Hot Rods Years ago a person could buy a new a ( Fleet Vehicle) ?

Technically I still do. The last 5 trucks I’ve purchased are thru the dealerships Fleet sales person because they are normally the internet guy too. I’ve ordered each one with exactly what I want and even with off base models carpet delete is still an option to do. There is actually a commercial order book if you can get your hands on it to order specific springs and other part number you need. If the fleet sales guy is really good the numbers are an ez find. Other salesmen are not interested in a special order car/truck today.

 

Similar to what jimmy six said, back in the 90's when the lowered trucks were hot along with the weird turquoise and other pastel colors, the dealers could get you in on a fleet order. This was more for colors than anything else. Basically, if you wanted maybe a peach or bright yellow colored C1500 and there was already a fleet order for that color in the pipeline, the dealer could get you in on that production run. The thing was, someone needed to order a certain number of trucks in the exact color you wanted to get them to do the special non-regular production color run.

 

I have found that bigger dealerships that do a lot of fleet or commercial sales often order some fairly basic trucks.
I bought a chevy work truck that had a locking rear and automatic, no other options from stock., my better half
bought her truck with an 8 ft bed and locking rear, nothing else. I think it was the last manual trans truck I saw.

 

Not entirely true. Certain models from 2014 and earlier will require converting to OnStar Link, which will provide most of the factory-installed OnStar features on these models in the US market

 

in 2007 I bought a chevy pick up no option except rear bumper, last of the chevy p/u with a 6 and stick, still got it 58k on it

 

In 1964, a friend of mine bought a New '64 Ford full size custom two door sedan, all white,
427 with 2 4's and 4 speed. NO interior, but he got one Econoline bucket seat and belts.
He worked for the local Ford dealer, and that's the way he ordered it, right from Ford.

 

Known in Australia as the Povo (poverty) Pack.

 

Well into the 70's it was rare to see a factory rear bumper on a pickup around here. Most had a fabricated 1/4" steel step bumper that had the selling dealers name and location cut into it. Looked like it had been cut with a router in wood. Top step was either diamond plate or checkerboard pattern. Had a recess for the tag and 3 holes for hitch balls. Either painted gray or flat silver. My guess is the dealers bought them for advertising, then charged extra to have them put on. When the factory started putting their own bumpers on everything, the rear delete became rare.

 

Agree, need to go to a dealer that fills fleet orders already ( state, local municipality etc) you can get what you want. Your local dealer won't want to mess with it on 1 vehicle.

 

When I got out of the Army in 1961 I bought a 1951 Ford business coupe. No back seat, and the quarter windows didn't open. It was a 226" 6 cylinder. It wasn't pretty, but I won a lot of light to light races.

 

I once bought a slight OT van that was part of an actual 100+ vehicle fleet order for a local company. No options of any sort, and only a drivers seat, smallest 6, stick shift. Apparently a handful of the vans arrived with some damage that occurred in shipping and thus were rejected by the buyer.

The reject I bought had a couple of almost imperceptible rock(?) nicks. That thing was indestructible and cheap to buy and to drive, but NOT fast!

 

In the 50's, 60's and 70's most dealers did just that. They ordered in a stripped no accessory car to use to be able to say buy a new _______ for _____ plus tax and license. Car was at most 100 bucks over dealers cost, When you got there and asked about it it was always the last car in the back row of the lot and you had to go past every other car in the lot to get to it. The option list might read Heater. and maybe an AM radio but nothing else. Most of the time they didn't have a radio. They didn't really want to sell it because it kept their add legit and after looking at a number of other cars on the way to it that plain solid color two door with base engine, stick trans, rubber mats and base interior looked real plain in comparison and all the sudden that hardtop that caught your eye half way down was a lot more interesting.
I probably special ordered the least optioned Oldsmobile that Williams and Swanson in Renton WA ever sold in their history. Car had 4 options on it. 4 barrel engine with dual exhaust, Muncie M21 4 speed, 3.43 12 bolt posi and an AM-FM multiplex radio that was the highest price option on the list. 230 bucks for that but worth every penny at the time. Solid color, black bench seat, black walls. dog dish hubcaps no chrome wheelwell trim that the salesman really wanted to sell me. I had wanted the two door post but Dad changed that to hardtop when he placed the order for me. I was sitting in Vietnam and my buddy's dad was general manager of the Olds dealer in Washington DC and Rick had the order forms that his dad had sent him with all the option numbers on them.

