This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

66 and other years I should say :chevy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCM9WS493IM

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

I wont be the one to break it to you.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

You should see this then.
http://autoweek.com/article/car-life...-sales-weekend

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Cool,

Yeah, I remember hearing about this before the auction but never followed up on it. I just stumbled across it on yout0ob again today.

That's crazy money for some old rust buckets!! :metal:

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Rust buckets? I would have gladly traded the sheet metal on any one of those trucks for what was on mine when I acquired it. I could have shown you a genuine rust bucket!!

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Forum member Dinos63 ended up with one of the trucks and recently got it all cleaned up. Looks great.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

^^ This truck actually looks to be the very first truck in the video ^^

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Those trucks were interesting for sure. Wonder why the bed wood wasn't in them? Think the motors were seized?
Also it was nice to see the original color of the 230 engines. Darker blue than I thought.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

An historically strange situation. Never gonna see anything on that scale again. Financially it made no sense, and still doesn't. What it did was create something to talk about, then, now, and forever.
I'm sure the bedwood just rotted away and fell out. The steel skid strips are still there, bolted in.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

The engines were not all seized. I bought a 1964 from there, 3 miles on it. Put a bore scope in the cylinders of the 230 and everything looks perfect. This particular truck though was stuck. Soaked it for over a year with mystery oil and ran just the oil pump to lubricate bearings best I could. Still locked so I decided to toss a battery in it. Boom , unlocked. Thats as far as I went , did not try to start it. Many of these vehicles, the new owners had them running by the end of the auction like the 1964 Station Wagon.My truck is Now resting in a sea container till I get more time. All but one truck had no bed wood , that truck was parked in a shed till the auction. I was able to turn many of the engines by hand the day before the auction. Lots of bad info out there on these trucks. To me and me only I guess, its history I wanted to be a part of since I love these trucks more than most. The things or details Ive leaned mean something to me because I like trucks the way they came from the factory. Several of these trucks have been restored , horribly I might add , they just used their own interpretation of original like so many do.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

This poor truck , 3 miles, was from what I here , pretty badly damaged by the shipping company the new owner used to transport for him.
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/375.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/374.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/370.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/372.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/371.jpg

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Few photos of the property they were stored on before the auction
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...ION/876-01.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...N/876-02_c.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...ION/876-03.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...ION/876-04.jpg

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Very nice, glad to hear a few here got one of these vehicles. :metal:
A seized motor wouldn't be a huge deal, just yank it, drive out the pistons, hone out the cylinders or bore it, re-ring it, replace all the gaskets.... and off you go. Brand new motor.

I call that the perfect patina! Those c10’s look amazing.. heck, all of those vehicles do.. but I love the c10’s.
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Why did they just leave the place?
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Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

He really didnt just leave the place. You have to understand Lambrechts idea of , " I will only sell you a new vehicle" . The mechanic for Lambrecht lived on this property while many of these vehicles were being driven out to this property. He later died but Lambrecht would never sell anything , he was still alive during this auction but did not attend . Lambrecht's thinking was that if the new cars were now out , say 1965 , all those new 1964 left overs were no longer new or for sale so he put them out to pasture along with all the used trade ins , very few were stored inside another building across the street. If you saw his house also you'd understand he was a simple man , very frugal yet he had a gold mine in vehicles. I have friends who met with him , drove hours to try and buy parts and vehicles AFTER his dealership was closed only to turn around and go home empty. His daughter was responsible for this sale.

That’s very interesting. Cool story behind all of it too.
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Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Sounds like the guy was in the wrong business....he should have sold produce.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

I am the owner of that black truck beside the white one, my dad has the 63. We haven't done much to the white one other than getting the tires to hold air. The black one is in the middle of restoring it but not changing the paint at all. Its neat to see them back at the auction, and they white one did receive a lot of damage from the shipping company and they refused to do anything about it.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

This was discussed on other threads of course, but, if you think about it, there is no way in hell you can stay in business eating invoices on new vehicles. GM didn't give these trucks away free. 2000+ bucks apiece was a lot of money in the mid 60's. And why is the inventory heavy in certain years and next to nill in other years? I don't buy they were hard sells, every other dealer in America had no problem selling out everything on their lot. Was the dealership lot in a flood plain? Insurance right offs bought back for peanuts? The question is : How can he afford to do this? Being in a rural region, sparsely populated, they couldn't of sold tons of volume to absorb these losses. Just sayin.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Yorkauto - First, welcome to the forum, and thanks for taking the time to register and become a member. Next, please know that whenever and whatever you decide to share about you and your dad's trucks will be of special interest to many of us here.
One could go on for hours on why Mr. Lambrecht did what he did, but in the end, what we are left with are his vehicles. Glad to hear the restoration on one is saving the original paint. Can't say they'd be quite as interesting all done up and shiny. Just my two cents.

