VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Trucks and Vans How many 1945's?

Someone posted on the VCCA Facebook page that they own a 1945 1/2 ton... that 200 were built and only 6 are left. I just wanted to question those numbers, as I was sure that I see 1945's pop up on ebay fairly regularly. Maybe I'm seeing 3/4 tons or more, but it just seems odd to me that they would only build 200 1945's when the trucks were in such high demand. That is less than a day of production... why not just run them down the line as '46's?

Brewster, I am no expert regarding war years Chevy trucks
but I own an unrestored(rough) '45 that came out of the
Texas oilfields.Most of the knowledgeable sources claim
some half and 3/4 tons were produced '43-'45 in blackout
form for essential nonmilitary use, farm, industry,oilfield
etc.Now if we had verification of such production from somebody who helped build them!
DFC

That's right... They were produced from '43-'45. I just thought the number of 200 was awfully low. I would have thought it would be a lot higher, as the needs you just mentioned could not be filled by only 200 trucks...

The 1/2 ton 1942 trucks were of the BK series. Chevrolet produced some 1/2 ton pick-ups for private use starting in 1944. Tey were still listed as BK models. The first 1946 models were CK and the real 1946 with some changes (and chrome items) came out in the Spring of 1946 after the strike was settled. I have a folder showing the 1945 trucks . All that was made was the 1/2 ton pick-up and a school bus chassis.
Remembering back when they were new they caome with no rubber floor mat, not rubber bood corners but leather instead. Also some other rubber items were missing.
Ther is no way of knowing how many are left. I always get a kick out of "there are only 8 left"....it is impossible to tell how many are still around.

So how does someone tell if they have a '42 or a '44 or a '45 if they all are BK's? Do we know where the body numbers stopped and started again? Are people going by the motor numbers? Or is it just the lack of chrome and rubber?

Part of the problem is most of the '42-early'45 trucks were actually assembled in late '41 or early '42 before the assembly lines were shut down and converted to something else. A few vehicles that remained partly assembled were hand assembled "off line". Many of the vehicles that had not been sold were retained (confiscated?) by the Government and released to during the next three years to "approved" people or organizations. Several manufactures converted their production lines to military vehicles. I have a Chevrolet truck that was assembled in September 1943 in Norwood, OH. Some time (don't remember the date and have not looked it up) in 1945 Chevrolet was authorized by the Government to start up a production line (not sure which plant(s)) to produce 1/2 ton pickup trucks. Those would be legit '45 models. I am not sure if they were 100% identical to '42 models as some engineering changes made during the war years might have been incorporated but essentially they were just '42 models produced later.

The $64,000 question is how does one tell if a truck is one assembled after the production line was restarted or one of the hold over models produced in '41 or '42.

By the way the first "civilian" 4X2 truck (1 1/2 ton) was produced on January 3, 1944 as serial 9MS25-2127 under COPO 1110D by a document signed by CJ Vincent. That surely was produced on the same line (Norwood, OH) as the 4X4 military trucks but with out the front drive axle. The "25" identifies the assembly year and month (Jan. '44).

Take a look at this article on the Stovebolt Forum

http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/art%20deco/index.html
Harold