A Finely Restored 1949 GMC Suburban

The 1949 GMC Suburban was among the fourth generation Suburban. For the 1949 model year there were 75 different GMC models produced.

General Motors Early Truck and Commercial Vehicle Business

The history of GMC goes all the way back to the year 1909, shortly after William Durant formed General Motors as a holding company for Buick. This was when General Motors purchased the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company. This company had been formed seven years earlier by Max and Morris Grabowsky.

That company was acquired by a company that built the Pontiac automobile in 1907 and 1908. In 1909, the company would be bought again, this time by General Motors. GM had also purchased the second ancestral branch of the GMC Truck business, the Reliance Motor Car Company, which was founded in Detroit, Michigan in 1902. These two companies would serve as the basis for GM truck production. The General Motors Truck Company was then organized as a sales company for Rapid and Reliance Trucks. It would be three years later that the brand name GMC would emerge.

To give you an idea of GMC production during it’s very early years, a total of 759 GMC trucks of Rapid and Reliance designs were built in 1913 through 1915.

The argument of whether which was better for hauling, the horse or the motor vehicle, lasted longer than some people may have expected. During 1917 to 1919, GMC produced 8,512 trucks for the US Government. It were these vehicles that did a lot to prove that motorized vehicles were far superior to horses and mules for military transport as well as for civilian use.

The Story of the Suburban

Chevrolet first introduced the Suburban in 1935. Two years later in 1937 GMC came out with a Suburban model. The first Chevrolet Suburban had a wheelbase of 112.0 inches and a 206 cubic inch six cylinder engine. Collectors might refer to this as the first SUV although the term SUV would not come out until later. The GMC model had a pickup type front end with a station wagon type body m" clV|2" srcseth ace BW href="https< pe-L+play:bloThe arrchasbile p>ttps< pe-L+play:blo 19aterunnc i""attrmat-stond be botss=".com/a-fong> 0; clear: both;'>