 

I am sure I will have to change, but for now, I am not buying anything on a car I have to pay a monthly fee for.

 

Hello,

We lived in an old (1953 to 1998) Westside of Long Beach house. Our neighborhood was a nice one (at the time) and most of the friends were in the working class. Trucks of all kinds were the second cars for most families while the other was usually a station wagon or 4 door sedan.

Our next door neighbor bought a 1964 El Camino and was happy to have traded in his old Ford pickup truck. The new El Camino was the latest version of a car/truck and it was much better for him than his old larger truck. Mainly because he was shorter than most and had to move the big truck seat far forward. So, if we (kids) were all in the bench seat, it was cramped due to it being so close to the dash.
At the time, his old truck was a basic work truck. Bare bones, utilitarian, and with no fancy hubcaps or wheels, a real plain jane vehicle. Even the inside seats were just plain and matched the no rug, no floor mat surface of the floorboard area.

What about his new 1964 El Camino? The seats were better than the old truck’s seats, but still plain. The rubberized floorboard, at least had a rubber mat, but we went with the owner to Pep Boys to get a simple black mat.

The 64 El Camino had no chrome trim around the wheel openings or just about anywhere else. A 6- cylinder 3 speed stick was the standard, as were the new “air shocks.” No clock, no carpeting, patterned vinyl seating, no trim around wheel openings, no chrome moulding around door/window, to name the most common items seen. But, it was a new car and impressive, but rather plain.
1964 base similar in bare bones look to our neighbor’s El Camino.

But the newest item of rear air shocks was standard in all models. The one thing I did notice was that the factory did its minimal spraying something underneath the El Camino. Regardless of what was sprayed in a minimal fashion, the whole undercarriage was rusty within the first week of usage. Our neighbor did not care as it was standard rust in all of his other cars, too.


Jnaki

So, a year later, I was ready for a new car before going off to college in Northern California. But, as our family history has played out buying and selling old hot rods and sedans, I had to sell my Flathead powered 1940 Ford Sedan Delivery and the 1958 Impala, so, I could actually order my first factory/dealer purchase. I was able to sit down with a salesman to get exactly what I wanted… to a certain point.

I wanted a deluxe model with all of the chrome trim everywhere. bucket seats, center console, carpeting, am/fm radio, and all heavy duty stuff: battery, springs, shocks, suspension, radiator and definitely Positraction. I wanted a 396 c.i. motor as it was available in the Chevelle Malibu Sedan. I also wanted a 4 speed transmission, too. (also available in the Malibu sedan)

But, due to factory idiocy, the 396 was not an 1965 El Camino option, nor was the 4 speed stick and SS package or just bucket seat options. (my desert motorcycling friend ordered a 1966 El Camino, a year later, and he was able to get a 396 + 4 speed)

The engine was a 327 4 barrel with an automatic transmission, but it did have Positraction in the rear axle gearing. It had power, but it was not a drag racer like the black, 1958 Impala.

At least, my 1965 El Camino was a step up from the basic, no trim, business “fleet” vehicle.

My El Camino then proceeded to put on 125,000 miles of no nonsense pleasure driving, 1 water pump repair at 120k and no other repairs were necessary. It was the most reliable car ever owned. It started up with one click and ran like a top for what seemed like forever. 1965 to 1976.

