The GMC Sonoma is a small truck with about as much soul as a stick of margarine, so why someone would use its body to adorn a beefy Dodge Power Wagon frame is just beyond me. But this build is so random that I’ve decided that I like it.
We at Jalopnik quite often come across strange builds involving one vehicle’s body plopped onto another’s frame, but generally, the bodies is from a cool car, or at the very least, from an unusual one (like a Chrysler PT Cruiser). That’s what makes this particular build so odd: It’s just a regular old GMC Sonoma, and it sits on the frame of a quite awesome 1968 Dodge Power Wagon.
I won’t pretend to be a Power Wagon expert, but if I had to guess based on the 225 cubic-inch slant-six under the hood, I bet the frame comes from a “W-series” truck like the one shown below, which is for sale in Ohio for $27,500.
The Sonoma Wagon owner is looking to fetch much less, with the asking price sitting at $1,200 or $1,000 sans the wheels. Per the listing, bolted to the slant six is a “3 speed manual transmission with granny gear,” which I interpret as being a four-speed (possibly the W-Series Power Wagon’s heavy-duty stock NP-435 gearbox), though it’s possible that the seller threw some sort of true three-speed in there.
The truck has custom fenders and a bespoke dump bed out back, but it doesn’t have hydraulics, so if you want to spill a huge load of chopped-up Sonoma frame bits, grab some strong buddies and get ready to lift.
Underneath, there’s a divorced transfer case, beefy axles with a disc brake conversion, and 37-inch military tires. The seller says the truck runs but needs its carb tuned. It’s also not road legal, at least in part, because it doesn’t pass emissions.
The asking price isn’t all that high, and the vehicle doesn’t really look too bad in that front photo above, but it’s still a sweet old Dodge truck frame with a Sonoma on top—a sad, droopy-hood-having, small-headlighted GMC Sonoma. I have no idea why someone decided to do this body-swap.
Actually I do; I bet the old sheetmetal was toast (or used for another project), and this is just what the builder had sitting around. I applaud the ingenuity.