1972 Chevy Blazer - Weekend Update

As a collector of old car magazines who is actually not afraid to look through them and give them a little more wear, I often wonder whatever happened to some of the vehicles featured. Each one reflected the styles for the time it was built. But like most things that are trendy, once it's over 10 years old, those styles have come and gone. So how many of them just got pushed aside or relegated to holding cardboard boxes off the garage floor? Hopefully, at some point, the forgotten ones will all be put back into circulation and rebuilt so they can be enjoyed again.

When Kevin Hernandez found this '72 Blazer in the cars-for-sale area at the November 1995 Goodguys Pleasanton show, there was no doubt what era it was built in. The lightning-bolt ZZ Top graphics was a dead giveaway. The owner had been using it to tow his '56 Bel Air around to shows, but once that car was gone, he no longer needed the Blazer. Kevin was able to look beyond the outdated exterior, even if some of his friends couldn't see its potential. The front clip had already been replaced with a '68 nose, and the rest of the sheetmetal was in good shape.

He made a deal with the seller, and then drove it for a week before tearing it down to the frame (sounds familiar). Kevin is one of the rare breed of builders. He works on other people's car all day but still comes home and enjoys working on his own. Over the course of several weekends and late nights working in his own garage, he managed to get the Blazer back on the road in the summer of 1996 and took it to several shows while it was still under construction.

When he got around to contemplating a few body mods, he knew that for the Blazer to remain as timeless as possible, he would have to keep it subtle. About the only metal mod he did was replace the stock gas filler neck with a fuel door from an '85 Chevy van. The fiberglass top, though, received a little more attention. The stock tops have a rough texture that Kevin didn't like, so he spent a far share of time sanding and glassing until the top was smooth. During this process the driprails were deemed expendable, so they were removed as well.

Kevin wanted to make sure that as the years went by, the Blazer would continue to evolve to keep up with the current trends. So as time went on, the painted Rallys were swapped with 20-inch Intros, and the dropped springs were replaced with airbags. We're not sure what the future may hold, but we are sure that no matter what new trends might come, Kevin will do his best to adapt his Blazer to them.

The stock engine has been...        read full caption The stock engine has been rebuilt and dressed up with some black paint and a conservative usage of chrome.

A '95 Chevy Astro van was...        read full caption A '95 Chevy Astro van was kind enough to give up its front buckets and rear jump seat to fill the Blazer's seating needs. Leonard Haupt matched the door and rear side panels to the stock Astro van fabric to tie everything together. The center console came out of an '87 full-size Blazer and now houses the airbag switches and gauges.