Highway speeds, rough desert terrain, beach cruising, salt water infused roads near the shoreline, and even sandy beach roads in Baja, Mexico. A full professional spray-on undercoating, made it less noisy and well protected for all of our driving miles and needs. No rust anywhere, even underneath the El Camino, thanks to the thick undercoating spray protection.

photo by Vnak

 

Bought my OT daily driver new in 2011. It was a "base" model as they said then. Only base model on the lot. Lowest priced, smallest car in their livery. So many delete plugs on the dash. Zero bells and whistles. Didn't even have a map light above the rearview, just an indent in the headliner, Lol. Got a map light out of a junkyard from an optioned car a year or so later. Car is a real "Piece of Fit". Currently 208K miles. Gets 40 mpg on highway if I don't have my foot in the floor. Car owes me nothing and it's economy and low price have allowed me to play with my toy cars. At $16K new it's been a win-win and reminds me of the low optioned cars of my youth every time I get in it.
Andy

 

I had forgotten that I owned a fleet pickup at one time. Had a Uncle that worked for the phone company, when they came up for sale he helped me get one of the better ones. Even at that, it wasn't much. Base S10, 2.8 V6 4 speed. No air, no power anything, no radio, but did come with a lighter socket. Vinyl seat and rubber floor mat, manual windows. Best thing was the aluminum bed cover, like a camper shell but much heavier built. Sliding doors on one side, lift up door on the other, with a man door in the rear, no tailgate. Bonus was the shelving and bin cabinets inside, still have those out in the shop. They loaded the mess out of those little trucks, so much my Uncle was always complaining about the brakes. After they got their stuff out and I took out the cabinets, it rose up 2" at the rear tires! It was a POS though. All that weight had worn out that little 2.8 dragging it around for 50,000 miles. They went back to full sized vans after that experiment in gas savers.

 

In theory you could buy some fleet vehicles now, they just have deluxe features due to them being mandatory.

 

There was a big company in town that had a fleet of white salesman’s cars they would replace every 3 years. If you knew who to talk to you could pickup one of the 3 year old cars for a song.
They were special ordered with only the most basic radio and a heater.

a friend was the mechanic for the fire hall in the late 90’s. They special ordered a ford sedan for the chief to drive. The city bean counters demanded it not have air conditioning. When the car needed an alternator they couldn’t get one because it was some special design to make the belt work without ac. They spent some absurd money getting it rebuilt.

 

I’ve owned quite a few stripped pickups that I bought new. My wife absolutely hates it when I buy one of these. It’s one very effective way to keep her from driving my truck!

 

A friend used to be the equipment buyer for a large supermarket chain here in SoCal. At the time the company always ordered Ford Taurus' for the corporate types. Not stripo's but nothing over the top either. One year they needed to source several new ones to replace ones that were wrecked. The only Taurus' he could find locally had trunk mounted 6 disc CD changers in them. The first thing he did was to have the mechanic shop remove them so no one would be complaining that someone had a CD player in their car and they didn't. As it just so happened I had a similar year Mercury Sable that I inherited from my mom that didn't have a CD player. I listened to many a tune on that CD player. Thanks. Ron.

 

I remember an article in an old modeling magazine, where a guy who grew up in an Amish community built the car his father had when he was a teen.
The article said that some Amish people preferred cars over horse carts, but the cars had to be as plain and utilitarian as possible, in black of course, with everything deleted that was deemed unnecessary.
The car in the article was a 1958 Chevy Delray with black interior, black paint and blackwall tires, 6 Cylinder, no extras and as little chrome as possible. It was a hardtop because hardtops had no flashy chrome trim around the side windows.

 

Not sure if the ‘57 Chevy PU was considered a fleet or not, but my Dad bought it new. 235, 4 sp, no radio, heater, lighter or rear bumper. I don’t know it it had floor
Mats or not. He built a barten style bumper for it, went back over time and had the dealer put a heater and radio in it. No mirror on the passenger door when bought.
Only “accessory” was electric wipers, don’t know it he had to pay extra for those over vacuum ones or not.