After VW built the Bus, it didn’t take long for other manufacturers to jump on the oddball van and truck wagon. Like the VW, Chevy’s Corvair based Greenbrier Vans and trucks had an air cooled engine hangout out back, which allowed for the odd styling and quirky body configurations. This Rampside is one of only 851 built in ’64, with only 112 currently accounted for. It is going to need a decent amount of work, but currently runs and drives. There are several areas of rust that will need to be addressed, including a few spots that appear to have already been “repaired”, but were clearly done by an amatuer. Given the odd design, I would want to make sure the chassis is still solid and that the rust issues haven’t advanced too far. These trucks are getting quite difficult to find, so I’m sure there are a few Greenbrier fans out there that would love to give this one a good home. I just hope the next owner gets it back on the road and enjoys it! If you are interested in giving it a home, it can be found here on eBay in Lincoln, Nebraska with a BIN of $7,777. So would you put that truck back to work or would you make it into a cruiser?
That truck is going to be bondo-rific. They rot out along the rockers, and particularly badly in the door sills up front due to all the compound metal folds. They’re great little trucks, the ramp side is super handy for loading and unloading and camper’s could be had with side doors. Pretty nice for the full on camper’s as the side door had a nice little ramp and was very easy to get in and out of, rather than climbing up steps into the back of a conventional pickup slide in camper.
There was a variant called a Load Side, that had no ramp, and was also a horrible idea since the floor of these is the same as the vans and is very deep between the rear mounted engine and cab. Not many of those were built, for good reason, and they are far more rare.
This price should be about half of what they are asking as much more solid trucks can be found in that price range. Getting a corvair running and driving is often a pretty simple, if a bit of a time consuming task. You can get most every engine part you might need fairly cheaply online these days. The hard part is the body rust as both the cars, trucks, and vans were known to rust out. I think a fella would be money ahead to buy a solid body vehicle and then replace door rubbers, engine parts, brakes, etc rather than doing the ton of work that this truck will need to sort it’s body out.
Or, I spose if you have a lot of money, buy this one and just drive it as a rust bucket with god knows what hidden under the bondo. It’s a unit body vehicle, I mean, what could possibly go wrong? :P
Those are not the orginal rivits on the vin tag !!!
I don’t think the numbers of “survivors” is correct. My neighbor has about 8 1964 models. He’s got another one he drives all the time.
The rivets holding the VIN tag are not factory. Use caution.
“Warp Drive”??? Beam Me Up SCOTTY !!!
I agree with dj – The owner is exaggerating the rarity. In the hometown where I grew up there was 2 or 3 in the area salvage yards back in the late ’70s.
It looks like rust has been repaired with duct tape.
The ford of the same breed was a far better van hands down. when I was l was a very young man, I had friends fathers that each had one. We always went in the ford because the Chevy was always being worked on. I didn’t have bad thought about either or but that’s what I remember. I do remember the Chevy had over heating problems though.
Those vin tag rivits are not orginal
somebody just bought it as I was reading the listing, cool truck, but to late now! buyer beware! agree with some of the comments about the vin tag!
Sold at BIN price. We’ll see if it gets relisted.