- A 75-year-old Chevy truck with a shockingly low mileage is up for auction.
- The 3800 dually’s odometer shows only 34,561 miles after long-term storage.
- It’s powered by GM’s tough Stovebolt Six engine and now needs some TLC.
Before trucks became lifestyle accessories, they were built to be used and abused, and that meant the attrition rate was high. But this classic, seven-decade-old Chevy truck hasn’t just survived; if its odometer is to be believed, it’s hardly been used at all.
A 1950 Chevrolet 3800 one-ton truck it’s from what bowtie fans know as the Advance Design series of trucks sold between 1947 and 1955, and is being sold by Dan Limber Auctioneers in Ohio. The listing is disappointingly light on detail, but the pictures show it having covered a tiny 34,561 miles (55,600 km).
Time Capsule Workhorse
It doesn’t look like there’s any service history to back it up (75 years is plenty of opportunity to lose the paperwork most people struggle to locate after 10), but the blurb does say it was bought by the current owners in the 1990s and sat in their barn for decades.
It also comes with the original handbook, which is a nice bonus, and the image gallery contains what looks like a picture of the truck – then painted yellow and with a crane on the back – being put to work in the 1950s.
Related: One-Owner Buick Park Avenue With Just 14K Miles Could Be The Nicest Left
So although it’s survived, it obviously wasn’t bought to mothball as an investment like the zero-mile Buick GNXs that come up to auction regularly. Truck miles tend to be much harder than car ones, too – and that means it could do with some light work to bring it back to full health.
Restoration Or Preservation?
What the next owner will have to decide is whether they’ll fix the mechanics and preserve the patina, or use it as a great basis for a ground-up restomod.
Limber Auctioneers
Judging from the fact that the brake pedal has sunk to the firewall, the big drums on each corner are going to need some attention just to make this truck even vaguely safe to use.
Moreover, there’s no indication whether the tough 3.5-liter Stovebolt Six engine still turns over, and how many of its original 92 horses (93 PS) might still be in the stable.
What would you do with it? Preserve it, restore it, modify it or even turn it into an EV like this one? Check out the full listing here and let us know.
Limber Auctioneers
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