Even upon close investigation, it looked just like an ice cream sundae that had been forgotten and was melting all over the desk! Cabover interiors are always black and have that kind of chrome finish that makes them look menacing and slightly menacing. Its a working truck, too! See that guy at the helm, in the pink shirt? I can remember the day we got in a shipment of tools and manuals for the 91 Syclone. The payments on bulldozers and other such equipment are pretty high, and they have to be working to keep the cash coming in. They would haul trailer loads of potatoes in from Idaho with these rigs. There was also the memorable wrap-around dashboard, all decked out in woodgrain. I had wanted to grab the ice cream sundaeas a souvenir, too, but someone else beat me to it. Ive never run a General, but the Brigadiers dont seem to hold up nearly as well as the Fords. Interestingly enough, the people in the front office werent just strategizers and makers of budgets and blueprints. Placement of the truck cab over the motor saved some length. The truck was still in warranty, the service rep didnt want to replace all the parts we planned on replacing. The model was dubbed the GMC B-Series and stayed in production for three generations. Picture of my Titan 90 north of Portland Maine 1979. ASTRO 95. 1978 GMC Astro 95
Some truckers wore full length snowmobile suits in them, just to stay warm! Your commercial medium- or heavy-duty truck needs to be in perfect working condition to be able to make money. Most kids wanted to go to the beach, but my favourite thing was to head for a truck stop! For more information on the last new
The nose of the semi is flat and the truck cab sits on top of the diesel engine and steering axle. Beat me to itthe White was clearly an Astro rip-off, although there isnt exactly a lot of leeway with big COE trucks in making them look distinctive, at least in the idiom of that time. In 1930, another GMC truck made a similar journey from New York to San Francisco in just 5 days. I was thinking WTF? Some models had quite large sleeper berths. Body Parts Cab Interior Engine Components Transmission Components Suspension Components Electrical Components Vehicles . Super-detailed engine, chassis and interior; CB radio and dual antennas; Astro . Interesting hearing about truck models from the mechanics perspective. Others say for every minute spent organizing and reducing clutter, an hour is earned All manufacturer names, symbols, and descriptions, used in our images and text are used solely for identification purposes only. My Astro had an 8V71 Detroit and a 13 speed Roadranger. The base engine was the Detroit Diesel 6-71N, with the Detroit 8V71 and Cummins N-Series diesel engines as options. I thought the truck fit me perfectly and I became a part of it whenever we were on the road. Overspray bedamned, Ill take it! Much different then cars boats are still a little bit in the wild west of manufacturing. Highly inconvenient. Left Hand Drive. Isuzu Bedford might be the name down under, the blue one is very clearly a (Euro) Bedford TM. The Astro was available as a 58 in BBC Day Cab, and a 86 in BBC
Discover (and save!) In stark contrast to the boxy Crackerbox, the exterior of the Astro/Titan featured rounded body corners and wraparound windshield glass. The one weak area for the Astro was the cab tilt mechanics. In 1943, General Motors absorbed Yellow Coach, a Chicago-based bus manufacturer, forming the GM Truck and Coach Division. images may be used without permission except for personal viewing. The
They were mostly Astros, these older small-grille versions, in dark blue. The largest cabover trucks ever produced by GM, the Astro was introduced for 1969, replacing the 1960-1968 GMC "Crackerbox" COEs. Thanks for the history of the company. Visit our site at any time to acquire GMC semi truck accessories and parts needed for your restoration or upgrade project. The trailers, each one brand-new and built to their specifications, were a sort of light-duty lowboy that attached to this odd hitch, upon which the boats could be stacked two high along their entire length of forty-some feet. NO
