This 1970 Chevrolet K5 Blazer is said to have been bought new by Steve McQueen’s company Solar Productions for use as an off-road support vehicle for his Baja race team.
It was fitted with Positraction front and rear differentials and a four-headlight Jimmy grille for better nighttime illumination in the desert. After the race this Blazer was sold with the three other support vehicles, and its fascinating early life was almost lost to history.
Fast Facts – An Ex-McQueen Chevrolet K5 Blazer
- This is a 1970 Chevrolet K5 Blazer that was purchased by Solar Productions in 1969, Steve McQueen’s company that he often used to buy his vehicles. This Blazer and four other vehicles were bought by McQueen as towing and support trucks for his Baja race team.
- The Blazer you see in this article was ordered in a highly-specified condition, it has the CST package – this stands for “Custom Sport Truck” and it was the highest trim level available for the K5 Blazer at the time. It also has air conditioning fitted.
- In order to make it better suited to the deep sand and desert conditions of the Baja peninsula, McQueen’s race team fitted this Blazer with Positraction front and rear differentials. Positraction is a long-running General Motors brand name for a limited-slip differential (LSD). The vehicle was also given the quad-headlight grille from the Jimmy, giving it twice as much lighting power for those dark desert nights.
- In 1971 this Blazer was offered for sale in Penny Saver, it was bought by a man named Bob Bianchi who had no idea about its Steve McQueen heritage until later. He used it for family road trips and weekends away, keeping it in family ownership for 51 years until 2022.
- The vehicle is now due to roll across the auction block with Mecum in mid-May. It’s in excellent and largely original condition throughout, including the modifications applied by McQueen’s race team all those years ago.
Bob Bianchi And The McQueen Blazer
In 1971 a classified ad was run in Penny Saver offering a 1970 Chevy Blazer to the first person to show up on Friday with $1,800 cash in hand. There was no mention of Baja race teams or movie stars called Steve McQueen, perhaps there didn’t need to be as the truck was being offered at a great price considering its condition and low miles.
Unusually, Steve McQueen’s race team is said to have fitted a Jimmy grille to the Blazer so they would have four headlights rather than just two – better for illuminating the dark desert nights in Baja.
The first man to turn up on that Friday morning with the readies was Bob Bianchi, he bought the truck and it would remain in his family’s ownership for the following 51 years until 2022. The Blazer featured a number of unusual modifications, including a four-headlight Jimmy grille and Positraction diffs front and back.
As a result, Bianchi began to research its history to see what he could find – was it a factory prototype testing out new features and a new grille? Or just a regular truck with a former owner who liked to tinker?
The history he would uncover was far more interesting than anything he could have guessed – this Blazer was bought by Steve McQueen through his company Solar Productions as a tow and support vehicle for his Baja race team.
In total, McQueen would buy five vehicles that would be used for support duties on the Baja, two other Blazers and two 4×4 Chevy pickup trucks. It’s not known if they all received the same modifications, and the location (or continued existence) of the other vehicles is currently unknown.
What Bianchi uncovered was the dealer invoice from December 1969 showing McQueen’s Solar Productions as the original purchaser. Around this time Steve McQueen became the highest paid movie star in the world (1974) and he had only recently acted in some of this most memorable roles.
The interior of the vehicle remains in largely original condition, right down to the original air conditioning and green trim that was chosen to match the exterior.
These roles included Bullitt in 1968, The Thomas Crown Affair with Faye Dunaway in the same year, Le Mans in 1970, The Getaway in 1972, and Papillon in 1973 with Dustin Hoffman.
This uncovered movie star heritage had a major impact on the value of the Blazer of course, but Bianchi opted not to sell it. He kept it and used it fairly often, including on one 13,000 mile family road trip in 1972. The vehicle remained in the Bianchi family until 2022, a total of 51 years, before being sold on.
McQueen Blazer: Vehicle Specifications
When McQueen had ordered this vehicle new it came off the St. Louis line with the 350 cubic inch V8 mated to a TH350 three-speed automatic transmission and the CST package. CST stands for “Custom Sport Truck” and it was the highest trim level available for the K5 Blazer at the time.
The vehicle came with factory air conditioning, which would have come in rather useful while in Baja, and the engine was fitted with a set of Edelbrock valve covers.
Power is provided by the venerable 350 cubic inch Chevrolet small block V8. This engine sends power back through a TH350 three-speed automatic transmission and a dual speed transfer case to all four wheels. McQueen’s team also fitted Positraction (limited-slip differentials) front and back to better aid in traversing deep desert sand.
It was finished in “Rich Green,” and it came with front bucket seats, a center console, a column shifter with transfer case floor-shift, and a carpeted rear area with a spare tire. It’s worth noting that the vehicle is fitted with a roll bar, though it’s not noted if this was put in during McQueen’s ownership or later.
Now presented in remarkably good condition throughout the truck is due to roll across the auction block with Mecum on the 17th of May. You can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid, at the time of writing there is no price estimate.
Images courtesy of Mecum
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
