CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot: the 1971-72 GMC Sprint SP

Welcome back to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and to think outside the box while doing so. It has been several weeks since the last Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot feature, and now that LeMons is done, I now have time to re-introduce you to some obscure Muscle you may have never thought of. This time I’ve uncovered a car based pickup, that could be ordered with a Special Performance package, that you could get with a 350, 396, or a 454 Cu In V8. No, it’s not the Chevrolet El Camino SS, but it’s corporate cousin, the GMC Sprint SP.

Continue reading after the jump!

Chevrolet and GMC have long offered light duty pickups and vans with slightly different styling. However, after 1967, the GMC Truck Plant began building Chevrolet versions of the Medium and Heavy Duty models, so virtually all the trucks could be sold through two different dealer networks. The Chevrolet El Camino was an exception to this product sharing. But, when it came time to think about selling over one million trucks per year, the GM Managers wanted GMC to have a version of the El Camino for their very own. Such a vehicle would be an incremental sales booster for GMC dealers. By offering an attractive, personal pickup truck to coax those fleet owner-operators, and managers that made up so much of GMC’s business to buy made a lot of sense to the product planners.

By the fall of 1970, the new for 1971 GMC Sprint was introduced. Except for the nameplate, and some minor trim alterations, the GMC Sprint was virtually identical to the Chevy El Camino, and offered nearly the same options. This included their own SS Version, the Sprint SP. This package could be ordered with a 350 or 396 Cu In Displacement V8, or you could step up to the SP 454, with the LS5 version of the Chevy 454 V8, with 365HP and 465 Lb Ft of torque. The 454 came with the mandatory Turbohydramatic automatic, while you could still get the 4 Speed Stick with the 350 HP 396.

For the 1972 model year, there were very minor changes, but the 1972 engine offerings were drastically different. You see, the horsepower ratings were changed to the more-realistic SAE net power ratings, as well as a further reduction in power because of the new emission controls coming on-line. To illustrate this point, the 350 Cu In V8, with a 4 bbl Carburetor produced 175 HP, while the 396 produced 240 HP. The LS5 454 was strangled with only 170 HP. This was the same with the Chevrolet Versions, and one has to wonder why order the 454 in the first place?

These are rather rare trucks, as only 249 GMC Sprint SP’s were produced for the 1971 model year, and of that, only about 25 were the SP 454 versions. A very limited number got the optional cowl-induction hood. For the 1972 model year, SP production actually rose, to a whopping 749. Though the 1971 Sprints were priced within a few dollars of it’s cousin, 1972 they were priced exactly the same.

CarDomain Members Rides

Well what do you know, there are exactly two CarDomain Members who own a 71 or 72 GMC Sprint. Let’s take a look at Davis’ 1971 Sprint, From Little Rock, Arkansas. It looks like Davis and his dad are performing a major restoration. It may not be the rare SP, but it will look great when they are done.

Now, let’s take a look at Adams Sprint, from North Richland Hills, Texas. This is another Father and Son project, only this time it’s more of a resto-mod. Looks great guys.

So there you have it, a return to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot with a really obscure car based truck. What do you say, is this a Muscle Car, and does it belong on the parking lot, or is it just a pretender, a re-dressed El Camino that’s not all that obscure in the first place? Write, and tell me how much you missed this feature!

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