One reason many of us love barn find vehicles is because of the story that’s inevitably attached. Sometimes it’s simply a family car that got socked away for a rainy day that never came, or sometimes, there’s an entire lifestyle attached to the vehicle in question. In the case of this 1984 Chevrolet Blazer listed here on craigslist on Mayne Island in British Columbia, it seems like it was a couple’s adventure vehicle before being taken off the road and eventually discovered via an estate settlement. It’s hard to believe but we’ve found another 5-speed Blazer after not seeing one in eons. The seller is asking $3,000.
This Blazer has been listed for sale for some time, and I suspect it has to do with the remote location. If you’ve ever tried to get a car off an island, it’s not easy, and it adds a fair amount of cost and labor to the process. The seller notes that the previous owners used the Blazer for “…short hops” and an annual trip to Baja, California. These people sound cool as heck, and the seller notes that the elderly couple it belonged to were quite active. Check out the rudimentary spare tire mount: this was clearly done in response to the poorly-executed spare tire storage from GM, which left the tire inside the cargo bay where it consumed quite a bit of space.
I really can’t believe we’re seeing another first-generation S-10 Blazer equipped with a manual gearbox, as it seemed like we had hardly ever come across one in the past. This is clearly an early model with the older-style instrument cluster. The seller notes that he found the Blazer fully prepared for long-term storage, with it mounted up on blocks and completely wrapped. This was in 2014, and apparently, the owners never returned for their next pilgrimage to Baja. The interior remains in fine shape overall, with some signs of wear and tear. Most of the Blazer’s flaws are limited to the exterior, where several patches of surface rust have emerged.
Since it was used by just two people in most cases, the back seat looks almost unused. The seller notes he found the truck on March 8 of this year, firing it up for the first time since 2014. With a new battery, it started up instantly, and he drove it home. He admits he will not have time to properly go through the truck so it’s up for sale. Fortunately, the transfer case still works and he notes somewhat cryptically that it “…starts, shifts smoothly, and….stops.” That makes me think there’s a few more bugs to work out before it’s completely reliable, but with a backstory like this Blazer has, it deserves a proper tune-up and to be used as nature intended.
Father bought an 85 Jimmy (s15 identical to this). While my main driver was an 84 Dodge colt I could take the Jimmy/blazer out sometimes. Ours was an. Auto. The 2.8 was gutless but reliable. The front end needed new pitman arm every couple years. As a 16 year old, this was the bomb to get drive.
It’s a 2.8L. Stop and run the other way. These were deadly slow and the 4.3L was a much needed improvement. The reason many sellers of these do not identify them as 2.8 litres and simply as a V6 is by no accident. I worked for a GM dealer in 1990 and no one there wanted a 2.8L S-10, and we saw many mint trade ins.
Actually the 2.8 wasn’t fast but it was the 4-cyl that would struggle for most drivers in today’s traffic. That spare tire mount on a drop down tailgate is not an improvement. They went from worrying about inside space to rendering the back entry useless. Not everyone is an engineer.
Lovely ferry ride away. Beautiful Gulf Islands of British Columbia. Worth a trip.