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This being Colorado, I see many old Jeeps in my local self-service wrecking yards. Just about all of them are Cherokees and Wagoneers, so this four-wheel-drive pickup caught my attention earlier this week.
There must be somebody looking for a rugged AMC 360 V8 for a project car or truck. Right?
And a factory 4-on-the-floor manual transmission!
The J10 name wasn’t as cool as the Gladiator name that went on big Jeep pickups until 1970, but it was less import-sounding than the J2000 name used in the early 1970s.
Here’s a fine example of industrial-grade vehicle upholstery. Sweaty, sticky vinyl.
Here’s a dealer training film for the ’73 version of this truck. Note the driver smoking a pipe while off-roading with a load of hay.
47 Comments on “Junkyard Find: 1975 Jeep J10 Pickup...”
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The pipe is awesome.
Indeed!
I’m pretty shocked to see this thing in the yard.
Does CO not have a ’75-and-earlier emissions exemption? That and rust are the biggest killers of fullsize Jeeps, and this one does’t look too rusty.
Almost any other major component is readily sourced from (you guessed it) junkyards for cheap. A blown HG or transmission rarely puts them in the yard if the metal’s good.
The Denver urban area has some sort of 75-and-older smog exemption, though the emissions tests they do have aren’t very strict. The rest of Colorado, from what I can tell, doesn’t have much in the way of emissions laws.
that color original?
Yes. Renegade yellow.
nice
On my monitor it looks kind of pollen yellow-green.
On my monitor, it’s a greenish yellow, or what the generic color name would be is Chartreuse.
I love it BTW.
I’ve always loved these trucks. I’m shocked to see one this nice looking in a junkyard. I know in the northeast these things would rust aggressively so seeing one in this condition is jaw dropping to me.
This looks very restorable. If i was within driving disctance I’d take a closer look.
Don’t you need a pickup to haul parts for your A100 van project Murilee? I’d hate to see this beauty get crushed.
If I get a pickup it’s gonna be an IHC product.
You keep promising/threatening to get an IH, so hurry up and actually do it!
Corn binder.
I have one! It’s terrible in an endearing sort of way.
What’s it doing in the yard. I can’t see where that would be too difficult to put back on the road. And a REAL pickup truck. Not one of those modern “don’t you dare get it dirty” glamour babes.
Uh, oh! Under normal circumstances I doubt very much this would have ended up in the bone-yard. Folks, the economy is much worse than we are being told.
I don’t think seeing a 40-year old Jeep in a junkyard is a reliable indicator of a bad economy.
In a bad economy, people tend to hang on to serviceable cars. “I don’t want to (or don’t have the funds to) buy anything new.”
In a good economy, I’d expect to see serviceable but marginal cars scrapped. “Why bother fixing this old thing when I can go buy something else?”
Maybe he meant fuel economy. Those 360s are thirsty, less than 10 mpg if you have a plow on the front and 600 lbs of ballast in the bed. You can blow half a tank clearing a medium sized parking lot.
Back in 91 I remember seeing the last of the Grand Wagoneer’s on a dealers lot. W/the AMC 360 the sticker said 11 MPG City 15 HWY.
When something this nice ends up on the scrap heap, there’s usually one of four scenarios:
Owner passes away and their family wants it gone.
It suffers a major mechanical failure that costs more to fix than vehicle is worth.
It’s impounded for parking, registration, or moving violations and the owner can’t afford to rectify the problem.
Nagging wife wants it off the property and out of their lives.
-Donated to charity, unloaded at scrapyard for quick cash.
-Owner not resourceful enough to look for parts outside of normal channels.
-Stolen, taken to scrapyard for quick cash.
-Title lost, etc, general lazyness.
-Biohazard.
-Frame damage.
This list is lengthy and would make a good article on it’s own.
Biohazard?
Nice.
This truck is in the junkyard for one simple reason: anyone who seriously wants one can find a better example than this without looking very hard. The demand for this type of vehicle dried up before the available supply got down to this one.
Awww, no edit button? Oh well.
Demand is low, supply is high.
Not in top shape, let it die.
I’m surprised at how non-1975 the emission controls appear; it’s a fairly clean engine, compared to the hose/wire/valve messes found in other vehicles of that vintage.
That’s because it’s a truck; emissions standards were a lot different for cars. It’s why even into the 80s truck engines were vastly less complex in terms of vacuum routing…
Hey; I just noticed the front drum brakes. I didn’t think any vehicle had them so late. I thought everything had front disks starting around 1973/4 or so.
Does anyone know when the last front drum brake vehicle (consumer-grade, anyway) was made?
The NHTSA required mandatory front disc brakes on vehicles commencing with the 1977 model year.
I think the 1976 Plymouth Valiant/Dodge Dart in base form were the last. Maybe some other AMC products from ’76.
Great truck and great color. Shame to see it in the scrap heap.
I lust for this but am staying away from it. Already have an old truck but not this old. Three more years of troublesome smog inspections. Not much rust in Texas so this would probably last about a hundred years.
I suspect you could unload this for good $ if you took it where the tin worm infestations are bad.
The Jeep J-20 is very difficult to find as they came with D-60 axles in the rear and a D-44 up front.
Back in the day I wanted a Honcho 4×4, still think its one of the best looking trucks ever made.
Remember the 10-4?
I adore that truck – you couldn’t keep me out of it. Well, until the tank ran out.
;-)
My parents were both from Kenosha. As a kid visiting Grandpa (he built AMCs for 30 years) I always thought it was cool that all of the police drove Cherokees. Back then a SUV was a unusual sighting.
Steep downhill grades, fully loaded with a trailer, must’ve been terrifying in that thing.
When I plucked my ’71 GMC Sprint out of a junkyard two years ago, I was relieved when I saw rotors peeking through the wheels.
“Steep downhill grades, fully loaded with a trailer, must’ve been terrifying in that thing.”
Naw. You just put it in a lower gear at the top of the grade and let it walk down.
Traffic behind you be da__ed.
Sad to see this thing there. And instead of a 360, this thing needs a healthy 6BT or 4BT in that engine compartment.
It’s neat how the cab has push-button door handles, but the tailgate has the sideways pull handle from an AMC car.
I’ll bet they all still work.
The used those side pulls on everything from the 60’s till the last AMC Eagle in 1988.
“Honey, if that junky truck is not taken to scrap tis weekend, then I will!”
Or, “this was one of our late father’s projects that he just never had time to…”
So many ‘When I get aroundtoit’ project vehicles are worth more parted out. Put your $ where mouth isif you want to see old cars ‘back on the road’. Go by a ‘when I…’ car and fix it.
A very nice find there MM.
Love this color as I have a thing for this greenish yellow, generically called Chartreuse.
Looking at the photos you took, either there is something behind the seat back in this one pushing the seatback forward a bit, it looks mighty uncomfortable due to the overly upright seatback.
Looks to be a reasonably decent shape for the most part, even the interior looks to be intact and I love the old Audiovox cassette deck that has FF/Eject only, and no station presets on a sliding dial tuner. How quaint…
I daily drive an ’89 Grand Wagoneer that I would love to see in the condition that this much older J10 looks like it is still in. That said, I would love to get my mitts on that hood and (still salvageable) grille…