In my opinion, the Chevrolet Blazer Chalet is one of the coolest products GM has ever offered, and I wish they would find the ingenuity to deliver such a product again. A standard Blazer – which was already a home run at the time – with a classic pop-up camper installed in the bed is just a slice of marketing brilliance you don’t see anymore. Even better, the interior of the camper was outfitted in perhaps the best period style you’ve ever seen. These command top dollar in restored form, so a project truck like this one here on craigslist for $3,000 seems worthy of a look.
Thanks to Barn Finds reader Henry Reining for the find. In addition to just being plain awesome, the Blazer Chalet (and its corporate twin, the GMC Jimmy Casa Grande) was offered in fairly limited quantities, which is another reason for its strong value. Less than 1,800 units were offered, and GM partnered with known camper builder Chinook Mobilodge to get the project across the finish line. This explains why the pop-up camper seemingly fit perfectly into the back of the Blazer sans roof, and even the correct tail lamp design was used on the camper shell.
As I mentioned, the interior were quite nicely appointed, and very smartly laid out, maximizing the use of a fairly limited footprint. There’s clever packaging throughout, and supposedly you can sleep two adults on the lower portion and some came with narrow beds up top that were ideally suited for children. I’m sure the ideal arrangement is two adults, or at least a family with the option for someone to sleep outside in a tent on a summer night. Regardless, this example looks surprisingly tidy inside despite clearly being a bit of a project on the outside. If it were mine, I’d get the cabin space mint and just address only the most critical cosmetics.
Now, this truck is located in an old stomping grounds of mine, Plymouth, Massachusetts. Plymouth is near Middleborough, both of which open up into the mouth of Cape Cod. There’s a salvage yard in a town called Wrentham known as Robertsons which gets all sort of expired vacation / adventure vehicles that surely lived on the coast, soaking in salt from both the ocean and then winter roads. The extent of rust is a big question here, and I’m sure it’s crept into a few places we can’t see. Still, for the price, it’s worthy of a phone call to find out just how solid – or not – it is.
Ingenuity seems to be limited to touch screens these days
There’s really only one thing I really dislike about this truck. The fact that there’s taillights on both the original Blazer part 𝘢𝘯𝘥 the camper. I understand why, but it just looks so… silly.
Truck looks a bit rough with a lot of rust. Too bad
As the guy trying to track every one of these still in existence (I used to own Chalet #1747; I’m the caretaker of the ancient blazerchalet.com website paying the bills to keep it online), I ran across this one a week back and contacted the seller to find out what serial number the camper unit is. It’s the long stamped # on the little rectangle plate by the back door, the last 4 digits are how we designate these. He said it was #1443, but hasn’t added a photo of the little plate to his listing. I’d been alerted to it in DesMoines Iowa 2018 Craigslist ads, the seller confirmed he bought it there. The prior seller never answered my inquiries on which one it was. Jeff covered this same one back then, notice the wiggly rust line above the driver side front fender arch and the spray can black-painted refrigerator outside grille: https://barnfinds.com/rare-camper-1976-chevy-blazer-chalet/
I by no means intend to pee on Russells parade^, it’s why one must be cautious, no matter what someone thinks, it could be dear to someone. I never thought there would be a group for these, but there you go.
My experience with these, is they need dual wheels in the back. If a 2wd, not as big an issue, but 4wd tends to take vehicles to tippy places, and these are tippy. The old man bought one at an ins. auction in the 80s, there were 2 there, actually, both rolled, he took the better of the 2, or so he thought. Turns out, the camper was too far damaged, and when he figured, just get a rear Blazer top, but not so. The camper company cut the header behind the front seats, I think, and a Blazer top wouldn’t fit then. He sold it for parts, and took a bath on it. Again, single digit gas mileage will curtail any cross country trips, but for a local jaunt, be great. Just watch those bumpy trails.