67-72 Development/Concept Photos Galore!

[Tomahawk30]

Very cool! Thanks for doing the legwork to share!

[byrdman]

Outstanding work on gathering up some GM history to share with us!
Much appreciated.

I may consider one or two of those concept paint schemes for my K/5.

[Keith Seymore]

Nicely done. Thank you for contacting the Heritage Center and posting those up.

I would add that the majority of the photos were taken on the Design Dome patio, which is still in use. The indoor shots are from the truck studio (the red brick building in the background of this pic).

K

[SKT]

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Too neat - thanks for taking the time to share this history w/ everyone!

I'm w/ others, while it's awesome to see the design work that went into these trucks, I'm glad they didn't use some of the designs.

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Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

I would add that the majority of the photos were taken on the Design Dome patio, which is still in use.

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When reading through the OP's post, I thought some of the pics/backgrounds looked familiar from your thread.

Thanks for sharing the additional info you have from your firsthand experience Keith!

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[hewittca]

I'm glad everyone is enjoying the photos.

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

I would add that the majority of the photos were taken on the Design Dome patio, which is still in use. The indoor shots are from the truck studio (the red brick building in the background of this pic).

K

Thank you Keith for the additional information and links! I was hoping you would be able to add information to this thread.

[57taskforce]

Man that's a cool read thanks for sharing! 55-59 would be cool too me as well!
Looks like the May 64 front end became similar to the medium duty front end.
The black and orange scheme from March/April/may '69 looks really great to me. I really like it.

[supercheyenne]

Incredible thread.

Thank you hewittca and GM for sharing. Hopefully this gets pinned somehow so fans of this series can get a little history behind their trucks.

[joeydurango]

Thanks much! This is pretty neat stuff. Enjoyed it. Got any more?

[67swb72klb]

Cool never seen any of those.
I kinda like this grille and a few other treatments also
Thanks for posting!!

[drewbert41]

This is great. Has anyone asked for production/ assembly line pics?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by drewbert41

This is great. Has anyone asked for production/ assembly line pics?

Some 60-66 assembly pics here:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...ghlight=yelmer

Squarebody pics here: http://www.73-87.com/7387info/Assembly%20Line.htm

I'm not sure I have any 67-72 assembly pics.

K

[alsriv2]

Great pictures on the development of our trucks.
One thing that stood out to me was the look of the trucks interiors and exteriors incorporated designs that made it into ford and Dodge trucks. That one interior shot that had the square gauges looked like a dash panel of a mid 70's ford. I also see body lines and cab designs of late 70's/80's Dodge trucks.
Very interesting stuff there.

[cypressbog]

Incredible pictures. Thank you for sharing!

[factorystock]

Thanks for posting these rare photos, learning about GM history is never ending. IMO, the full size Olds ( introduced one year earlier than the pickup) was clearly the inspiration for the pickup. Windshield, vent windows, rounded fenders, lower body contours, raked back rear quarter panel and slanted hood similarities were mentioned on earlier posts, however the first concept photo offers even more evidence : The outer edge of front bumper is curved upward just like on the car, but later dropped in revised photos.

[pritch]

Yeah, I was thinking those Dodge boys musta been peeking over the fence, too.

One of those interior shots, the next one after the one with the hard Tonnou cover, has a Longhorn glove box door, but I didn't really see a longer bed unless it was one-piece.

Very cool all around!

[towbar]

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8258/...1e3ba28a_b.jpg
Cool pics!!!!
1964 rear bumper looks exactly like the 81-87 rear sport bumper......that's what I call forward thinking!

couldn't figure out how to copy and paste the pic...so the links above

[Sicklajoie]

That's some awesome stuff. Thanks so much for sharing!

[Custom/20]

Wow! Those are some interesting designs! Thanks for sharing these photos!

[68panelman]

Very cool, thanks for sharing

[Ol Blue K20]

This was an awesome read. Thanks for taking the time to put this thread together.

