A few weeks ago, we were returning to Toronto from the Vallis Motor Sport shop. There on the south side on Hwy 20 just west of Welland sat a GMC Suburban. A long-wheelbase GMC Suburban panel truck (sometimes called a sedan-delivery) that looked abandoned in a farmer’s field. This GMC was built some time between 1947 and 1954 yet had avoided the crusher for three-quarters of a century. It deserves to be restored and put back on the road.
This vehicle was an example GMC New Design ethos (called Advance-Design over at Chevy) for light-duty trucks, and was the first major redesign of trucks since before WWII. The Suburban was bigger, stronger and a very modern design compared to the earlier AK Series trucks introduced in 1941.
The GMC Suburban could even be equipped with a Hydra-Matic 4-speed automatic transmission making it a civilized beast; and easy to drive and perfect for local deliveries in Anytown, USA. GMC trucks of this era are highly sought after even today, and often get restored to better-than-new condition.
For example, there’s a shop called Possum Holler Garage that specializes in restoring 1947 to 1955 Chevrolet and GMC trucks. A couple years back, they bought this rusted hunk of metal, pictured below, for $300 (scrap metal value) and turned it into the gleaming example of Americana you see here. The truck now sits in front of Larry’s Country Diner in Nashville, Tennessee to attract customers to the restaurant.
Hopefully they don’t leave it parked there for 20 years until the GMC become a rusted out hunk of metal again for the next restorer to dump $50K into.
Great picture.
Thanks. We were just driving back from a race, and saw this heap on the side of the road. The late day sun made the rusty colours look so vibrant. Just had to pull a U-turn, drive back, and stumble through the knee high grass to get some pics up close.