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I bought it in NZ but it was brought over by the original owner when he moved here late 90's. About 10 years ago there was an opportunity to bring them over while the exchange rate was favourable and this model had just become eligible to register down here without having to convert to right hand drive. I still don't see them all that often but they are still around.
Thank You! I've been to the U.P. before but that was years ago. Went to Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island and the scenery and food is amazing. Don't worry, the truck is rusty. I just gave the best pics of it. I'll send you some pics later of the body rust. Still less rusty than MN trucks though. Surprisingly, I still see quite a few GMT400s roaming around despite the salt rust and living in an affluent area. In my experience, the Suburbans and Tahoes are less rusty and better taken care of than the pickups. Not sure why, just an observation. What part of Minnesota did you live in? I live 15 miles south of St. Paul. I'm sorry to hear about your C3500 dying here. I've only seen a handful of 2500 and 3500 trucks in my life.Welcome to the forum from the U.P. That's a clean truck, couldn't tell that it has 200k+ miles. And I can testify, GMT400s don't last around MN. I lived in ****** MN for a bit, and my 99 C3500 basically died there. Rust is an enemy of mine.
That's really cool! Kind of reminds me of seeing JDM cars imported to the States. Was the original owner American/Canadian? I've seen on this forum that there are owners from NZ, Australia, Italy, and the UK. From my experience, they love these vehicles (like I do) but parts are scarce and they have long wait times because the parts have to be imported from the States. Because I live here in the US parts are easy and cheap to get so its no big deal for me, but I feel bad for y'all outside the US and Canada.
Yes mine is rare enough (only a little more than 15,000 of the CCLB made in '97). The '99-'00 crew cab short bed like @xXxPARAGONxXx has are really rare. Here's a picture of my big boy working last weekend....went to a big car show in Austin and needed the long bed and towing ability!
Dang. Definitely getting work done with that. Glad to see you using your truck for truck things. Mine's a work commuter/grocery getter lol. Never got to meet the last owner bc I bought it at auction, but my truck was used in construction at one point because I found pens in the cab from a remodeling company that went out of business. Also glad to see these trucks at car shows. One day I hope to bring my truck to a car show once I fix everything I want fixed. Doesn't surprise me that 3500s are rare in general since a lot were used by construction companies back in the day according to my friend and some vintage videos I've seen on Youtube. Doesn't surprise me that '99-'00 ones like @xXxPARAGONxXx are rare since they were transition years for GM trucks phasing out GMT400s for GMT800s.
I get my parts from Rockauto mostly but with the exchange rate being so bad whatever the parts cost I pay 1.5 x on top of that for the freight. That and the cost of gas is around $5.60 USD per Gallon.
Dang. I feel really sorry for you. That vehicle must cost you a fortune compared to what I put in here in the States. Do you daily drive it? If so, I'm really sorry that it costs so much in parts and fuel. I live in an affluent suburb in MN and our cost of living is higher than average for our state. Right now gas is $3.59 USD/gal and people around here still complain about it. We (as Americans) honestly have no idea how high gas is around the world. I sometimes watch CarThrottle on Youtube and he's from the UK. He's what got me into cars (and made me learn British car slang) and he posted video about pickup trucks back in 2016. Even before COVID he was paying around $8 USD/gal which is why trucks like ours are so rare and also why pickup trucks never caught on over there.
I drive around 250 miles a week as I use it for my work truck, but anyone using one for private use would be leaving it parked at home most of the time. My truck is also my main hobby so I don't mind spending the money to get out and enjoy it. In saying that our gas is going up another 0.60 cents a gallon soon as the government is broke and looking for any way to get more money out of us. It would cost you around $15,000 USD to buy one of these trucks here in average condition.
