Blazer Chalet & Jimmy Casa Grande – who, what, how much, how many, and where

[a77blazerchalet]

I joined this forum May of 2006 specifically to contact “azblazer”, then put lots of stuff in these other forums instead (do a search in each for “blazer chalet”) .expeditionportal .gmtrucks.org .67-72chevytrucks.com Sue me for neglecting y’all, have your lawyer talk to my lawyer…. Or at least accept my apologies, I’ll make up for it.

My obsession with these is .dremu 's fault mostly, the .blazerchalet.com. web site, and also our good friend .azblazer. who I visited in person and saw his Chalet and other giant pile of Blazers. Everybody probably agrees he would be a perfectly nice fellow if he wasn’t crazy – he probably says the same thing about me. And I blame my irrational “right brain/left brain” self. The right brain businessman organizer record keeper nutcase side of me says “Gosh these things are rare, I need to keep meticulous records of every one still in existence”, while my artistic left brain side says “the 2nd set of Chevy tail lights on the camper is just so quirky, I love those ‘70s stripes and the curves of the Blazer, and isn’t it neat the way the front of the camper matches the angle of the windshield, notice the angle of the side windows…..” Check out my crazy pencil drawing in my photo album for further evidence of that.

A GMC Jimmy Casa Grande is nothing more than a Chevy Blazer Chalet, except for badges & grille to make a Jimmy. Otherwise the camper sections are identical except for the stripes & back door logo, period. And one other thing – if the 1,780 total production figure for all of these (cited in a specific 1979 mag article, I’ll find out how that guy knew that figure) is correct, only 225 Casa Grandes were made in ’76-’77. An official GM source provided me with production numbers for the Chevy versions, 688 in 1976 and 867 in 1977. And keep in mind, when we say “Chalet” or “Casa Grande”, we mean the whole unit, truck and all. The camper was an option package listed on the .RPO glovebox tag.. But these came to the dealerships as complete units, not add-ons. Think of it the same way as an old ‘Vette with the rarest engine option. In the world of “numbers-matching Barrett-Jackson Auction classic car collector nuts”, separate the engine from the car and you’ve wrecked its collector value. The ‘Vette engine is not especially valuable by itself, neither is the camper as a “shell-only”.

Rare complete unit = valuable? There’s no good answer for such things. A comparison is the out-of-control Phoenix home prices. I wanted a particular one for $144,000 in 2005, prices boomed, it sold for $256,000 in 2007. I’d be happy to buy it right now for $190,000 and it's the same dang house, nothing changed! Is a Chalet worth $17,000 as shown in my post .here.? If someone shells out the cold hard cash, I’m afraid it is. ***3/19/09 Edit: Although it had a sale price of .$24,900 for 9 months., it ended up selling for a no-reserve price of $9,350 at the .Jan '09 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale.(scroll down to Lot #37, click the "Details" box).***

How many still out there? The killer spreadsheet I just put together tells me I can document just over 170* (*3/19/09 Edit), complete units and shells-only. I have serial numbers (see photo below of mine) for 104* of them, and I can put distinct descriptions to the other ones where I need their numbers. There are more to be found, I’ve already PM’d and emailed about a dozen of you guys to track ones you saw a while back. The rest of you characters could help out in a big way by relaying back photos, descriptions, owner contacts, publicly available addresses, or general locations of ones you spot. What reward do you receive for doing that? Why, a heartfelt thankful acknowledgment from me and a soul-satisfying feeling of contributing to something that is otherwise deeply unimportant to the overall scheme of Life, the Universe and Everything. Unless I win the lottery or acquire other extra cash, at which point I could pay reward money, but not until then.

Enthusiasts are welcome to join our Yahoo Chalet owners’ forum, click the link in my sig below. Yeah, it’s Yahoo, meaning you have to be a member to see all the photos and read the messages, trust me, it’s worth the bother. We have a plot going to fix that problem, more on that later.

Finally, I’ve started another “Blazer Chalet / GMC Jimmy Casa Grande spotted” thread .here. where I’ll ask for lookouts for the ones I can’t find, and y’all can throw in ones you spot.