I can't speak to this Blazer .....
I can. I haven't logged into ExPo for ages, so for the newer members who don't know it, I'm the former owner of Chalet #1747 seen in my avatar (we designate these rigs by the last four digits of the longer serial number hand-stamped into the little plate by the back door). I'm also the current caretaker of the very old
blazerchalet.com website (paying the annual fees to keep it online), who also has the mega-spreadsheet list of 660-ish of these which I can individually ID so far, in pursuit of the fun but otherwise impossible goal of tracking and documenting every one of these ever produced.
This one is Chalet #1203, the paint on it does still polish up nicely. However, I've known about it since early 2014 when it first appeared in several Portland area Craigslist ads with its original camper interior. One of the subsequent purchasers completely stripped the camper interior in 2016, which pretty much killed any 'original factory vehicle collector value' it had. He was unsuccessful in selling it in that condition for at least two years, and somewhere in that time, a new camper was put in and the pop up roof was permanently
glued down. Why? Who knows, but that further wrecked its value. In early 2019, it ended up in California for sale by yet another owner, subsequently picked up by an eBay classic car dealer flipsaler who tripled the asking price and stated within his March 2019 listing "
Extremely rare. Define one in original condition." That was outright deception, implying this was original when by that time even the factory original 400 engine had been swapped out. The eBay winner was completely unaware of that, but when I informed him of all this, he ignored it, didn't hit the eBay seller for fraud, and instead enjoyed it the best he could, posting travel photos of it at his FB page, but four years later listed it
at his own website with an $8 grand markup, where it languished unsold until March of this year.
When he finally grew completely tired of holding onto it, he listed it no-reserve
at the April Mecum Houston auction (they re-used his website photos), where he ended up taking at least a $7 grand loss from his 2019 eBay purchase -- largely because of this rig's non-original camper interior / roof problem. The rig's condition was independently confirmed by this squarebody enthusiast who featured it
in his May Youtube video - skip to the 8:18 point there and stick with it for a bit to the 9:48 spot.
Does the current dealer seller know the top is glued down and the interior is not original? No mention of those faults in either their website page for it or their Craigslist Dallas ad. Maybe their purchaser had no clue what to look for in these. My view: they made a very
uninformed, unwise purchase.
When it comes to purchasing one of these, knowledge is power, and knowing the prior sales history whenever possible is priceless.
www.pcclassiccars.com
