NAPCO 4WD – 1957 GMC 150 Pickup
With beefy oversized tires and a low camera angle, this 1957 GMC 150 4×4 Pickup looks ready for work or whatever off-road adventure you have in mind. A 347 V8 powers the Middletown, New Jersey classic, currently listed here on eBay. A host of new parts will save time for the new owner, and the seller includes a walk-around video with cold start and a driving video. Well done! At least 11 bidders have shown interest, elevating the market value of this vintage 4×4 above $18,000. Impulse buyers can cut the line with a simple click on Buy It Now for $22,000.
A four-speed manual gearbox handles gear selection, with a separate lever for four-wheel-drive. The otherwise excellent listing eschewed pictures of the interior and engine, so excuse the low-quality snapshots from the online videos.
NAPCO (Northwestern Auto Parts Company) partnered with General Motors to build factory-endorsed four-wheel drive systems of varying sorts until factory 4WD became a mainstream option. The NAPCO system increased the truck’s cost by about 64% during an era when most drivers did fine with RWD and snow tires. Today, anyone who witnesses a flake in the air needs four-wheel drive, but well into the seventies and early eighties, many farmers and hunters simply fit deep-lugged tires to their 2WD trucks and soldiered on with few problems. Manual locking hubs avoid issues with vacuum or electric actuators. Some NAPCO systems offer “shift on the fly” to engage and disengage 4WD as you’re driving. Remember to depress the clutch pedal as you would for any gear change.
With a claimed new battery, alternator, and Holley carburetor, the 347 cid (5.7L) V8 starts right up in the video and settles to a nice idle. The seller calls this a “Pontiac” engine in the video, but also includes a decoding of the factory serial number, including “3/4 ton,” and “347ci V8.” That’s because, according to Wikipedia, GMC used the Pontiac V8 in ’57. Would you pay an extra 64% for four-wheel drive today?
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Comments
I like it, looks like a fun toy to have
There are interior and interior shots in the auction, you just have to scroll down to the bottom of the description to see them.
The description in the eBay auction sounds just like the typical BAT-written description, with all the stilted “current ownership”, and “is said to have”, and “reportedly” references. So I am guessing this truck was already listed once on BAT, or is listed there now too.
… interior and engine shots …
Agree on the language used in those BAT listings. Edited by BAT’s attorneys to ensure they are not held liable for any inaccurate descriptions.
On the eBay site if you go down to the description it will tell you other things about the truck and all the pictures with the dashboard and engine and frame. That said this is a cool truck. I would definitely repaint it the same color with the white paint ….fix up some of the rust and dents…I’m not talking about a $30,000 paint job just make it look decent. And a wiper motor also with blades and arms. And have fun going to car shows with it. Trucks are cool beside MOPARS! Good luck to the next owner. 🐻🇺🇸
First off BAT should have experienced mechanics looking these rides over, very easy to audit receipts of upgrades, I have $7,500 in receipts for my ’68 F250 4wd and still climbing, and that does not include my 300 hrs. of labor. Also my android takes amazing pics so no reason to have inaccurate info
That’s exactly right, people today would be lost without a 4wheel drive of some sort. I grew up on a farm in western Wyoming, where it snows, and I mean SNOWS!!. Rarely saw a 4X4, everybody got around just fine. Actually GMC used Pontiac motors for a number of years, till they came out with their V6. I like these better than the chevrolets of the day, nicer dash, and a snazzier grille. Oh, and GMC used lock washers lol
And those clutch head screws everywhere the head shows. Damn hard to get out once one of the POs hammered an allen key in there to remove/install them.
Huh?
So, you never took out a clutch head screw, huh? LOL
Sure, out of a Holley carburetor
That’s some scary looking rust and sagging bondo there. Cool truck though.
10 yr newer model is abt right.
Comes w/factory 4W, 250 or 292 i6 & same bed. Much
better in my mind.
I love it ! Such a very rare unit. Most were thrashed within an inch of their lives in the first decade of ownership by Utilities, City or County governments, or oil companies, surveyors, etc. Few were owned by farmers or individuals till they cycled thru a few owners.
This one appears as a fairly well preserved survivor and may well have been once plucked from a forested grave or backlot of a telephone or electrical co-op.
RARE, RARE, RARE. I am surprised it looks as whole as it is and that it initially came with a big rear window cab. NAPCO’s were hardy units as were the oft seen Marmon-Harrington Ford conversions, or the utilization of countless M37 Dodge military units or early Power Wagon trucks. Pieces of the abused, often showing low miles, are still seen across the hills and prairies of remote Western areas. I have stumbled on more of all of these variants when hunting in fall for small or big game.
Remnants of once hard working brutes that made America….
Wow cool truck reminds me of the song by Jerry Jeff Walker (up against the wall red neck mother) with the line “he drives a 57 GZmC PCA up. Truck got a gun rack in back and hunk a rope he loves to sling it”
Buddy in college had a lemon yellow 57 Chevy Napco I lived that truck but it was far from stock
Very nice truck. Out of my price range and I don’t want 4WD but it is perfect if you do.
You don’t know that this truck was covered in clutch head screws from pretty much ’47 to ’59 ? Take a look inside the bed of one next time you see one. The original bolts holding the rear fenders to the bedside are clutch head, like ALL the exposed fasteners. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something?
GMC didn’t have a V8 of their own, so they used a Pontiac V8 from the previous model year (so this being a ’57 truck, would have been a ’56 engine, and I think Pontiac had a 347 in ’56. I know the ’55s were 287 cubic inches. My folks had a ’56 GMC back when they were first married, and it wasn’t stock; had a 389 in it which wasn’t available till ’59 or ’60. The ’60 GMC trucks were the next generation, and as noted had the big GMC truck V6 engine which is a whole different animal than the car based engines!
That said, this is a pretty rare truck, and deserves a good home and a little attention….
I had the chance some years ago to buy one of these, running and driving for the princely sum of $500… and I walked away from it. The stupidity of youth…