That white one is my favorite! The patina paint looks perfect. How are the motors in them? Have y’all gotten them running yet?
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Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

The story goes , Lambrecht was the guy to go to , he sold MORE new Chevrolets than anyone else. Good sources said he was the biggest volume seller in that area and also supplied other dealers, GM also sent him or offered him their leftovers. There were so many stories from the locals , this guy NEVER spent his money. The meager house he lived in was said to not even have drywall in parts of it till 4-5 years before the auction. The Grocery store in town said his money smelled like mold because it was stored in the basement . The guy was cheap , stubborn and new how to make money but the depression mentality told him to keep everything and save every penny. The building across the street from the dealership where several of these vehicles were stored in , a wall collapsed into the main road leading into the town , reason for the dented roof on the Cameo. Lambrecht put barricades around the debris and it stayed that way for years, have pictures of that somewhere . Many many stories were told from the locals about what he got away with in small town Nebraska. Wade Waterbury is probably the best source,the son of Lambrechts Mechanic , he remembers growing up on the farm where all of these were stored. He gave me a lot of info after the auction. One of my trucks is still in his Dads name with 3 miles.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

I got the black one running when I got it home from shipping little gas down the carb and a new set of plug wires and a battery and it fired right up. It was taken apart shortly after that and is in the process of being restored with an ls swap lowered etc, the usual patina look build. The white one was missing the carb and radiator as were most of them, we have gotten it to run briefly but haven't put a lot of work into it yet. We honestly aren't to sure what to do with it, either leave it alone and get it running and driving or restore it to 100% the way it would have come off the showroom floor in 63, but they are only original once.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Seriously? Is the black truck also one of the no mile, never titled trucks?

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

lambrecht must have been selling a large volume of vehicles, then you could have afforded to let a few new vehicles go out to pasture,

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

How many vehicles did they sell a year? Was that info ever given? I would like to see the numbers and do the math. A base model brand new '64 was about $2,000. In todays dollars, that's approx. $16,000. Now multiply by the number of unsold pickups and cars etc. Wow, that's a lot of dough for such a frugal man that offered such great deals to loose. As the great Tom Petty once said " You can believe what you want to believe" I still believe my earlier post.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

No it was a trade in that was parked in the field, as far as I can tell it was traded in in 1968 with 28000 miles on it, I do not feel to bad about take this one apart and changing it. It did need quite a bit of floor and rocker work where it had sat in the dirt and moisture got to it, but it wasn't to bad. The frame and suspension components just had surface rust on them you could still read the factory stamped part numbers on them.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

So how DID he stay in business by collecting 400 plus trade ins and all those new cars (referring to your first post comment ) ??? If what I was "told" is incorrect . I agree , lots of "stories" but he had to be making money somehow.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Heres the only other pictures I have of your black truck and your 63. Somewhere I have all the original pictures the auction company had taken.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/271.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/270.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/269.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/268.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/267.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/200.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/199.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/198.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/197.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/196.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/195.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/194.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/193.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/192.jpg

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Heres some pictures of Lambrechts house right across the street from the dealership and some of the inside of the building from auction week. Another story about how Lambrecht was , this dealership was not insulated or insulated very poorly , there were stories floating around about how cold it was for the mechanic working on the cars/trucks inside here.
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/065.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/066.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/067.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/052.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/051.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/076.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/078.jpg
http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/j...UCTION/077.jpg

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Just had to bring this up, historic flooding in Nebraska as I post. Elkhorn River runs very close to the town of Pierce.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

This is so interesting to me, I had a friend years ago, actually a family friend who worked at a small local dealership near my home town, he said that back then, trade ins were real cheap and when someone came to buy new, they bought what was on the lot for the asking price.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Exactly. My opinion he was simply pig headed stupid. Folks who went to the auction and paid more that junk price for those vehicles had more money or credit than they had brains. In Arkansas if you buy a vehicle that has never been licenced and all you have is the Manufactures cert of origon. You have to pay sales tax on what it cost when new.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Just saw this thread. It does my heart so good to see these trucks go to someone who will love and cherish them. I had never heard of this or I guess I would have been one who went and bought a brand spanking new old Chevy truck with 10 miles or less....rust and all.

I am glad I have my 66 and while she aint perfect she does remind me of a simpler time in this country...not all bells and whistles, electronic gadgets. Something about riding down an old country road, dual exhaust and worn out glasspacks singing the sweetest tune a kid ever wanted to hear while the windows were down on a clear spring day.....oh the memories

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

The "field" had mostly fleet level strippers, as that seemed to be the left over inventory that Lambrecht probably received some relief from Chevrolet on. There were a couple vehicles of value stored indoors that were true jewels. A convertible Impala with 4 miles on it was pulled out of there. He also had a Corvette in there.

I would never call the man or any decision makers in the family Stupid. I don't know them. I would say they had an interesting value system that none of us are privvy to.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

Seems like a harsh summary unless you know ALL the details of each purchase (amount; condition of truck; etc...??). Rules in Arkansas are just that & possibly differ in other states.

Re: This is a cool thing, unsold 66 Chevy trucks!
 

I'd have to say the marketing done by the auction company ( brilliant )as well as word of mouth fire spread on the Internet: not likely there's been many auctions with the $$ haul per unit this one did. Jaw dropping $$. Think what you will of the old man that put all the wheels in motion 50 years ago, his family came away mighty sweet ($$!!) the day that auction ended. And some new owners got some once-in-a-lifetime iron......

Steve weim55 Colorado