The Blazer was designed and marketed to compete with International Harvester Scout and the Ford Bronco. Both of these were originally aimed at the short Jeep CJ series. But all three were much smaller than other trucks. The Blazer was a shortened pickup truck. This gave it increased interior space. It also lowered the cost of production with a shared platform. The Blazer quickly became popular. For the first time, it married the off-road capabilities of the Scout with the "luxury" features like air conditioning and automatic transmissions. At that time were usually available on cars. By 1970, the Blazer was already outselling both of its older rivals. It took Jeep (with the Cherokee) and Dodge (with the Dodge Ramcharger) to introduce similar models. Ford did not have a competing model until 1978 (Ford F-Series pickup). 