Chevrolet's K5 Blazer Changed the World

It’s the most obvious hole in GM’s lineup. Ford fills it with Bronco, Stellantis with the Jeep Wrangler, and Toyota with 4Runner. Where is the Chevrolet Blazer? No, not the thing that’s wearing the name now, but the real Blazer. The first one. The K5 that went on sale in April 1969.

That’s the chopped-down pickup with a half-ass, removable plastic shell pretending to be a roof. The one that always seems headed “to the lake” carrying inner tubes, several coolers full of cheap beer, some half-empty tins of Skoal long-cut wintergreen chaw, and a clot of youngsters unacquainted with the concept of risk mitigation. The one always dragging a vapor trail of oddly innocent trouble.

Brock Yates was prescient when writing about his first encounter with the K5 Blazer in Car and Driver’s April 1970 issue. “Think of it as a beginning,” he opened his piece. “Nobody really understands the dimensions of recreational market, and Chevrolet has to be forgiven for not working harder with the Blazer. After all, no one has done much to exploit this area of enthusiasm – which may well overwhelm all other forms of vehicular fancy – and therefore Chevrolet can share no more of the guilt than Ford and Chrysler.” Yeah, Yates called it. A full 54 years ago this month, he saw that the future belonged to Sport Utility Vehicles.

Yates was also correct in pegging that first Blazer as a low-effort thing. It’s a mishmash of existing components – a shortened half-ton truck chassis, familiar six- and eight-cylinder engines, and the trim and styling were swiped from the pickup line. That kept development costs low, but it doesn’t mean that Chevrolet (and its brother division GMC that sold the Blazer as the Jimmy) didn’t know what it was doing.

In March 1969, The New York Times ran a small article previewing the K5 Blazer which was to go on sale the next month. “The Blazer,” the story reported, “according to the Chevrolet Motor Division of the General Motors Corporation, has features requested by customers in a survey conducted last year.”

“It was designed, Chevrolet said, as a simple basic open unit with a single seat for the driver. The buyer can tailor the unit to his recreation or business need. The basic Blazer is expected to sell here in the $2,200 to $3,000 range.”

Yes, the front passenger seat was optional. So was the three-passenger rear bench. And the roof, too.

The first Blazer was a short-wheelbase C10 (two-wheel drive) or K10 (four-wheel drive) truck with an optional full-length, removable fiberglass roof. The Blazer’s 104.0-inch wheelbase was 11.0 inches shorter than that of the smallest pickup, but it was wide and tall compared to competitors like the Ford Bronco and International Scout. Also, it was more powerful than the competition; at least if the 350-cubic inch (5.7-liter) version of the Small Block Chevy V8 was ordered. Rated at 255 horsepower and thumping 355-pound feet of torque, the four-barrel carbureted 350 was 50 horsepower up on the 302 V-8 that was the top choice in Ford’s 1969 Bronco.

Four-wheel drive Blazers outsold the two-wheel drive versions by about 10 to one. There never was much utility to the Blazer if it weren’t used to explore the world’s muck and boulder trails.