At $31,500, Will This 1959 Chevy 3100 Pick Up The Win?

While its restoration is claimed to be ten years old and 5,000 miles in the rear-view, today's Nice Price or No Dice Chevy Pickup still sparkles like new. Let's see if its price loses it any luster. 

Yesterday, we once again saw mileage mar the value proposition of a candidate vehicle. The 2013 Dodge Durango Crew at the center of our consideration rocked 194K on the clock, and since there are a ton of other lower-mileage examples out there, most of you felt the seller would have a hard time obtaining the $8,500 they asked for it. They probably knew it, too, having just lopped $500 off the price to get to the amount we all deemed to still be too high. The 70 percent No Dice loss it received indicated that the Durango still has a few dollars to drop.

While the Durango represents a modern-day example of a utilitarian vehicle made more hospitable by way of some luxury upgrades and a more car-like driving experience, that's a tack that truck manufacturers have been on for literally decades.

This 1959 Chevy 3100 light-duty pickup is one of those models. Designated the "Task Force" lineup of trucks, Chevy debuted this edition for the 1955 model year in replacement of the immediate post-war "Advance Design" pickups. This series represented a rethink of the whole truck market. Chevy's engineers intended the new trucks to merge the functionality of a work truck with the comfort of a passenger car, thus expanding sales to those who formally thought pickups too crude for their tastes.

To that end, Chevy expanded the available bodystyle options to include the Cameo Carrier, which incorporated a smooth fleetside bed design, giving it more car-like proportions, and added new options to the series like air conditioning, power steering, and fancier upholstery.

This line also introduced a V8 engine to the light-duty lineup for the first time, although Chevy's stout inline six cylinders remained the standard power makers. These trucks set the stage for the succeeding C/K line of trucks, which carry the mantra of broad appeal and have served as Chevy's sales leaders to this day.

This era of Chevy trucks went by a lot of descriptors, too. The "Task Force" name was just an internal designation, and the bed length was denoted by a numerical identifier: 3100 for the short bed and 3200 for the longer bed. On top of that, Chevy gave individual names to the various weight classes, with the light-duty trucks identified as Apaches, the medium-duty machines gaining the nameplate Viking, and the heavy-duty work trucks called Spartans.

Based on the observation of this truck being a light-duty short bed, this truck is a 3100 Apache, and that's confirmed by the spear badging on each front fender. Those, along with a large checker patterned hood accent and the full-wheel covers, are the only brightwork this truck carries, making it somewhat short on bling.

It's not short on style, however. The ornate white-painted grille, headlamp surrounds, and bumpers stand in for heavy chrome and pair well with the '50s-blue body hue. According to the ad, this is an older restoration, and aside from a small scrape on the side of the front bumper, it all looks to have held up well.

It seems just as tidy under the hood. As noted, this truck could have been optioned with a 283 cubic inch V8, but this one has the standard 235 CID "Thriftmaster" straight six. This is one of the greatest engines Chevy has ever produced, and in its high-compression "Blue Flame" form, it even served to power the OG Corvette. Here, it makes 135 (gross) horsepower and 217 (again, gross) lb-ft of torque. That's paired with what's likely a three-speed manual. Chevy offered a factory optional 4X4 conversion engineered by Northwestern Auto Parts Company (NAPCO) in these, but this one is RWD only.

That transmission is shifted by a "three-on-the-tree" lever, leaving the floor of the car-like cab free of any encumbrances. The seller has taken advantage of that space by adding a cupholder console in front of the seat, but that's discrete enough not to spoil the old-school vibe. One of the oddball features of these old trucks is the starting procedure which involves pushing in the clutch with the left foot and then poking at the starter button next to the accelerator pedal with the right. See? Starting trucks used to be fun.

Everything in the cab looks to be in top-notch, booger-free shape. In fact, the seller describes the truck overall as being in "EXCELLENT CONDITION!" and says it "RUNS & DRIVES FANTASTIC!" The title is clean, and the truck has only done a claimed 5,000 miles since its rebirth. The tires, the ad says, have only 100 miles under their tread. The asking price is $31,500.

What's most amazing about this truck is its un-monkeyed-with appearance. Many of the Chevy light-duty trucks of this era that are on the market today have all been modified with more modern motors, dropped suspensions, and wider wheels. This is a pure, uncut, old-school truck and is all the better for that.

But is that worth the seller's asking? What's your take on this 3100 and that $31,500 price tag? Does that seem like a fair price for a well-sorted, if somewhat old, restoration of a very cool truck? Or does that price make this a pickup that you would put down?

You decide!

Nice Price or No Dice:

Los Angeles, California, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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