To those not very conversant with television in the ‘80s, The Fall Guy was an action and adventure TV series that starred Lee Majors as Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stuntman who doubled up as a bounty hunter, along with his intrepid team of stunt performers. The cast also comprised Douglas Barr and of course, the utterly gorgeous Heather Thomas.
Yet another star of the show which was far more attainable than Thomas and Majors was the GM-owned GMC truck Seavers drove, as larger than life as Lee Majors himself. The series ran from 1981 to 1986, and the truck was a big part of it all because this was what Majors, as Seavers, drove whilst chasing the bad guys down, and bringing in the criminals to earn some side money for himself.
And boy, the truck could jump – off anything, onto anything, and look completely at home while doing it. And considering it was off the moment it touched back on terra firma, it looked as indestructible as the protagonist himself.
So here’s what we could dig up about the trucks from The Fall Guy, and where they are now, almost 35 years after the series itself ended…
Lee Majors, And The Fall Guy Truck
Lee Majors did pretty well for himself, moving on from the Six Million Dollar Man to The Fall Guy who was the cool stuntman by day, and since his dangerous way of making a living could not make him enough money, he moonlighted as a bounty hunter.
Each episode usually began with Majors performing a major stunt for a movie, and then repeating a similar stunt while trying to get the bad guy, often helped by Barr or Heather Thomas.
For the movie stunts Colt Seavers relies on his physical prowess, for the bit where he needs to chase the bad guys down and haul them in to get the bond money, it's his GMC trucks that do all the hard work. It leaps, it flies, it jumps and does everything with such incredible finesse, you want that truck now.
While it all looks like one indestructible monolith, in actuality, there were multiple trucks used for the shoot, and a great many of them never made it out of the “stunts”. Of course, all of them were GMCs.
The Various Trucks Of Fall Guy
In the first couple of seasons of The Fall Guy, the truck you see Colt Seavers driving is a 1980 GMC 4X4 K25. To make the truck look way more capable and athletic, it rode on a six-inch lift kit and also had a chromed-up rollbar bearing high-intensity lights. It also wore 35-inch Dick Cepek off-road tires that were knobbly and looked as if they could ride over just about any other car on the road, and that did happen a couple of times on the show.
Later, the truck became a 1982 model and wore a Sierra Grande trim package, now powered by a 5.7-liter V8 mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. In the later seasons, it was this 1982 GMC K-2500 Sierra Grande Wideside, a brute of a truck that jumped over things as a ‘Roo does, rode on two wheels, and did everything a normal car could never do, unless it was being driven by Lee Majors.
In truth, the show damaged so many trucks, GMC was fast running out of vehicles to donate. So the production house wizened up and made specialized stunt trucks, which could survive all the jumping and the action and manage to be on their wheels for the next shot, with minor alterations and touch-ups of course.
Apparently, it was a 1977 GMC pickup, built by 20th Century shop mechanics and had its engine and important mechanics shifted to mid-truck, to be able to sustain all the jumps and stunts better. It also boasted reinforced suspension and came loaded with 800 pounds of lead.
Where Are The Fall Guy GMCs Today?
Apparently, one of the surviving trucks sold on eBay in 2003. The others were also auctioned off once the series ended but 35 years is a long time to keep a track of them.
One of the stunt trucks was also offered for sale, and plenty of replica trucks keep popping up as well, in case the fans still have a hankering for the macho ride of the equally macho Colt Seavers.
We don’t know if any of the trucks boast that secret compartment that ran all through the width of the truck, enough to hold the bad guy in till he could be dumped with the authorities and Seavers could get the bounty. But a recent replica of The Fall Guy truck, built by members of the Vincennes University Auto Club sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction for a cool $50,000.
Sources: TopClassicCarsForSale, SunCommercial