Overlanding is all the rage nowadays with seemingly everyone and their grandma with some sort of overpriced off-roading camping rig for sale. But do you know what most of those vehicles lack? The kind of cool you’re about to witness over the next few minutes. This 1977 GMC Jimmy Casa Grande may not be the most capable or fuel-efficient, but you bet it has the kind of swagger no Mercedes-Benz Sprinter can match. It’ll probably even be more affordable, too!
The term “overlanding” has been sizzling hot in recent years, but it’s hardly anything new. Over a century ago, overlanding more or less described the act of droving cattle long distances in Australia. Camping existed back then, too, and some of the earliest motorhomes drove vast distances across the wilderness simply because there were no roads where their drivers took their vehicles. Over time, the idea of taking a long adventure for fun and without cattle began to take shape. Maybe the people back then didn’t call it overlanding, but the general concept was similar to today.
Nowadays, companies like Winnebago and Airstream are happy to suck $200,000 or more out of your bank account so you can take an adventure in one of their vans. Or maybe you can buy one of countless overland trailers, or gigantic million-dollar expedition RVs, or put some beefy tires, a winch, traction boards, and a roof tent on your old Toyota 4Runner.
If you want to do it in style, you can always look back to how Americans used to camp in the wilderness and take a gander at this 1977 GMC Jimmy Casa Grande.
The RV industry has gone through a lot of booms throughout history. For example, the Great Depression sent many Americans searching for work around the country. Those who could swing it built their own teardrops and towed them behind their cars. Not too long after came a craze of sleek aluminum trailers. America’s post-World War II boom and the Interstate Highway System sent adventurous people across the country with some sort of camper in tow, enjoying the great vistas this nation has to offer.
In the 1960s and 1970s, interests began changing as outdoor sports became ever more popular. Americans straddled off-road motorcycles, got muddy in their Ford Broncos, piloted Jet Ski personal watercraft, and dashed through the snow on Ski-Doo snowmobiles. The outdoors beckoned and many wanted to sleep in it, and I don’t just mean in a tent. Interest in RVs skyrocketed and as the RV Industry Association notes, many of today’s RV brands got their start during this mid-century boom.
To illustrate just how nutty this era was, automakers like Ford were trying to create the future of RVing while Orlando Helicopter Airways was ballsy enough to turn Siksorky S-55 helicopters into flying motorhomes. GMC even created the still innovative Motorhome. That’s how obsessed Americans were with camping.
In the mid-1970s, General Motors decided to capitalize on the rise of off-roading and the boom of camping at the same time. Most motorhomes of the day were built on chassis that weren’t designed to leave the manicured parking spaces of a campground. GM teamed up with Chinook Mobilodge Inc., the maker of now-famous fiberglass Class C campers, to create a camper that a truck owner could take anywhere.
Two campers came out of the other end with the Chevrolet Blazer Chalet and the GMC Jimmy Casa Grande. Both campers were the same at their core and they’re rather rare units. Around 1,800 examples were made in 1976 and 1977 with most examples being the Chevrolet model. So, this is a rare version of an already rare unit.
The campers started life at GM’s factory, where a stock Blazer or Jimmy would be built. The base truck would then be sent to Chinook, where the back wall of the cab would be removed. From there, Chinook bolted its camper body to what was left. This camper is made out of fiberglass with an inner steel frame for structure.
It’s notable that while the Blazer Chalet and Jimmy Casa Grande look like trucks with slide-in campers on them, the camper was not designed to be removable. Removing the camper involves undoing a bunch of bolts and then you’re left with a truck that has an open-air cab. Owner communities also say that removing the camper will cause the fiberglass to crack since it wasn’t meant to be removed. With that said, if you’re super careful you can move the camper to a different K5 Blazer if your original truck is too far gone. Indeed, this was meant to be a 4×4 motorhome and the advertising materials were proud of it:
“Did you ever notice that the toughest places to get to usually turn out to be the nicest places to stay? Too bad you couldn’t have a neat little cabin right in the middle of it all. With a new Chevy Blazer Chalet, you’ve got it.”
A base Chalet or Casa Grande was reasonably well-equipped for its day. You got bedding for two, seating for four, an ice box, a dinette, a sink, 5 gallons of water, and a propane stove. GM and Chinook sold a couple of options packages. Package A featured all of the above plus a 5000 BTU propane furnace. Package B swapped the ice box for a refrigerator that can run on propane, battery power, and shore power. This package also contained the electrical components to make it work. Finally, there’s Package C, which gives you everything from all of the other packages, plus a bunk bed so the camper will sleep four.
Sadly, there are some caveats. No version of this camper comes with a bathroom and the unit itself is so heavy that the truck’s towing capacity is reduced to a pathetic 2,000 pounds. Owners of these campers are also quick to note that while they do go off-road just fine, you’re going to have a bad day if you take it somewhere hardcore.
