Chevy Truck Heaven Discovered in LA’s San Fernando Valley
I recently embarked on my first official car-spotting video shoot in Los Angeles, choosing the San Fernando Valley as my initial location. What I discovered was a delightful mix of vintage, rust-free vehicles, along with one clear standout: old Chevy trucks. They are everywhere!
My vehicle of choice for this car-spotting expedition was my trusty 1989 Chevy K1500. I released the parking brake, fired up the 350 V8, and slipped the five-speed into gear, setting off down Roscoe Boulevard before turning north into the various neighborhoods of Van Nuys. The area presents a concrete suburban landscape, filled with single-family homes, multi-family dwellings, apartments, condos, and strip malls. Moreover, the San Fernando Valley has a substantial automotive presence.
There’s also a humongous automotive presence in the San Fernando Valley. A not-insignificant fraction of that presence owes its existence to Galpin, with body shops, tint shops, tire shops, detailing shops, and all sorts of supporting architecture surrounding the dealership. But the San Fernando’s industrial presence stretches well past Galpin Square. There are tons of trades-businesses — locksmiths, steel suppliers, pool suppliers, home gate suppliers, and on and on. The valley is where things get made, and it’s one of the hardest working parts of LA, which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised to find what I did when Griffin and I set off on this car-spotting trip.
It was Chevy trucks galore. Square-bodies, Blazers, S10s, GMT400s — Tahoes, Suburbans, K1500s, C1500s. You name the Chevy truck, it’s there in the San Fernando Valley either being used for hard labor or just an enthusiast’s truck. That’s not to say there aren’t Ford and Dodge trucks — there are. But in terms of old vehicles, a strangely disproportionate number of them appear to be old Chevrolet pickups and SUVs.
During my one-hour car-spotting adventure, I encountered a variety of these trucks. The prevalence of these classic Chevy trucks was striking, whether they were being used for practical work or cherished as a hobbyist’s pride and joy.
This experience gave me a unique perspective on something new since moving to Los Angeles, in contrast to my experiences in Michigan. Seeing an old car, like the VW Westfalia pictured, doesn’t automatically signal a collector’s vehicle; it could very well be someone’s daily driver. While I still initially see these cars and think, “a car nut must own that,” that’s not necessarily the case in California.
