C10

A Work Truck Built for the Driveway

When the second-generation C/K was drawn up, Chevrolet still treated its pickups as a commercial line for tradesmen, businesses and farms. The 1967 truck was nonetheless redesigned from the ground up to be usable as personal transportation, with more comfort and convenience than any pickup had needed before, and Chevrolet's advertising said so plainly, selling the trucks as fun for family activities rather than only as work horses. The styling was part of the argument. Against the taller, flatter Ford F-100 the Chevrolet sat low, with a clean shoulder line and a rounded roof, and GM gave the generation the Action Line name. Hagerty's buyer's guide credits the approach with keeping GM ahead of Ford through the mid-1970s, and the trucks sold in numbers that never fell far below 300,000 half-tons a year.

Coil Springs at Both Ends

Under the new body the chassis was largely carried over from 1960-66: a drop-center ladder frame, short-and-long-arm independent front suspension on coil springs, and at the rear a live axle on two coil-sprung trailing arms located by a Panhard bar, with rear leaf springs on the option list. That rear layout is the reason a C10 rides differently from its contemporaries, and the reason the aftermarket builds coilover conversions around it rather than replacing it. The K10 was a different truck underneath, with a live front axle and leaf springs at all four corners. GMC reversed Chevrolet's choice at the rear, fitting leaf springs as standard and coils as the option. Brakes were drums all round until 1971, when front discs became standard on every light-duty truck.

Year by Year, 1967 to 1972

The 1967 truck is the only one with the small rear cab window, and sources disagree over whether it was the standard glass or the option. For 1968 federal rules added side marker lamps at all four corners, the 3/4-ton Longhorn arrived with an 8.5 ft Fleetside bed, and a 50th Anniversary package marked Chevrolet's half-century of trucks in white and gold. For 1969 the hood was reshaped with a blunter front, the grille was redesigned, and a foot-operated parking brake replaced the hand lever. The 1970 truck is a close copy of the 1969. For 1971 the egg-crate grille arrived with the bowtie at its center, the parking lamps moved into the bumper, front discs became standard, and a tilt column and factory AM/FM radio were offered. The 1972 truck gained molded door panels and a windshield-mounted mirror, and is otherwise so close to the 1971 that the serial number is the reliable way to tell them apart.

From CST to Cheyenne

From 1967 through 1970 the Chevrolet ladder ran from an unnamed base truck through Custom to the CST, the Custom Sport Truck, which could be had with bucket seats and a folding center armrest and from 1969 wore woodgrain-banded lower trim. A Custom Comfort and Convenience interior package sat between base and CST from 1969. For 1971 the names moved up a rung: base became Custom, Custom became Custom Deluxe, and the CST became the Cheyenne, with a Cheyenne Super added during the year carrying woodgrain dash trim and full instrumentation. The Cheyenne name is still on GM trucks. GMC ran Deluxe, Custom and Super Custom, and for 1972 added the Sierra and Sierra Grande. Hagerty's contributors are blunt that trim now matters less than it should, because the trucks were built to order from hundreds of RPO codes and almost any part can be bought new.

Sixes, Small-Blocks and the Big-Block

The 250 and 292 cu in sixes ran for all six years. The V8 list moved quickly: the 283 for 1967 only, replaced by the 307 for 1968; the 327 through 1968, replaced by the 350 for 1969; and from 1968 a 396 big-block, the first in a light-duty GM truck. GMC also offered its own 305 and 351 cu in V6s until 1970. The sources do not agree on the big-block's output or on whether the 402, badged 400, arrived for 1970 or 1971, and even the small-block ratings differ by up to 20 hp between references. Transmissions ran from a column-shift three-speed through four-speed manuals to the Powerglide and the Turbo-Hydramatic 350 and 400.

Corrosion is the defining fault, and it is structural rather than cosmetic. These were built as working trucks with little sealing against moisture, and the repair panels sold today copy the original construction, so a truck restored without seam sealer and weld-through primer will rust again in the same places. Rocker and floor rot usually runs into the cab supports and door pillars, and a truck with rot in all of them has become a floor-pan replacement job, which is how one project truck was done.

Hidden repairs are the second theme. Owners report silicone pushed into rusted drip rails and painted over, and one Hagerty contributor found a beer can in a rocker under body filler. Paint alone says little about what is beneath it.

Mechanically the trucks are simple. Hagerty's contributors single out failed fuel gauge senders as a common fault and treat every belt, hose and bushing as due for replacement on age alone. Trucks built before 1971 have four-wheel drums, so a pre-1971 truck carrying a modern V8 on original brakes is under-braked, and front discs are the usual retrofit. On big-block trucks the 396 and 400 labels were used loosely enough that the displacement a truck actually carries, and whether it is original, cannot be read from a fender badge. No NHTSA recall or complaint data for this generation was consulted, so none is stated.

Rust first, and the places are consistent. The lower body has cup-shaped pockets that fill with dirt and hold water, so the outer rockers, the inner rockers formed by the floor edge, the cab corners behind them and the cab supports beneath the floor go together; one shop calls rocker replacement almost a certainty on any unrestored truck. Then the door pillar bottoms, the toe board where it meets the rocker, the small drain holes at the front of the cab, the drip rails (look for caulk pushed into the gutter and painted over), the pockets ahead of and behind the front wheel openings, the inner fender corners, the core support and the battery tray. A cab cut open for floor work must be braced or it moves.

Almost every panel is reproduced, up to complete cabs, so the question on a restored truck is how the metal was fitted rather than whether it could be found. On the bed, a Fleetside left the factory with a steel floor as standard and wood as an option; a Stepside came with wood. Wood kits are sold for both, and Fleetside-to-Stepside conversions are common.

Identity takes paperwork. The SPID sticker in the glove box lists RPO codes, the door-jamb plate carries the VIN, and a partial VIN is stamped on the driver-side frame rail near the transmission. The engine carries no VIN, so no truck here can be proven numbers-matching. Published VIN decoders disagree on the layout (see claims). Paint codes are reused across years by GM, so a code means nothing without the build year. No US shop in the sources consulted publishes a whole-truck restoration cost; the only figure is about $1,000 to replace aged rubber, from Hagerty's contributors.

All classic.com figures here were read as of September 2026. The average price classic.com records for the second-generation C10 is $37,419, with 130 trucks offered for sale at the time. The K10 averages $58,791 on a far thinner population of 22 listed, and the generation as a whole, including three-quarter and one-ton trucks, averages $51,142. The retrieved pages do not publish a highest recorded sale for any of the three, and every listing shown on the generation page carried an asking price rather than a completed result, so these averages describe what the market is recording rather than a ceiling.

The floor is low and old. The lowest recorded C10 sale is $4,400 for a 1968 long bed in October 2021; the lowest K10 is $4,250 for a 1970 long-bed 4x4 in October 2025; the generation's lowest is $1,400 for a 1969 C20 Longhorn in October 2022. Averages this far above those floors come from the mix: restomods with modern engines, coilover suspension and air conditioning sit in the same population as unrestored long-bed work trucks. The configuration that commands money is consistent across sources. Short-bed trucks draw the most, the more powerful engines add to it, and enough long beds have been shortened to imitate them that a short-bed truck's frame and bed deserve the same scrutiny as its paint. Hagerty's contributors add that a modern LS engine does not necessarily cost a truck value in this market, which is the reverse of how a matching-numbers car is judged.