No other semi had that much glass, and the fact it went down so far gave the driver better vision of things real close, like someone in a crosswalk, but it freaked some drivers out at first because you do feel exposed compared to say a Kenworth or Peterbuilt Cab over of the time. It wasnt exactly a dignified end for such a long-lived piece of machinery. The dealer I worked at had a large rural customer base. Needless to say, everyone there knew their products VERY well. Near the end of its run, Astro buyers had the option of several Detroit, Caterpillar and Cummins Diesel engines. Ever since those got retired (replaced by conventional White-GMC or Volvo-White rigs) Ive seen few to no Astros. Cochran Auctioneers & Associates LTD Boonsboro, Maryland 21713 Phone: (301) 739-0538 Email Seller Video Chat My Mom ran a truck leasing operation in the 70s-90s (NationalLease/LendLease) and back in the 70s when the 95 came out it was a VERY big deal. Just love the old school classics. The early ones, like the red one at top, are better looking than the later ones. In a surprise win, I ended up with both the seventeen-footers and one of the two unfinished sixteens for just a few hundred dollars. Super trucks for local work, but not well suited for long haul trucking. As of current production, GM has not marketed another Class 8 cabover truck (as the configuration has effectively ended production in North America). GMC Astro had a windshield that seemed to come down to knee level! I love my truck and it will be around for a long time to come. The Astro 95 is my first big truck of the week, and also the biggest truck in my files. During WWII, GM supplied the US Army with more than 600,000 GMC trucks. The black caboose is one that is used for a single person and the red caboose is used for a couple of people. This went on after the HD line was sold off. Wild dashboard, what a shame that there isnt really any use for these old beasts once they get on in years . Its been stretched, and also has a tag axle. GMC Astro 95 Cabover T/A Road Tractor, ; Vin# TGH928V900010, Special Plate- AC122503, Manual Trans.- NO TITLE . They were great for maneuvering in tight spots, but not so great to live in for long time periods for over the road trucking. You can read the full disclosure policy, which is pretty dull, but here it is. Our mechanic seems to look at the Brigadiers the way you do. Guess which one I was most interested in? These two galsno idea who they aremade frequent appearances in company literature. Distinguished by its boxy appearance, it earned the nickname "Crackerbox. He told me that when he purchased one in the mid 70s he test drove a Pete 352 (COE) and got the impression that it had inferior build quality to the Astro. Your email address will not be published. Heres the (much older and smaller) Bedford TK: (The folks in their marketing department had a thing for using staff, friends, and family in their promotional photos. The Titan had a 290 Cummins and 10 speed Roadranger and the A/C worked! If I remember I bought it for only $2000 and was used just as a yard truck. Theres a bit more thought put into them now but wrap around dashboards are still the norm, the fake wood is still with us though the 2011 International I was driving was covered in the stuff. [2] Along with single or tandem axle configurations, the GMC Crackerbox was available with a sleeper cab. Tahoe where I used to work had a tough time getting to stuff on our Pete 320 LCFs. Here we have a 1983 GMC Astro. But, unfortunately, its also the one big truck for which Im most starved for pictures. Cabovers werent necessary dangerously. If I recall correctly, there were a few of these made with GMC badges on them when White and GMC merged their heavy truck operations in the late 80s. Equally memorable was a prop which sometimes sat near it: a Dixie cup which contained a spoon and was filled to overflowing with white glue, which had a bit of brown paint stirred in and was allowed to harden. The owner has done a terrific job in restoring the unit to its original condition. But as you can imagine, by this time there wasnt much left of them. They are also usually found on the back of a car, but they can be found in other areas as well. In the period from 1978 to 1988, General Motors offered the GMC Brigadier, a heavy-duty class 7-8 short-hood truck available in straight-truck and semi-tractor configurations. [1] In an option that became standard a year later, in 1979, GMC and Chevrolet offered the SS (Special Series) package. But they are still the gold standard in Europe, Australia and Japan. So an auction was scheduled, and the companys assets were bagged, tagged, and sold to the highest bidder. I always wondered if the design of the original small grille on the Astro 95 was supposed to suggest an air intake rather than a radiator grille. These are gold nuggets for the new truck drivers! We opened the doors, bolted together 2 10 shelving beams, wrapped the beams with rugs for cushioning, stick them thru the cab hook up the hoists and gently reposition everything back in place. CC Outtake: 1975 Austin 1300 MK3 Please Do Not Adjust Your Set, Curbside Classic: 1978 Oldsmobile Omega Grandmas BMW, Streetside Classic: 1974 El Cherito GMs BTV Dreams Project, In-Motion