Classics old and new

A recent road trip turned up a couple of classic brands.

It is a long time since General Motors produced a full line of trucks from Class 8 on down. Since they agreed to sell their remaining heavy truck line to Volvo in 1986, they have only built mid-range GMC trucks, up to about Class 7.
In their heyday however they had a good share of the Class 8 market particularly when they replaced the "Crackerbox" Jimmy in 1969 with the GMC Astro and Chevrolet Titan. The trucks were very modern looking, contained novel ergonomics in the cab and eventually included Cummins and Cat engine choices in addition to Detroit.

The GMC Astro was always the more popular, and GM eliminated the entire Chevrolet truck line in 1981 - mostly because Chev dealers wanted to sell and service cars and not to be bothered with heavy trucks.
The GMC Astro continued in production ending with the 1987 model year. At that point, after a few years of White GMC, (using the White cab) they changed over to Volvo designed trucks.

This GMC Asto carries a Nova Scotia Antique Auto plate - and so it should - and  appears to be in mostly original condition.(The big rad was introduced to accommodate Cummins and Cat engines)

As Volvo took over White in 1981, the parent of Autocar, they phased out the classic model in 1987 and the WhiteGMC replacement in 2000.  However another company bought the Autocar name and the White Xpeditor cab in 2001 and began producing an Autocar branded truck again - this one strictly for the vocational market - with the Xpeditor low cab forward.

They have since expanded the line with more models and variations, including a military refueler.

Likely from the Greenwood, NS air base, this refueler was outside the fence (but not AWL) for service. It also looks fairly recent, so is by no means an antique, even though Autocar is the oldest North American truck brand still in production.

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