As soon as someone mentions their “chalet,” people may picture a cozy yet elegant getaway, maybe in the Alps or some other exciting location. “We’ll rendezvous at the chalet!” This 1975 Chevrolet K5 Blazer Chalet could become all of those things: cozy, elegant, and located in any picturesque destination you can reach by road or certain trails. The Oklahoma City, Oklahoma classic ran when parked before becoming “took a part” for a stalled restoration. Check out more pictures and information here on Craigslist where $7000 buys you the privilege of finishing the restoration. Some assembly required. Thanks to reader Chuck F. for spotting this mobile getaway cabin.
Built as a collaboration between General Motors and Chinook Mobilodge, the Blazer Chalet and its GMC counterpart, the Casa Grande, sold through Chevy and GMC dealerships, respectively. This one is reportedly #466 of 1800 built during model years 1976 and ’77. They’re all pretty similar in color scheme, with a few options packages varying slightly in features. Take a digital detour to FourbieExchange for more details on the history of these compact and rugged RVs.
Bare floorboards suggest minimal corrosion of the body, but a closer inspection would be prudent. Leather upholstery came with the Chalet in keeping with the “elegant getaway” theme. Let’s face it, when you invite someone to your chalet, they’re not expecting to sit on vinyl.
Billed as all original except for the pop-up tent material, this camper shows well inside, and apparently a new inner fender well comes with the purchase. This view looks out the back door, so presumably the fluorescent green toolbox does not convey.
The aforementioned pop-up gives you walk-around room when stationary. One option put bunk beds in that area to make the Chalet sleep four.
The venerable 350 cid (5.7L) “small block” V8 powers this RV, and the front-mounted spare tire rack helps offset some of the heavy rear-end loading. Call me crazy but I’d probably try to mount dual batteries up there for the same reason. One of these sold for $125,000 in 2021, though another specimen sold for under $30,000 in 2022, both looking pretty tidy, so that’s a pretty broad range. Suffice to say that the buyer is likely to be more of a Blazer Chalet fan than a profit-minded investor. Would you accept an invitation to spend a weekend in this Chalet?
Don’t we have a resident Chalet expert here? If so, what’s your assessment of this example?
I’ve commented many times on these in prior Chalet or Casa Grande postings, I’m the current caretaker of the VERY old blazerchalet.com website, who also has the mega-spreadsheet list of 600-ish of these which I can individually ID so far, and I’m the former owner of Chalet #1747. First, regarding this particular #0466, BarnFinds’ Jeff Lavery already covered it in a prior, much higher priced Craigslist ad by the same seller back in February https://barnfinds.com/chalet-466-1976-chevrolet-k5b-blazer/ . It has an incorrect ’77 model year roof on it because when it was previously for sale by a prior owner all assembled, it had an apparently home-fabricated sheetmetal roof, likely a result of the roof being completely blown off the rig at some earlier point.
And on price range, yes, #0414 did sell for ‘just $30k, but its plaid cloth seats were a non-factory reupholstery job passed off by a prior eBay seller as “mint.” It was also missing its entire passenger side interior cabinets. Top end value for these is as literally close to factory showroom new as possible, and that one missed the mark by quite a bit. Yes, Chalet #0429 did sell for $125k, but take that with a grain of salt for two reasons: the bulk of the bidders dropped out after the $47,500 point, leaving it to go to the top amount between just two guys who had tons of money but seemingly no curiosity as to why it had a used car dealership logo plate on the back despite being touted as never-sold-from-the-original-Chevy-dealer. It was supposedly a pristine never-restored original – hence all the interest in a vehicle hardly ever found in that condition.
Oops, copy ‘n paste url page address typo above. Jeff Lavery’s Feb 15, 2022 write-up is at this link: https://barnfinds.com/rare-pop-top-1976-chevrolet-k5-blazer-chalet/
I’ve never seen leather upholstery from the factory on any Blazer Chalet or GMC Casa Grande.
However, this would probably be a decent winter project for someone…
The ’76 model year Chalets and Casa Grandes were dark tan vinyl only. Leather was never offered. The ’77s were tan vinyl only for the dinette seats, and either tan vinyl cab seats or – so far that I’ve seen among all I know of – the orange plaid cloth seats seen in the regular Blazers or Jimmys (which by themselves also came in a couple of other plaid cloth colors).
Man this guy sure did blow it apart didn’t he? One shot looks like the camper shell removed. Might have taken it down further than required. So now all you need is all the kings soldiers and all the kings men. Seriously all the Blazer parts shouldn’t be a problem, replacements are out there and all the parts are tagged and bagged.
This one looks like some possible accident damage and the left side. Other wise why dismantle half the vehicle? Suspicious looking vehicle.
I’ve seen more of these on barn finds this year than they made.
GM’s figures for this joint venture between ChinookMobilodge and them is 1,555 total production for the Chalets, but GM is unable to locate the figures for the GMC Casa Grande version. The unfortunate situation here is that this is the second time this same #0466 rig has been posted to BarnFinds within one year. I’ve let BarnFinds know about the extent of my knowledge of these, so that they might avoid write-up repeats of the same rigs, and so that particular unfounded assumptions (such as the “Leather upholstery came with the Chalet in keeping with the “elegant getaway” theme” in the write-up above) can be avoided.
I’d take green Ford van sitting in the background.