Classic: 1970 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible Hot Mustard. To get out, the trucker had to more or less, back out of the cab door, while hanging onto a railing on the door. You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed. Any way it was big. Old Dutch was a really good customer. Manual transmission with Hi-Lo. 1972 GMC Astro Cabover Truck - Walkaround Exterior Interior Tour - 2021 Clifford Truck Show 4,021 views Sep 9, 2021 109 Dislike Share Save TruckTube 186K subscribers Welcome to TruckTube!! The wrap around dash and placement of the controls and instruments was perfect. Because of the regulations for length, this style of rig was very popular in it's day. In 1976, another 9 of length was allowed, for a maximum 75 allowance. It did the job but no one ever confused it with a Peterbilt or a Kenworth. Cabovers had great visibility and they had the look of highway trucks, due to their sheer height. The red caboose is made of metal too. Today, it is one of the most recognizable marques in the industry. at the Hollywood Park Truck Show in Ingleside, CA in 1969. Ive seen a number of really nice ones, rebuilt and re-finished and restored back to new condition. 1986 GMC Astro cabover day cab. Some articles may contain affiliate links. Resale on these still seems to be excellent! It was pretty tiring crawling in and out of it and having to lie down to get dressed! They were indeed good-looking trucks. One of my most exciting or tense days involved a White Road Commander. Downtime means lost income. The first 1,000,000 miles of my driving was in trucks like these. The trucks, however, were not so lucky. . Out here, the farmers still run Brigadiers, Generals, and Ford Louisvilles. Must have been a big Chevy truck dealer out there. Safety. Modern cabovers are built with more structural safety features to protect the driver in the event of a crash. We have large over head hoists and we can slip a second trolley hoist onto the beam from the next hoist over. the cab was made of aluminum. was a radical departure for GMC-it was completely cab-over engine, and
There are fewer blind spots too. This must be the Astros counterpart from across the pond, the English 1974-1986 Bedford TM. . Id suspect a lot of their business came from a few good dealers, and especially from operators of a small fleet of big rigs but a varied fleet of everything who would appreciate a one-stop shop where they could get heavy haulers to get the product out, pickups and vans for *their* service techs and sedans for the sales reps through one dealership and one contract. My client roster once included a manufacturing firm called Ercoa. There are a few reasons this might happen: To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page. Call or email for more information. #3 was under the cowl and the piston/liner assembly would only just clear. Production ran from 1969 until late 1987, when GM merged their heavy truck operation with Volvo/White the Astro 95 was replaced by the Volvo version of the White Road Commander II, probably a step backward. The Road Commander cab has certainly outlived the Astro, granted only tangentially as the White/WhiteGMC/Volvo/Autocar/etc Xpeditor, further modified as the modern day Autocar ACX. Cab is up in the air, a crack noise followed by some crunching sounds. Another future COAL . Maneuvering a big trailer was a real workout. 1985 Kenworth Cabover, K-100 Kenworth release the first of their cabovers, in 1955. Given the paint scheme, it seems fairly likely this tractor and trailer spent at least part of their lives together. I am trying to see if by some chance this trailer is still in existence. Heck, it reminds me of the good old days when there were way less laws and regs. What was always fun was tilting any of these cabovers to there full tilt range. We cooperate with some of the industry-leading names that use only premium materials and cutting-edge technologies in the manufacturing of their products. And their parts guys knew the product a lot better. Dan is hoping to use this truck in the summer to haul hay. The best trucks ever. When the truck manufacturers decided to increase driver comfort in these trucks, their price increased as well. Of course, being a cabover it tilted forward for access to that huge Detroit Diesel mill. Manytruckers complained that the ride was pretty rough, mostly due to the shortened wheelbase. A practical guide to paid CDL training programs. 1972 GMC Astro Cabover Truck - Walkaround Exterior Interior Tour - 2021 Clifford Truck Show TruckTube 3.9K views 8 months ago Cabover Peterbilt With Completely Full Trailer FSC Trucking.
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