I came shockingly close to rolling right past the listing for this 1937 GMC wrecker on eBay because let’s be honest, at first blush the thing looks like a disaster. The wild coloration of the thing combined with the obvious years of weathering had me thinking that the truck would be a complete disaster. Boy was I wrong. In fact, looking past the exterior colors, this is one of of the coolest old tow trucks I have found and certainly one of the best restoration candidates I have ever seen. The floor is even awesome in the cab (yes the center plate has been removed but it seems like it comes with the truck in the ad). The wrecker unit itself is weathered and a little rusty, but nothing that couldn’t be pulled apart, cleaned up, and painted.
One of the neat things is that someone decided to muscle the truck up at a point in its life and out came the 1937 spec engine which was likely a four banger and in went a 216ci inline six. It is bone stock so “muscling up” is a relative term but you get what I am saying. The truck was a good enough work horse that even a junked engine couldn’t keep it down for long. That’s cool. In no particular order my favorite things on the truck are the front bumper that was reinforced with a steel I-beam, the wheels, the giant swooping fenders, and the twin boom PTO driven wrecker unit on the back. The PTO turns a chain drive that is hooked onto the pinion of what looks to be an old heavy duty Ford truck rear end. Each side has a brake on it. We’re guessing that each of the winches are controlled by handles that manipulate those brakes. How cool?!
I would blow this whole truck apart, restore the cab to the nines and paint it black. I would do the same for the wrecker unit and paint the business end of the truck white. Those wheels would stay with some slightly larger rubber (hillbilly overdrive) and the little 216 would be rebuilt and treaded to a split exhaust manifold and dual carb intake. I’d be putting all 90hp to good use at that point.
This one was a lesson for me. Always check a little bit deeper than your first impression may lead you to believe!
SCROLL DOWN TO CHECK OUT THIS 1937 GMC WRECKER AND THEN HIT THE LINK TO SEE THE EBAY AD –
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL LISTING AND ALL THE PHOTOS OF THIS 1937 GMC WRECKER
Brian, nice old rig. I’d have it for sure. FYI, original engine would have been a 230 cid inliner. I think these late 30’s GMC’s had Olds motors in them for a few years. Not suprised it was swapped out for more common stovebolt somewhere in its life. Anyone recognize the wrecker unit? Looks kind of like an early Earnest Holmes unit to me, or a copy.
I agree with above statement. generally the GMC’s had bigger engines, with larger main bearings, than their Chevy counter parts.They were popular swap for Chevy cars before the SBC came out in ’55. Damn, if that didn’t just date me a little 🙂
I have a big soft spot for the old Stovebolt 6, the grandaddy of the F-motors that powered all the greatest generations of Land Cruiser.