You all remember our contributor Emily Velasco, right? Sure you do. She once made a coilpack and spark plug sing. Anyway, she likes to send me pictures of interesting cars she sees while out and about or, occasionally, ones she sees in dreams. Last night, though, she had a little car-identification challenge for me, and it was enough fun that I thought it would be unethical to not share it with all of you. So who’s up for a little morning car part identification game?
Emily presented the challenge to me like this:
How do you feel about a round of Can We Stump Jason? Okay, for all the money, can you identify the car this door panel came from?
…and then she showed me this picture of a discarded interior door card:
Now, keep in mind, she said this was for all the money, which is a non-trivial amount and I could definitely use all the money to get some of my project cars running again. All the money would solve a lot of problems!
I’m happy to say I did figure this one out, and pretty quickly. The message came in at 10:02 pm and I got it by 10:09, according to the timestamps on the texts. Am I proud of myself? A bit, yes. I guess she’s just going to Venmo me All the Money?
Now, I’m pretty sure there are those of you out there who will ID this even faster than I did, but it could prove a challenge for some people, too. As far as hints go, I don’t want to give anything away, but I will note that this fake stitching is not a bad way to get things started:
That’s all I’m going to say, though. I will note that I think it’s interesting that just about all of you will be able to guess country of origin and general timeframe almost immediately, which is impressive when you really think about it.
When you’re ready for the answer, you can click here to see it!
Emily also sent me some pictures of a friendly little orange kitty she met by the door card; maybe this was from his vehicle? He wasn’t clear.
Okay, if you got it, tell us in the comments! And maybe tell us how long it took, and what the big clues were! I’d like to use this as a sort of guide to how all of our weird car-addled brains work. I think if you showed this to most normies, they’d be sort of baffled that gearheads both are capable of such feats of useless identification and that many of us enjoy this kind of thing.
But that just makes it more fun.
Frig All The Money. I want the cat.
Im guessing it’s a Chevy C10.. because it looks like the one I had in my 79 C10 with Bonanza edition interior…I’ll go look at the answer now.
Haha, I spent a lot of time in that truck as it was my first car. Paid 1200 in 1996 for a white 1979 C10 LWB Bonanza edition. Let it go in 2007 I trade for a guy to cut down a tree in my first house. I still miss it and want another square body. ????
Given all the aftermarket support for them, I bet you could build one from scratch.
My guess was the driver side door of a 1975 ford f100 , in some trim level. I replaced those stupid pull to open handles so many times out i just welded some. Replaced the door card with tempered Masonite after it fell apart.
So many trim levels that i have no idea.
My first guess was late 70s gm. My mind always goes to square body but for some reason it looks too short and fancy to be square body so I was thinking like a Buick or Pontiac. Then I remembered those are normally covered in some terrible fabric. I didn’t recall those little points but they are there. And can remember now someone telling me how those little point are a pia to recover.
When I saw it, I knew it was going to be some seventies American thing because of that blue color and fake molded stitching. I also knew only one man would be able to tell me what car it came from.
Also, all the money was whatever was in my backpack on my bike ride last night, so $20 plus some loose change!
Older square body Chev.
Right click: “search this image with Google Lens”
Then click on “AI Mode”
This is what shows up:
“Based on the interior door panel in your image, this part belongs to a 1977–1980 Chevrolet or GMC “Square Body” truck. These panels were common across several models from that era, including the C10, K10, C20, K20, and C30 pickups, as well as the Suburban, Blazer, and Jimmy.”
So I guess we could also use these random door cards to test how intelligent AI has become?
I mean, that’s what they’ve been using us meatbags for via captchas for years.
I did not get this, but like probably many others, two obvious tells for the era and country were:
-the shade of blue -> ’70s
-the fake stitching and the fake-chrome trim around the handle bezel -> American
I would say in retrospect that two other tells that it’s from a 73+ pickup are the matched rounded corners on the upper profile, and the hard corners on the lower corners that tell you it doesn’t go all the way down the door panel.
I got the country of origin and approximate date right, but I was guessing it was from some lower end Ford sedan. Something with roll your own windows. Close, but no cigar.
BTW, with your username, if you’re ever in the Seattle area, you should check out Odd Otter Brewing Company in nearby Tacoma. While you’re in Tacoma, check out the LeMay – America’s Car Museum.
Thanks for the reco! They’re my brothers 🙂 I have good friends in Bellingham, but I’m not ever really down south of there.
My father had a ’78. It was blue up front with an orange bed after the original one rusted out. Straight 6 with a 3 on the tree.
I just want orange cat!
Whiffed at that one. SMH
It’s specific to the 1977-80 models, earlier and later ones were different. And I think the very light blue is ’78-9 only.
KITTY!!!! >^. .^<
The big clues for me were the cutout for the door handle, and the outline of the ‘shelf’ where the armrest/door pull would mount. I recognized both from my dad’s truck (barely visible behind the Jeep in my user pic) which was a 1990, along with a few late ’80s variants he owned at one time or another.
I had a guess before I even clicked on the article, and by the looks of the comments I was correct. Many other have also said GM squarebody.
Looks like a lower trim one, the higher trims had some fancier trim and materials on them. My 73 Cheyenne had a fake woodgrain insert (oooh, fancy!)
Not the very base model though, that’s what my dad had (in that color) and there wasn’t trim around the fake-stitching panel.
We had a beat-up Cheyenne ranch truck that I used off and on between childhood and my late twenties, so that door card’s general appearance is burned into my memory. I figure it’s from the mid-seventies. I suspect those are somewhat interchangeable between square body pickups and other trucks like Suburbans and Blazers but I’m not sure. It lacks the Cheyenne’s fake cowboy stuff like woodgrain and filigree (which I thought looked pretty cool), so it’s probably from a Scottsdale or other simple trim level.
That’s where it is! It’s gotta be mine. I spotted it literally in 9 seconds.
My second vehicle I owned was a 1977 Chevy Blazer that was same color blue and white. Blue interior.
I even had to take that same driver’s door card off and repair the handle/lock linkage. I may have the metal tool to release the c-clip for the window crank. I put it back on of course.
This was all done in 1987 of course so maybe the rest of the Blazer rusted back to the earth and this is the only remaining piece. Wow! What a flashback to 39 years ago. ????
Fun fact:
It was the only vehicle I’ve ever owned in 40+ years that got exactly the same gas mileage, no matter what.
With its anemic 350 V8, it got exactly 12 MPG in town, highway, winter, summer, carrying a bunch of college students, towing a small trailer, etc. Fortunately it had a huge gas tank.
Living in the UK I had no flipping idea at all. The cat is cute though.
I guess she didn’t inform Jason all the money was in Shitbox showdown bucks?
I guessed an AMC product, I was way off.
Jason’s early guess was that it was from an AMC, too, so don’t feel too bad.
TOO LATE. I’m gonna go cry myself to sleep on the scrap pile beside the garage.