At the very least, you do get 6’5″ of headroom thanks to the camper’s neat pop-top.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to say why these campers weren’t successful, but I do have an idea. In 1976, a base model Blazer was $5,364.60 ($30,345 today), and I mean this was a stripped-out truck. You got rear-wheel-drive and nothing else. Simply tossing the camper on the back jacked the price up to $9,426 ($53,324 today). Adding four-wheel-drive, air-conditioning, and other options quickly rocketed the price well into the teens. Some of the price is due to the fact that camper models came with a V8 engine by default.
This 1977 GMC Jimmy Casa Grande
Time heals a lot of wounds. The first owner of this truck got to spend a lot of money, but maybe you won’t.
This camper started life as a 1977 GMC Jimmy High Sierra, which means it had some decent options from the factory. This one has air-conditioning, two-tone paint, plaid bucket seats, and four-wheel-drive. There’s also plenty of that terrible, but now endearing 1970s fake wood trim.
Power comes from a 350 cubic inch V8 making 165 HP and it’s backed by a three-speed automatic transmission. Other mechanical goodies come from power brakes and power steering. A set of newer BF Goodrich all-terrain tires brings it all together, including a sweet spare.
Mecum provides us with just a single picture of the interior, and what I see is a non-standard interior configuration. The stock kitchen has been turned into additional storage. The listing states that a refrigerator and stove are included, but it doesn’t say where they currently are. Thankfully, the dinette survived the modifications.
It’s hard to say what this will go for. A good original Chalet or Casa Grande could sell for something like $60,000 or so. But this isn’t original and it’s short on the factory rad graphics package. So, I would expect a more affordable result. Either way, it goes up for sale at Mecum’s Dallas 2024 auction happening on September 6.
Sure, this 165 HP heavyweight isn’t going to be the most capable thing out on the trails, but it’s going to be vastly cheaper than one of those new rigs and look so much cooler doing so. Go ahead, hit the trails and go camping, but you might want to bring a cassette toilet and an outdoor shower with you unless you really want to be one with nature.
(Images: Mecum Auctions, unless otherwise noted.)
Not really sure why you would buy this new when you could get a pickup with a slide in camper. Take the camper out when you arent using it and you have a useful truck the other 99% of the time.
All of the big 3 even offered a “camper package” option back then that made the truck set up from the factory to recieve an aftermarket slide in. IIRC it included beefier rear springs, maybe a way to plug the camper into the truck’s 12 volt systemn for things like tailights, clearence lights, dome light in the camper etc.
Almost all the trucks with slide in campers were 8′ bed, 3/4 or 1 ton models. Id be VERY leery of putting something so top heavy on a short wheelbase, 1/2 ton 4×4 chassis. The K5 Blazer wasnt that stable of a platform. Much better than a 1960s Bronco or CJ5/CJ7 Jeep, but still.
Chevy’s also included a second battery. Fun fact: the truck required both batteries to be good to start. My dad and I spent a few hours chasing a non-existent electrical problem because one of the two batteries was bad in my ’88 K2500.
I’ll throw in my obligatory needs an LS and a 10 speed auto swap to bring the powertrain up to current standards. That assumes you’re going to drive it more than a couple thousand miles a year to get any payback by doubling the fuel economy.
Schoolbus Catapiller swap!
Man, that babyshit yellow…
As for the whole overlanding thing, I bet I took my old Westfalia places these things never even see on a map. A lot can get done with a simple vehicle rather than cosplayed with butch decor.
A dingus in my neighborhood is trying to sell a used short bed Tacoma with a fancy overlanding camper shell for $75,000. It has red plastic tank box things bolted to the side, so it must be hard core.
A friend of a friend has a Blazer Chalet for a few years now; supposedly it’s been on his list of projects to get to (he actually makes progress on them, just hasn’t gotten to this). He bought it half way across the country and the lid on the topper flew off somewhere along the way when it was on the back of a shipper. Turned into a huge battle with the shipping company due to how hard it was to find a lid or complete topper.
Those mudflaps! Love it!
Well, this solves a mystery that’s been living rent-free in my head for 25 years. Back in the late 90s a friend-of-a-friend bought a late-70s Jimmy that had an odd yellow and white color scheme, odd holes in the roof (plugged with silicone), and a rear shell that was obviously not factory. He got it for pretty cheap, so we didn’t think much of the rough shape, but there was a Casa Grande sticker on the passenger side of the dash next to the Jimmy emblem. The owner assumed the sticker was from some state park or something, but it looked almost-OEM, using similar font styles to the High Sierra badges on the one in this article. One of my other friends suggested that maybe Casa Grande was a Mexican trim option, and the dash had been replaced with a dash from one of those? Since that friend’s Jimmy looked almost identical to the one in this article (darker yellow, but otherwise the same sans the camper part), I now know the truth. Sadly, that friend was an idiot and ruined it by spray painting it bright orange and then later neon green…
I love the interior of the truck! Not really surprised that the camper part has been stripped out so much; that’s kind of a bummer.
