Chevrolet - Chevy Blazer - Brochure - 1969 - 1972

' V"'- m * * *- ' fc « » • • '*/ -W i* JIIEP'* -V*. ' ^ • #* * AA3 fr'^ . UOLULUODUn^ --'.n h M, t ; ' •»'. ■i- , ■Sv" fSr- 'it. ',w' ■ ■''• ..j. ■; ■:g j-J,. •-< The Indy pole-sitter's driving impressions of RISTOF THE HIGHFMNG NEW SPORTS TRUCKS a new-breed sports vehicle BY PETER REVSON From my first racer (a slab-sided Morgan Plus 4, with high wheel arches, genuine fenders and running boards, cut-down doors and rear mounted twin spare tires) to the ul timate road-racing machine, the M8 assigned to me by Team Gulf- California-based bachelor, I had and were crowding around. been mildly aware that the avantWhen I elbowed my way through garde car fraternity there had been this good natured group, I was im gussying up trucks for some time, mediately struck by the fact that it prodded perhaps by the insurance looked different from any truck I'd underwriters and the ecology pro ever seen. Sure, it said Chevy Blazer tagonists, who have started to lean on the side, but it had a complete on sports cars and muscle cars. Indianbird paint job using the for SPORT-Bird is a solid-perform ward yellow running lights as eyes. A McLaren,I believe I've driven every ing 4-wheel drive Chevy Blazer, into very durable roll bar was triangu worthwhile sports car of the past which sport's editors have incor lated just behind the driver's head decade. This includes heavyweight porated their ideas for a multi-pur —not a bad idea if you're going to performers like the Ford GT40, and the Ferrari 375LM, as well as ex road or off, fun-oriented vehicle. otic small-displacement cars, such as the Alpine-Renault. But never a sports truck, until I picked up the keys to the SPORT-Bird at Watkins Although I was supposed to roadtest the SPORT-Bird, even seeing her wasn't too easy. A sizeable pro portion of the 40,000 young people front of the rear wheels. The wheels pose, go-anywhere-in-style, on the go plunging full-tilt into the boonies. Believe me, I know how badly you need a roll-bar when you need one. A Nascar-style exhaust exited a tuned expansion chamber just in Glen the day before last July's big camping out at the Glen for the two- themselves were handsome wide Can-Am event. As a car-loving. day race meeting, had discovered her based polished aluminum, with 6- r ^ ■ 't m ■ . ■' ' . . <>' --. ,'i' • ^. ■ h, ' . '■ ■ • '-fr' - ■ and to me the idea made great good sense. I get enough gear shifting in BIRD CONTINUED chrome studs on which were mount the McLaren, and the standard offroad combination of a stiff clutch, one, two in the Can-Am—a back- and a balky synchromesh, is not my to-back win for me with Denny a idea of fun. close second. The Glen Can-Am ed ultra low profile Goodyear G60 In general, for tough going offX 15 Polyglas GT tires. The "60" road, a good automatic gearbox can means they're only 60% as high as do a better job of selecting the they are wide. right ratio for a given situation than The combination of substantial Perhaps the SPORT-Bird pole ex ercise pleased the gods because we went out the next day and finished road clearance customary in 4-wheel a skilled driver. The access roads at Watkins Glen drive units, plus the sporty low pro on race weekend, are reminiscent of pole-sitter, Jackie Stewart, who is very, very quick on the race-course, and equally quick in repartee, had to settle this time for few splashes of the Great Western Champagne that bub bled so liberally at the finish line. When the racing season's over, I'm file tires gave the SPORT-Bird a unique poised-for-flight stance. Slipping behind the wheel, I no the worst weekend Paris traffic jams. going to borrow SPORT-Bird back Happily with SPORT-Bird you don't again. We're going to take a quiet need roads. Ditches, gullies, rock trip over the desert from Los An ticed that it was a three-spoked, piles, shale cliffet's don't cause geles to La Paz with nothing but a foam-rubber covered racing type. SPORT-Bird a wing flutter. On Trailblazer stove and lantern along, Should power-steering be missing or reaching the main highway,SPORT- and see if she is as adept at fishing for not up to snuff, I visualized a dandy Bird accelerates like a well-tuned marlin in Baja California, as she is new crop of blisters muscling this pony car, and the excellent choice at fishing for trout in Watkins Glen. 4000 pound package over the back of gear ratios in the automatic gear woods, with the same sized steering box becomes readily apparent. Cruis EDITORS' NOTE: wheel used on a featherweight Can- ing at 50, tramping the throttle pro SPORTs congratulations to Am racer. Blisters are something you duces an instant, throaty down-shift '^Champagne Peter" Revson on his don't need the day before a flatout and rapid acceleration for effortless sparkling Watkins Glen Can-Am Can-Am race. passing. The combination of a longer win and his writing debut—the first "Backwoods" here means that than typical wheelbase plus the Poly of three pieces the personable young the locals farm only two cash glas tires, results in a surprisingly front-runner will do for SPORT. In crops: Firewood for the race-week- comfortable ride. Having failed on our own travels in SPORT-Bird, we end campers, and Indian arrow my solo flight to extend SPORT-Bird heads for the tourists. SPORT-Bird's front I sought help. Help appeared: my Gulf-McLaren team captain and No. seats are big, thickly padded buckets de signed to save your offroad posterior. From them you have a high, com manding view of the bonnet, the squarish front fenders, and the coun tryside. A twist of the key, and the were struck by the variety of uses that men who eye-balled the vehicle came up with—deer hunting, bird woodsman back home down under. shooting, surf casting, surf boarding, small boat towing, desert camping, With Denny riding shotgun we set just to name a few. Already an ar 1, Denny Hulme, a self confessed out to get SPORT-Bird stuck. Down in the Watkins Glen State Park, there tistic success, SPORT-Bird enters 350 cubic inch V-8 burbles into life bedded riverlets, most of which are making a sound not unlike Junior Johnson taxiing into the pits at Dar endowed with waterfalls. The one we the commercial wars this fall when Chevrolet dealers will offer her In dian-feather paint job, and other key accessories on an optional-extra picked to drive in had a lake instead, basis. lington. Happily some very potent power steering burbles (quietly, of three feet deep in mud, and out-of- In his Los Angeles-Baja trip this season brown trout. Proud SPORT- winter Peter may get a chance to use course) into life as well, and I can Bird slithered to a halt, but not a stop worrying about blisters. When defeat. Instead, a wonderful oppor I go to look for the shift lever, it's tunity to use the front-mounted missing, so is the clutch pedal. In winch to haul us out of the treacher their place, a handy three-speed ous bog. hydramatic, with the selector Having been a polesitter more mounted on the steering column, often than anyone else in modern plus a floor mounted 4-position sports car racing history, Denny shifter for the "transfer case." The proved adept at a new sport—pole transfer case is simply the mecha hanging. He found a stout sapling nism whereby the high and low and, positioning it between SPORTranges of the 4-wheel drive and 2- Bird's tail feathers, and a formid wheel drive units are engaged. I had able rock, aided the winch in our never before driven an off-road ve extraction by dangling his compact hicle with automatic transmission. 175 pounds from the butt end. others of these accessories, a pair of low mounted, rallye-type foglights, and a "swinging gate" arrangement for the externally mounted spare tire, which allows extra cargo space and the use of the tailgate at the same is one of the area's typical shale- time. And, Peter, sometime before you leave the freeway and hit the desert, better swap those quiet, easy riding Polyglas GT tires for a set of knobby L70 X 15 Suburbanites. They're noisy but better suited to the terrain. At 110° even an 18 second Gulf-McLaren type pit stop seems long.