1984 GMC K10 Custom pickup

This truck, Lot 207, sold for $55,000, including buyer’s premium, at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction in Scottsdale, AZ, held January 13–21, 2018. It was sold at no reserve.

If you’ve always wanted a TV or movie vehicle, the best way to get one is to buy a tribute build. A replica is better because the vehicles actually used to film the show are generally beat up and not nearly nice enough to drive around and enjoy. Film crews typically use several different vehicles for interior and exterior shots, and a whole separate set of safety-prepped vehicles for stunts.

A case in point is this tribute to the trucks used in “The Fall Guy” TV series.

Unless you’re one of the half-dozen hardcore fans who remember the show clearly, “The Fall Guy” was about a Hollywood stuntman who also worked as a bounty hunter on the side. Lee Majors was the star, and even sang the show’s tedious theme song. “The Fall Guy” ran for five seasons in the first half of the 1980s before it was relegated to cable reruns.

The thing about the “The Fall Guy” is that the main character’s GMC K10 4×4 was arguably the best part of the show. Every episode featured that truck jumping over things, driving through explosions, going off cliffs, and just generally taking the kind of abuse that GMC wanted you to believe their trucks could withstand. According to Hollywood lore, the studio destroyed several trucks doing the stunts, and eventually built a special mid-engine truck to do the jump scenes.

The Rounded Line era

If you’re a “Fall Guy” fan, this tribute is the truck you want. This rig never saw the inside of a 20th Century Fox studio, but there’s a lot to admire. For one thing, the Rounded Line GM trucks of the 1970s and ’80s are just now becoming collectible. The Rounded Line era started for both Chevy and GMC in 1973 and ran until 1987. Paradoxically, this generation of GM trucks is also known as the Square Body or Box Body era.

Collectors have ignored this generation of GM trucks up until now, mostly because these rigs weren’t old enough to be interesting. Now it’s time to take another look. Buyers in this era had a choice of all the common GM V8 engines, or the venerable GM straight six. You could even get the late, unlamented 6.2-L diesel V8.

Rounded Line trucks were built with the usual GM manual- or automatic-transmission options. This was also the first era in which GM offered full-time 4WD with a center differential, and then shift-on-the-fly 4WD with automatic locking hubs. Technology was moving fast in the 1980s.

The “Fall Guy” tribute truck

Although the studio used various different 1980 and 1981 GMC trucks on the show, this tribute is based on a 1984 Chevrolet. The truck comes with a trusty 350 V8, which should be good for up to 210 horsepower and 300 ft-lb of torque. The TH400 automatic transmission is plenty tough enough to handle the available power.

This truck comes with a New Process 208 shift-on-the-fly transfer case. This system can be shifted into high-range 4WD at speeds up to 25 mph. Once shifted, you can drive at any speed.

As a tribute, the truck is a faithful reproduction of the trucks used in the show, but it has been completely restored and it’s pretty nearly perfect. That’s what you really want if you’re a “Fall Guy” fan, right? You want a truck that looks and drives just the way you dreamed the truck on the show would. Not coincidentally, that’s also what you want if you’ve never heard of the TV show. You want a really solid example of a mid-’80s GMC 4×4 with a few choice aftermarket upgrades. That’s what this is.

They paid how much?

All this brings me to the price, and there’s no denying that $55,000 is an eye-popping figure for a mid-’80s pickup truck.

Most GMC trucks from this generation are still selling under $10,000, and the next-highest price for a comparable truck is $39,600 (ACC# 6835250). This truck’s buyer might be a real fan of the TV show, or it’s possible that the money was there because this truck is indicative of where the market is going.

Previous generations of GM trucks are seriously valuable at this point, so it stands to reason that the Rounded Line years are next. Further, most trucks are subjected to hard outdoor lives so that very few reach 34 years of age without serious wear and tear. You won’t find a carefully restored example like this very often, and if the amount paid is more than the truck is really worth today, that could change tomorrow.

One final thought on collecting mid-’80s trucks: Factory originality and provenance is a desirable attribute in real classics, but these trucks were made for modification. The presence of well-implemented and period-correct aftermarket mods on a truck like this is no bad thing. If you lived through the ’80s, this truck looks like what you would have bought if you had enough money back then, complete with the roll bar and off-road lights. That alone can make it worth the price paid.

(Introductory description courtesy of Barrett-Jackson.)