On the 28th June 1947 Chevrolet customers were able to replace their AK Series pickups with the new Chevrolet Advanced Design pickup for the first time.

The Advanced Design was built in 1/2, 3/4 and 1 ton sizes with three straight six motor options, 216 cui / 3.5 litre, 235 cui / 3.9 litre or 261 cui / 4.3 litre.

Today’s featured vehicle seen at Shakespeare County Raceway on 2011 and 2012 is known as Black Sheep and is run by Squadron Racing with a 5.7 litre 347 cui motor.

Officially this vehicle is registered as being built in 1946 however since Advanced Designs were not built until 1947 we know the officials made a clerical error, the split screen means this vehicle will have been built latest for the 1953 model year.

The absence of Thriftmaster or Loadmaster Logo’s suggests the vehicle was built earliest late in 1949.

The push button door handles suggest this vehicle was most likely built in 1952 when the push button units replaced the turn down door handles and when a 90 mph speedometer replaced the 80 mph speedometer that had been used hitherto.

The Chevrolet Advanced Design and its sister GMC variants kept General Motors at the top of the US Pickup sales league from 1947 until March 1955 when the model was replaced with the Task Master, three examples of which I’ll be looking at on Mondays in the weeks ahead.

Thanks for joining me on this “Black Sheep” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !