legend status or not but it's an interesting connection.

I have some more photographs of these prototypes and yes you can tell that they are of more that one truck. If I get time to scan some more I will. The most intersting pictures are posted here.

[toms68cst]

BTW, Here's a picture of the REAL first generation Blazer. We've talked about this before but it's been a while. Many of the newbies here have not seen it.

Bradley designed it as a 67? model. Apparently GM was all tooled up to produce it but shelved it at the last minute. It seems to be along the lines of the IH Scout of the time as far as size and WB.

You can also see the 67 blazer in that color rendition (67 sport truck DEORA and other vehicles - Posted previously.) that Bradly did. In the article Bradly talks about doing that sketch after finding out that GM shelved his Blazer. He was furious about it and did that drawing to vent his anger.