SUV Of The Day: March 15, 2012

Today's car of the day comes from Firehawk73's collection and is Hot Wheels' 1970 Chevrolet Blazer.

The K5 Blazer was the smallest full size SUV version of the General Motors C/K Trucks family. Introduced to the Chevrolet line in 1969, the full-size Blazer was replaced in 1995 by the Chevrolet Tahoe. In 1970, GMC introduced its own model of the truck, called the Jimmy, which lasted until the 1992 GMC Yukon. Both were based on the short wheelbase trucks and were available with either rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive. The Blazer's long wheelbase relative (with an integrated rear body, and doors for 2nd row passengers) is known as the Chevrolet Suburban.

The K5 Blazer and Jimmy had "full convertible" removable tops until 1975. In 1976, GM introduced a half-cab design that was less prone to leaks and slightly safer in a roll-over. These half cabs are convertible starting at a few inches behind the driver/passenger doors all the way back to the tailgate. In 1992, the Blazer was redesigned completely and no longer had a removable top.

Smaller models, the S-10 Blazer and S-15 Jimmy, were introduced alongside these trucks in 1983. The original Blazer and Jimmy remained in production until 1991; 1992 saw the introduction of a new K1500 Blazer (and the rebadged GMC Yukon) on the GMT400 platform. After 1994, the Blazer was renamed the Chevrolet Tahoe and it was offered in a two-door model up until 1999. After that it was offered only with four passenger doors.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Chevrolet Blazer

The original K5 was a short wheelbase truck. It was available in 1969 as 4-wheel drive only; in 1970, a two-wheel-drive model was offered. There were four choices for power plants: the 250 in straight-6, the 292 straight-6, the 307 V8, and the 350 V8.

The Blazer was designed and marketed to compete with International Harvester Scout and the Ford Bronco. Both of these were originally aimed at the short Jeep CJ series, which were much smaller than other trucks. The great innovation of the Blazer was to simply offer a shortened pickup truck, which both increased interior space, and lowered the cost of production with a shared platform. The Blazer quickly became popular. For the first time, it married the off-road capabilities of the Scout with the "luxury" features like air conditioning and automatic transmissions routinely available on pickup trucks. By 1970, the Blazer was already outselling both of its older rivals. Ford, Dodge, and even Jeep would counter with similar shortened pickups, with the Dodge Ramcharger and Jeep Cherokee. It also came as a convertible.
The two-wheel drive version came with independent front suspension and rear trailing arms, both with coil springs. The four-wheel drive version had a solid front axle and used leaf springs front and rear. Both versions used drum brakes at all four corners until 1971, when the entire GM light truck line got standard front discs. A tachometer was optional.

There was also a choice between a three-speed automatic transmission Turbo Hydromatic (TH350), a three-speed manual transmission, and a four-speed Synchromesh (SM465) manual transmission. Two transfer cases were offered: the Dana 20, available only with the manual transmissions, or the NP-205, available with both types of transmissions. The Blazer had 8 inches (200 mm) of ground clearance and an approach angle of 35°.