67-72 Development/Concept Photos Galore!

[hewittca]

Introduction

Hi everyone, I believe I may have something of interest to all of you and thought I would share. I like to know what goes on behind the scenes, so I've been curious about the development of our trucks. For the most part I came up empty handed on the forum and through online searches for any substantiated information, so I focused on seeing what was available from GM directly. Little to my knowledge up until contacting GM, they actually have a full GM Heritage Center and much to my delight, they will share any releasable information/photos with you if you just ask. So, I asked for any photos/information they had on the development of the 67-72 Chevy trucks, and boy did they deliver! Originally, I only had this first set of 77 photos, but as I dug deeper, we were able to find more and more photos. As I continue to collect photo sets, I will add them to the thread as a new post and include a link to them here in the original post, that way we can organize and separate these information heavy posts and have space in between to discuss each set of new photos. I hope you enjoy these!

Disclaimer

Of course, I must state that these are property of GM and I have been given permission to share these with you in a public forum format. PLEASE don't do anything with these photos that would result in requested removal by GM. This essentially means that these photos are for "reference" only and may not be used in any profitable way.

Contents

Part 1: Original 67-72 Development/Concept Photos
Part 2: Early Development
Part 3: Promotional Photography
Part 4: GMC Development/Concept Photos
Part 5: Suburbans and Panels
Part 6: Blazers
Aside 1: Studebaker Concept Rumor
Aside 2: Harry Bentley Bradley Interview
Aside 3: Production Line Photos
Aside 4: Chevrolet Tempo

Part 1, Original 67-72 Development/Concept Photos

-March 1964
From these photos of the first full sized clay model, you can see that by early '64 they had already arrived at the general shape of the soon to be '67 C10. The main things I noticed here are the unrefined grill and different hood which is very similar to the hood on the Brazilian C10.






-May 1964
By May, it appears that they built another clay model with new nose and tailgate. Notice the lower body line which steps into the body instead of out like the production model, and the more stylized tailgate designs.





-September 1964
Here's a fun one. This is another proposed nose design, and quite possibly the most unique design considered for the soon to be '67. At first glance this looks like a far fetched proposal, but if you look closer, the grill openings and shape of the hood are almost identical to the production version. The tailgate is also very similar to the production version.





-November 1964
By late '64 the design was very close to the production version as seen here. Note the slightly more intricate tailgate design with integrated licence plate mount and... the F100 for reference!




-April 1965
This truck appears to be production ready except for a few slight differences. I noticed the sharper peak on the center hood ridge and the filler cap shifted further up on the cab.



-March/April 1967
Now we are into the production run of the '67-'72 C10s and subsequent photos depict yearly updates to the current generation truck. These photos illustrate several proposed grill updates for the upcoming '68 model.






-June 1967
This next set appears to be proposed design updates for the upcoming '69 model. The most notable changes of course are the hood and grill. I found it interesting that by mid '67 they already planned on changing the hood. Note too that the grill appears to just be a printed overlay at first. I liked the first tailgate proposal on this update.











-November/ December 1967
At this point it appears the grill, nose, and tailgate updates were finalized, and they were experimenting with different trim options. Note the trim around the rear window, bed cover, and different side marker lights.








-March 1968
What appears to be the production ready '69 update.




-November/ December 1968
Looks like they were experimenting with different paint scheme options for the 69/70. Note the proposed body colored bumpers.





-January 1969
More paint scheme designs in early '69. Note the white tailgate and updated dash which did not make it to production. This dash is very similar to what the next generation '73 model would receive.






-January 1969 (next generation)
If you've started to get bored by now, here's some surprising information. In early '69, GM was testing clay models of was was supposed to be the next generation C10 released in 1972. As we know, this would be delayed for some reason since the current generation would continue through to '72, and this next generation would be released as a '73. From these images, you can see the early "squarebody" design is quite a bit different than the production version.



-March/April/May 1969
Even more paint scheme proposals, most likely for the '70 model








-March-May 1969 (next generation)
In parallel with the current generation updates, GM was continuing to develop the next generation truck (slated to be a '72).












-June 1969
Grill proposals for the '71 model update. Note that they originally planned on updating the '69/'70 grill versus moving to the eggcrate grill.




-June 1969 (next generation)
Experimenting with more design proposals, but still quite a bit different than the production version for '73. Note that the plates on these read "72 Chevrolet Pickup".









-August 1969 (next generation)
In this final set of photos, you can see that even in mid '69 they were still planning on releasing the next generation in '72 and there were no other pictures of the development of the '71-'72 model that did make it to production. The current generation truck shown here is a '71 grill update proposal for what was supposed to be the last year of production for this bodystyle. The next generation truck is very similar to the production version '73 except for the prominent lower body lines seen on this proposal.






That's it! I hope you all enjoyed this peak into the development of our beloved 67-72s. My main takeaway from these photos is that I am very pleased with the overall production design compared to some of the variants pictured above. I am still gathering information on these and as I acquire it I will add to this thread. The biggest thing I hope to figure out is why they pushed back the next generation truck from '72 to '73. In retrospect, however, I am glad they did because we got an extra year out of what I consider the best C10 design!