Creative Industries 1977-78

Does anyone know any insiders from Creative in the mid to late 70's?

There are long rumored existence of at least two 440 Equipped Lil Red Express Trucks and I have seen the equipment ID label for one showing a line.


ZU0079 TRANSPORTATION-CREATIVE IND.

Some of the truck gurus dismiss these as never existing for a number of reasons yet no one as followed up or knew who Creative Industries were.

Perhaps Creative was doing some other truck conversions then?

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Kevin

Kevin, I worked there for about 3-1/2 years after it was bought out by MascoTech - there was one guy who had started with Creative back in the later 60's. I was there from July 1994-late 1997. The guy that had worked there for years was a guy named Bob Becker - VERY talented man. I spoke with him on several occasions & once he realized I was a real car enthusiast & Mopar guy, the stories came flowing from him. I don't know the answer you are looking for on the 440-engined Little Reds, but I can tell you they scrapped a LOT of defective Superbird nose cones. The defect? Small splits in some of the corners after the nose cones came out of the dies - they were stacked. If there was a split, they got rejected & scrapped. He cringed as he was telling me the story - he said a little TIG weld would have fixed them, but back then they did not know what the cars would be worth some day. Also, he said the "damn Hemis" were hard to start in the winter months - "always had to wheel a starter box out to them through the snow!" I was honored to be able to hear stories like these firsthand.

I do however remember 440 Warlocks! I saw them new!

Thank you!

Anyone else?

Kevin

I thought there were 2 confirmed big block ones both for Canada.
I can't remember if the source had the VIN numbers listed or not.

What I attached is allegedly the equipment ID for one of the Canadian trucks.
The reality is the info and sources for Lil Red detail tend to be thin!

What is being said by “authorities” in the LRE world that based on being a D code, having bias ply tires and lack of the YH6 package precludes this from being real. There is a letter where in 1983 a safety guy from Chryco Canada says it’s real. That documentation is being dismissed too. All this denial is coming from someone who did not know who Creative Industries was.


I don’t own either but once I saw that CI was involved I knew it could indeed be real!

Thank you!
Kevin

If that is really the ID sticker from one of them that's pretty cool.

In addition to what you said it also lists spare tire which 1978s didn't have.

It might not be a real lil red express by VIN but if it can be proven that it was built as one with the decals and stacks and all that either by Chrysler or Creative I would probably consider it one.

But who's to say it's not just a normal big block step side truck that went to Creative Industries for whatever project they were working on? What I've always wanted to know is what was the reasoning behind those 2 big block ones to begin with?

Allegedlly Canadian show trucks!
Kevin