We have told you the story of the GM “crackerbox” trucks with their short, stubby cabs and fairly impressive service life but we have not showed you what it is like to actually operate one, until now. This video that we totally stumbled upon shows a regular guy driving his vintage 1963 GMC Crackerbox to his office job on a beautiful sunny morning. The truck has a 6-71 Detroit Diesel engine and a 10-speed transmission that’s hooked to a 2-speed rear axle as well. Instead of dragging trailers, this guy has fitted a flatbed in the rear of the truck and we think it looks pretty neat all around.
The Detroit Diesel engine is straight piped so there is plenty of that awesome scream we know and love around here. This truck is kind of a deluxe model because as you will see, it has a sleeper. It is basically a bunk shelf behind the driver’s seat but it was big time stuff back in the day.
This truck is completely unloaded and you will see how often the driver is having to row that transmission. It is incredible and we can only imagine what it was like when the truck was actually pulling something. The engine and gearing seem to get the thing down the road pretty well. At one point you will see a modern truck kind of stick its nose out on the classic and the guy hammers the throttle and rips gears to give the other guy a little bit of a show and to illustrate that the truck does have some guts.
We’re picking the video up at about six minutes in as that’s when the fun driving really picks up. There are multiple angles and everything here so you’ll enjoy this look into the life of what it was like to be a Crackerbox driving trucker!