[Husker]

I personally am Glad that GM settled for what they did.
Ron

[special-K]

Thanks for all your effort in producing such a great contribution to this site.. This thread needs to be preserved.

I wonder about the Dodge similarities and the one year set-back on introducing the new style. Dodge had the same style from 61-71, so by comparison, overdue for a change. I always liked that a '71 Dodge had the beef in design going back to the more metal days. Maybe GM saw what Dodge had been designing first and stalled a year to do more designing to set the trucks apart more. I figure Dodge was doing their concepts on the '72 once the '67 GMs came out and always found the new Dodge to carry a lot of the 67-72 silhouette. I see the 66 Nova in that squared up headlight with drop back hood concept

[hewittca]

I hope everyone is enjoying these photos as much as I am enjoying uncovering them. I have for you two more sets of photos that I am happy to share. As with the first post, I am greatly appreciative of the GM Heritage Center for sharing these with me and granting me permission to post them here.

Part 2, Early Development

For this first set, I was able to dig a little deeper into the development photos and came across a very early 67-72 clay model mixed in with a set of 60-66 development photos that I have. Yes, I will post all of the 60-66 development photos in a new thread on the appropriate board, but here I will just include the early 67-72 clay model. If you look at the original set of photos, you will notice this is a different clay model that has smaller car-like proportions. It almost looks to be similar in size to the revived El Camino to return in '64, which was undoubtedly in the late stages of development at the time of these photos.

-April 1963
In these photos, they are still in the process of building the clay model, which is probably the first full size model they built for the 67-72 trucks. Note in the background the full size profile drawings of the truck and the futuristic concept up above them. What I found most interesting in these photos is on the wall to the right of the rear shot. There is a profile drawing of the 67-72 truck alongside what appears to be a profile drawing of the '73-up C10. So as early as 10 years prior to release they already had the basic shape of the next two generations of C10s!








-June 1963
In these photos, it appears that the clay model from the previous photos was refined to give a better representation of the truck as a whole. It looks like they decided to go with the right side profile design from the previous photos, versus the left side profile which reminded me of a '63 Impala. The hood is also revised and is very close to the production hood design.





After this, we pick back up where the original post started a year later in March of 1964. During this time, it appears they used the same basic design elements, but built the dimensions out to more truck-like proportions.

[hewittca]

Part 3, Promotional Photography

The second set of new photos I would like to share are raw promotional photos that the GM Heritage Center was able to find. You will notice that many of these photos look somewhat familiar already, as they were used as the basis of many promotional advertisements and brochures. The neat thing, however, is that these are the unedited original photos before they were modified and accentuated for advertisement purposes. I will simply separate them by model year here and point out any interesting things I saw. Enjoy!

-1967
The first model year for the second generation C series of Chevrolet trucks. These first two are actually my favorite and exemplify how classy and robust the new design was. The third picture is interesting as well. You will note it is a fully assembled truck in bare metal. I'm sure this was for an ad but I'm not familiar with which one.














-1968
Note the original lower location of the new for '68 marker lights in the first photo. Also note in the second picture the additional trim on the '68 anniversary edition 4x4 that didn't make it to production.











-1969
Note the narrower marker light design that did not make it to production.









-1970









-1971





-1972
This first photo is possibly the most interesting of the bunch. I stared at it for a while thinking something looked different on this truck, but couldn't pinpoint it. Then it hit me, no marker lights! Then I looked a little closer and also realized the body line goes straight back to the end of the bed compared to the typical drop off on the production truck. Further, if you look closely, there is a vertical seam several inches from the end of the bedside. Were they shortening bedsides before it was the cool thing to do?! I don't know if it's just the fact that I've been sorting through all these longbed photos, but this one does appear slightly shorter than a standard shortbed to me. I have no clue what this truck was for but it is clearly a '72 based on the grill.

[72 tigger]

Very cool. I agree- that 72 shorty does look short. Would like to know the story on it- wonder if it ended up in the crusher? Thanks again for sharing!