This rig desperately needs the old Yosemite Sam BACK OFF mudflaps
https://bringatrailer.com/search/?s=blazer+chalet last 7 have on BaT have sold from $18.5K to $125K.
reminds me of the 63 international camper thing. except the actual body panels were not lengthened. https://gearjunkie.com/camper-rv/international-scout-encyclopedia
in both cases, I wonder how much better it was to have the passthrough from the drivers seat? and did the 1974 and older blazers work better since they did not have a roof at all?
I love the taillights on the camper portion an unreasonable amount.
Would have been cool if they took it a step further and extended the two tone paint scheme into the camper box
Screw reason.
Since the shell wasn’t made to be removed, are the taillights on the truck dummies?
And you have a set of replacement lenses just a foot away.
Jimmy Jimmy Go Go Box
(Apologies to Little Anthony and the Imperials)
Because the Blazer/Jimmy of this era was essentially a giant convertible with a removable fiberglass top, the conversion was genius. Chinook didn’t have to do any sheet metal mods; they just plopped the camper on top of the open cab and sealed it up.
Yup no cutting of the body needed and I’m sure GM shipped them sans top and tailgate.
Had these been successful Ford and Dodge could have gotten in on the game since the full sized Broncos and the early Ramchargers had a similar lift off rear a similar bed dimensions.
I am surprised that I haven’t found a YouTube channel of someone overlanding this.
The late 70s were not a strong economic time for many people. I think the price was just too high for those that would have used something like this to sell many of them.
“you might want to bring a cassette toilet and an outdoor shower with you unless you really want to be one with nature.”
That’s what the river is for.
Ok for the shower, but please bring a toilet. The campers bathing downstream will thank you…
Does a bear s#it in the woods?
No.
He does in a river though.
And those salmon heading upstream….you might want to hold off drinking that river water for a while.
Wait I thought the bear was catholic and the pope sh….damn, no wonder everyone always looks so confused.
Camping means walking into the woods with a shovel and a roll of TP, right?
Only sometimes.
If you ain’t squatting over a hole, you ain’t really camping.
You know,? I’m ok with that.
(flush)
That being said, I only really went camping once. Didn’t take a dump for 3 days.
I used to love camping. Now its kind of a PITA, what with all the tents, cots, coolers and other crap it takes more time to prepare, fight traffic, set up, strike camp, fight more traffic and put away than actual relaxing.
That’s why I’ve been falling even more in love with RVs, provided they aren’t total junkers. It’s nice to just toss some crap in the camper and then hit the road.
At the very least, I have figured out how to make tent camping easier for the times I still do it. I bought one of those Coleman instant tents and holy smokes what a game-changer. I just plop the thing on the ground, pull up the center, and bam, I have a tent. I could even do it while intoxicated!
“I could even do it while intoxicated”
Well that depends dosen’t it?
Malort: It even makes a pop up tent impossible
Malort makes basically anything impossible. I once saw a Malort advertisement in a bar in Chicago that said something like “Malort, because these pants aren’t going to shit themselves.”
Truth in advertising!
Malort destroys your taste buds, which totally explains Chicago pizza.
Fight me. 😉
I like Chicago pizza!
I’m not sure which is worse: shitting in a very small, enclosed space adjacent to where I cook and eat? Or in the woods (or in the rain) at midnight?
This is why I’m not a huge camping person.
I just know that my gazelle t4 tent with a chair, cot, cot pat, and table goes up faster than a roof top tent, cost 1/10 the price, 1/100 the price of an RV
If putting the recreation area that close to the waste outlet was good enough for God…
What a dynamic disaster. Squarebody Blazers/Jimmys are handling challenged before sticking something on the back that both raises the center of gravity, and moves it more to the rear. And that is before what appears to be a oversized tires, if not also a suspension lift. Yikes.
I had a new 78 (not with the camper) and don’t remember it being all that different from anything else truckwise of the era. Solid front axle, bias ply tires, etc.
Having driven and ridden all sorts of short wheelbase SUVs – both civilian and military – I can say they felt much worse than even a short bed pickup of the era. They weren’t Bronco II unstable, but they certainly weren’t comfortable by any stretch of the imagination.
wheel spacers do wonders in these scenarios, but also wider tires (might not apply here though as those KO2 are at least 3″ taller than stock ones). My square body did fine under that setup
After seeing just their hands in so many of those Country Crock commercials, it’s nice to finally see what that couple actually looked like
COTD!!