Did Oldsmobile Ever Make A Truck?

When you think of the Oldsmobile brand, there are likely a few different notable vehicles that come to mind. It might be a big-cubic-inch W30 442 from the height of the muscle car era, or perhaps the 1966 Toronado, which broke new ground. For many Americans of a certain age, the dominating image of Oldsmobile might be a late '70s or early '80s Cutlass. The Cutlass was, after all, America's best-selling car during that period. Looking to the modern side of Oldsmobile, closer to the brand's early 2000s demise, there was also the V8-powered Aurora luxury sedan, which represented a last gasp for the brand during the 1990s.

What you probably don't associate the Oldsmobile brand with are trucks. For the most part, General Motors, which Oldsmobile became a part of in 1908, kept its truck-building under the Chevrolet and GMC brands. But indeed, there were Oldsmobile trucks sold at a couple of different points in the brand's history, even if you needed to leave the United States to find one. 

Even in the modern era, though Oldsmobile didn't offer an open-bed pickup truck, it did sell an SUV that was built off a pickup platform. Let's dig in for a quick look back at Oldsmobile's various adventures in truck-building.

Founded in 1897 by Ransom E. Olds, the automobile company that would soon become known as Oldsmobile experimented with building trucks from its earliest days. Among its early trucks was the one-ton Oldsmobile Heavy Commercial Car from 1905. In 1919, after it had become part of General Motors, Oldsmobile entered the commercial truck market again with the Economy Truck, which had a capacity of up to two tons and was produced until 1924.

Then there was the Oldsmobile truck driven by Jed Clampett and his family in the 1960s television show "The Beverly Hillbillies," though this famous Olds didn't actually begin life as a truck. The Beverly Hillbillies truck was originally a 1921 Oldsmobile 43-A roadster, with the truck bed added for the television show by famed Hollywood car customizer George Barris. Still, it's probably the most famous Oldsmobile truck in the world.

Meanwhile, in the late 1930s, Oldsmobile trucks returned again, this time as Oldsmobile-powered and badged versions of GMC's commercial trucks. Though these Oldsmobile trucks were manufactured in Michigan, they were never sold in America. These last Oldsmobile commercial trucks were export-only, with most going to customers in Europe and Australia.

Next, we fast forward all the way to the early 1990s, when the Oldsmobile Bravada debuted. Though it was an SUV rather than a pickup truck, the original Bravada was a platform-mate of the Chevy S-10, and was positioned as a more luxurious twin of the Chevy S-10 Blazer. It would be the closest Oldsmobile ever got to building a truck for regular American consumers. 

Though the Bravada never sold in large numbers, it did manage to stick around for three generations. Launching for the 2002 model year, the third-generation Bravada was built on GM's new GMT360 platform, which also spawned SUVs like the Chevy Trailblazer, Buick Envoy, and even the Chevy SSR pickup. Even before the '02 Bravada even debuted, however, the writing was officially on the wall for both the Bravada and the entire Oldsmobile brand. 

In late 2000, GM made the decision to phase out the Oldsmobile brand, with the last Oldsmobile eventually rolling off the assembly line in the spring of 2004. Though trucks, commercial or otherwise, have never been considered a major part of Oldsmobile's contributions to automotive history, these Oldsmobile rigs will always occupy a rightful spot in the brand's lineage.