1969 Chevrolet C-10 Pickup

This truck, Lot ST0039, sold for $39,590, including buyer’s premium, at GAA Classic Cars sale in Greensboro, NC, on July 18, 2018.

The late 1960s saw some of the most dramatic changes to Chevrolet pickup trucks that the Bowtied workhorses had seen in their 50-year history. The Chevy trucks produced from 1967 to 1972 completed the transition from primitive load haulers to modern all-purpose vehicles.

A thoroughly modern truck

To really understand the 1969 Chevy C-10, you have to go back to the last major redesign in 1960. The most significant technical improvement at that time was the adoption of independent front suspension. For the first three years of the new design, Chevy trucks used torsion bars up front, but in 1963, all two-wheel-drive half-ton Chevy trucks received front coil springs.

Perhaps just as important, the traditional rear leaf springs on 1960 ½-ton and ¾-ton Chevy trucks were replaced with coil springs and trailing arms. Together with the front suspension redesign, this gave Chevy light trucks of the 1960s the best ride and handling of any truck made up to that point.

Then, in 1967, Chevy introduced a smooth new exterior design that held through the 1972 model year. Trucks built in ’67 and beyond were nearly two inches longer than their predecessors, and overall ride height was dropped by more than two inches to improve handling and cab access.

However, the chassis underpinnings of the 1967–72 trucks remained more or less the same as the 1966 models. Chevy half-ton trucks received front disc brakes for the first time in 1971, and eventually abandoned the coil-spring rear suspension in 1973, going back to improved leaf springs for the next generation.

1969 had its own watershed changes, but these were mostly found in the engine compartment. 1967 was the last year that the venerable straight-6 engine outsold the small-block V8 in pickups. In 1968, Chevy truck buyers chose 410,000 V8 engines compared to about 270,000 6-cylinders. So for ’69, Chevy abandoned the 327 and offered three variations of the 350 V8. Buyers could get the 350 in 255-, 300-, and 350-horsepower versions. All the 350 V8 options came with a 4-barrel carburetor, so it’s hard to tell the difference at a glance today.

Truck interiors were advancing just as rapidly. Chevy dramatically improved interiors in this era, offering features such as carpet, air conditioning, and even bucket seats with a center console. Almost 30,000 buyers chose Chevy’s “Custom Sport Truck,” or CST, trim on 1969 fleetside models, which got them carpeting, upgraded seats, a headliner, a cargo lamp and chrome dash knobs.

Rising values

The 1969 Chevrolet C-10 pickup was the most advanced truck Chevy had ever made, and sales reflected the truck’s popularity. The most common 1969 C-10 was the fleetside longbed, with 268,233 produced, while the second-place fleetside shortbed ran to only 54,211 trucks. Stepsides were less common, with 49,147 shortbeds and 18,179 longbeds produced. Original base-trim purchase prices ranged from $2,494 to $2,569.

Chevy trucks of this generation have long been collectible, but prices have taken another jump up recently. It’s still easy to buy a solid driver truck for about $10,000, but most collectible examples are trading in the $20,000–$30,000 range, and recent prices have peaked over $50,000 (ACC# 270897). The top Cheyenne trim was introduced in 1971, and those trucks, as well as the Cheyenne Super launched in late ’71, bring consistently higher prices than less-luxurious trims.

Against that backdrop, the $37,000 price tag for our subject sale is far from a high-water mark for this generation, but it’s respectable money for a well-restored truck. This truck looks like someone went through and checked every option on the order form, and that’s a great thing because many of these options are “never see them” rare.

Options present on this truck include the tachometer, door armrests, air conditioning, AM/FM radio, power steering and brakes, speed alert, tilt steering wheel, bucket seats with center console and code P01 chrome hubcaps. Of course, the 350 V8 and Turbo-Hydramatic 3-speed automatic transmission were also technically optional, even though the take rate on those features makes them seem like standard equipment.

What’s on the SPID?

But with so many optional parts now available in the aftermarket, it’s hard to know how many of these options were originally delivered with this truck. It’s impossible to be certain because the GAA auction listing does not include any images of the SPID, or Service Parts Identification tag, located on the inside of the glovebox door. Some answers come from the ACC Premium Auction Database, which shows this same truck sold at Leake Dallas at the end of 2017 for $28,050 (ACC# 6853676).

At the time of that sale, there were no whitewall tires or optional hubcaps, so those features were added since last year. ACC had a reporter on site for last year’s sale who reported that the build sticker in the glovebox appeared to be a reproduction, so there’s no certain way to tell what this truck had originally.

From the looks of it, the seller pocketed a tidy profit on an eight-month ownership and a set of hubcaps and tires. The insider takeaway from that fact is that getting the highest price for your sale (or the lowest price as a buyer) depends on the buyers in the audience at the time and place of the auction.

The larger message, though, is that well-kept high-trim-level 1967–72 Chevy trucks continue to rise in the market. There are very good reasons why these trucks are popular as drivers, cruisers and show trucks, and that’s going to keep this market rising.

(Introductory description courtesy of GAA. The truck currently is for sale by Hendrick Perfomance, www.hendrickperformance.com.)