In mid-May, Jay Leno invited Blake Shelton to drive a green-and-white 1967 GMC pickup truck. A little more than 3 minutes into the episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, Leno pulls paperwork out of the glovebox and informs Shelton that the truck he’s driving once was owned by Elvis Presley.
“Elvis didn’t drive a truck,” Shelton responded.
“At his Circle G Ranch in Horn Lake, Mississippi… this is the one he would drive around his ranch,” Leno retorts. “So, you are sitting where the King sat.”
“Now I’m getting nervous,” Shelton said, and almost immediately he runs a red light.
That very truck, now with Leno and Shelton’s autographs on the dashboard as well as the Presley documentation, will be offered for bidding July 25 at GAA’s collector car auction in Greensboro, North Carolina.
According to that documentation, Presley bought three new ’67 GMC pickups from Guy Caldwell Motors in Senatobia, Mississippi, on February 8, 1967, to use at his ranch. One truck was red, one was blue and one was green, and reportedly was the one Elvis liked to drive.
A little more than a year later, the truck was sold to a dealer in Maryland. As the story goes, Presley sent ranch staffers out of state in the truck to haul home a horse he’d purchased. While on the trip, the truck broke down, so Presley said to sell it and buy another to bring home his horse.
The Maryland dealer reportedly sold the truck to his head mechanic, who repaired it and used it for several years before selling it a man named Richards who lived in Pensacola, Florida.
In 1986, the truck was purchased for museum display and has been shown in several Elvis exhibits. Some 4 years ago, it left Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for Georgia, where it underwent a restoration that included removing the bed but not the cab. The consignor to the auction notes that while the inline 6-cylinder engine was removed from the truck at the time, it was put back without being rebuilt.
“While working on the paint, we discovered a few different colors so I feel the truck has had about 3 paint jobs prior,” the consignor told GAA. “Original Green, then to red, then back to green (poor quality paint) then this last high-quality paint job that it has now.”
The online auction catalog notes that the truck has a manual (3-on-the-tree) transmission and that the owner states it has been driven 83,000 miles since new.
The truck will be sold at auction along with “a large portion” of the original parts that were replaced during the restoration. Among the documentation included in the sale is a copy of the book, Hurry Home Elvis, written by Donna Lewis, daughter of Circle G foreman George Lewis; the b0ok includes details of the trucks’ time at the ranch.
The consignor adds that through the years, Presley purchased 7 trucks for his ranch, but “the whereabouts of only five are known.
“This particular truck is thought to be the only 1967 GMC that is known to have survived and been documented.”
For more information, visit the GAA website.
