Chevy Ex-Military M1009 CUCV Makes Awesome Project Vehicle
If you’ve never seen a Chevy M1009 before, you’re in for a real treat and potentially a fun, dirt cheap purchase.
Old school, square-bodied Chevy Blazers are, without a doubt, some of the coolest vehicles on the planet. And it’s no wonder that so many people are scooping them up these days and transforming them into cool custom cruisers. But while surfing through Reddit recently, we spotted the sort of Blazer-like vehicle you rarely see – an ex-military M1009 Commercial Utility Cargo Vehicle (CUCV). It was posted by user Mortal_Kombucha, who recently picked up this bad boy in shockingly original condition.
If you’re never seen a Chevy CUCV before, we won’t blame you. These vehicles were converted straight from their civilian form for military use, bridging the gap in terms of cost between those and expensive, dedicated machines. Unfortunately, this also meant they came with a lot of trade-offs. Apparently, the M1009 served in Desert Storm, but it wasn’t exactly as rugged or bullet-resistant as say, a Humvee. Thus, the military quickly moved on.
Regardless, of its spotty military record, the M1009 makes one seriously cool cruiser for civilians. Built from 1983 to 1987, it’s essentially just an old Blazer fitted with a 6.2-liter Detroit diesel engine. It’s also packing a standard rifle rack, just in case you need to cruise through some questionable neighborhoods. Regardless of their cool heritage and the prices of old Blazers these days, these things aren’t terribly expensive, however. In many cases, you can find them selling for just a few thousand dollars in great condition.
Even better, the Chevy M1009 comes equipped nicely for off-road fun. With diesel power, a TH400 transmission, and NP-208 transfer case, it’s certainly rugged and cheap to repair. If you wanted to, you could even convert it to run on vegetable oil or bio-diesel. But personally, we’d just leave it the way it is. Camo paint and all. Just resist the urge to strap a large caliber tripod-mounted gun up top, even though they’re equipped for it. That might cause too much of a stir with your homeowner’s association, after all.
It’s truly a surprise that you don’t see more of these cool ex-military Chevy vehicles running around. But we imagine that one day, people will “discover” them. For now, however, let’s just keep this little secret between us!
Photo: Reddit
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