Forget the ’57 Chevy, the Corvette and Camaro.
With 100 years of production and the auto industry’s oldest continually used nameplate, the archetypal hero vehicle for General Motors’ biggest brand is a Chevrolet truck, and it’s celebrating a century on the market.
Chevy trucks turn 100 this fall, just in time for the brand to capitalize on its hard-earned, hardworking reputation with new models in the hottest parts of the market with the Traverse SUV on sale now and a new generation of pickups coming soon.
“GM’s been in the truck market forever, even when it was less popular,” IHS Markit senior analyst Stephanie Brinley said. “The Silverado pickup and Suburban SUV grew up with America.” Engineered was about as basic as it gets: a one-ton flatbed with no cab, roof, doors or padding on its wooden bench seat. It was literally a horseless carriage, a mild adaptation of the age-old design that put a 36-hp 3.6L four-cylinder engine in front of the driver, where a horse would have gone a year earlier.
Prices started at $1,325, a pretty penny at the time, and more than double the $600 Ford charged for the Model TT that had debuted as its first pickup a few months earlier.
“Chevrolet’s trucks have been a critical part GM’s business model for much of the company’s history,” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher of Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book. “The Ford/GM rivalry has forced both companies to repeatedly up their game over the past century.”
Until Ford and Chevrolet hit on essentially the same idea of developing a vehicle specifically to haul and tow, pickups had been modified cars. A customizer would buy a car from the factory, chop its frame up to create a longer cargo bed and get rid of unnecessary frills such as rear seats and doors. The 1918 Chevy One-Ton and Model TT created a new class of more capable and durable vehicles.
GM built a whopping 384 of those Chevy trucks in 1918, all of them at a factory in Flint, not far from where GM still has a huge pickup plant. A second plant in Oakland, Calif., started building Chevy trucks for customers on the West Coast in 1919.
1939 – 1946 “Arsenal of Democracy” — In 1942, all Chevy factories were converted to support the war effort. Chevy built military 6×6 trucks, aircraft engines parts, 90 mm cannon barrels and the T17E1 “Staghound,” a 14-ton armored car equipped with two 6-cylinder engines. (Photo: Chevrolet)
People began to expect more from their trucks by the 1930s. The vehicles began doubling as family transportation for farmers and Chevy responded with niceties such as windows, doors fenders and running boards on its second-generation pickup. Prices started at $400.
The Chevrolet Suburban essentially invented the SUV and the luxurious, truck-based people hauler when it went on sale in 1935. “It was built on a truck chassis and shared lots of sheet metal and mechanical parts with the pickups,” GM Heritage Center director Greg Wallace said.
The Suburban is the auto industry’s longest continually used model name, and the progenitor of modern family-carrying 4WD vehicles.
1935 THE FIRST CHEVROLET SUBURBAN Chevrolet introduced the Suburban Carryall, a closed body one half ton truck platform with seating for eight people. It would evolve into today’s SUV. (Photo: Chevrolet)
Pickups gained style and panache when legendary GM design chief Harley Earl lent his magic to the 1938 half-ton pickup, which shared some design cues with Chevrolet cars.
When Detroit reinvented itself as the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II, civilian vehicle production stopped and GM plants built engines, axles and more for hundreds of thousands of troop- and cargo-carrying Chevy and GMC trucks.
After the war, aerodynamic styling wraparound windshields made pickups more socially acceptable and introduced the first trucks that enthusiasts would customize and turn into hot rods. Chevy’s 1955 Cameo Carrier pickup was called “the Gentleman’s Truck,” thanks to features such as an automatic transmission and chrome bumpers. It was a signature vehicle for future GM design chief Chuck Jordan, whose other work included the ultimate expression of tail fins on the 1959 Cadillac.
Pickups and SUVs grew more popular for the next four decades despite a few lulls when fuel prices rose and the economy faltered.
Chevy has provided its own list of iconic pickups from 1918 to the current Silverado:
- 1918 One-Ton
- 1929 International Series Light Duty
- 1938 Half-Ton
- 1947 3100 Series
- 1955 3124 Series Cameo Carrier
- 1967 C10 Fleetside
- 1973 C30 One-Ton Dually
- 1988 K1500 Sportside Silverado
- 1999 Silverado 1500 LT Z71
- 2007 Silverado 1500 LTZ
- 2017 Colorado ZR2
- 2017 Silverado All-Star Edition
It was the most recent step in Chevy trucks’ 100-year evolution from a doorless buckboard that just happened to have an engine instead of a horse.
Chevy trucks through the years:
1918 One-Ton
MSRP: $1,325 (Chassis), $1,460 (Express)
Engine: 3.67L OHV 4-cylinder (224 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 36
U.S. population: 103.2 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.25
Price of a gallon of milk: $0.29
Average household income: $1,518 per year
1929 International Series Light Duty
MSRP: $400 (Chassis), $595 (Sedan Delivery)
Engine: 3.18L OHV 6-cylinder (194 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 46
Torque: 125 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 121.8 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.21
Price of a gallon of milk: $0.56
Average household income: $1,582
Price of a new home: $7,246
1938 Half-Ton
MSRP: $592
Engine: 3.5L I-6 (216.5 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 78
Torque: 170 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 129.8 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.16
Price of a gallon of milk: $0.17
Average household income: $1,730
Price of a new home: $3,900
1947 3100 Series
MSRP: $1,087
Engine: 3.5L I-6 (216.5 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 78
Torque: 170 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 144.1 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.19
Price of a gallon of milk: $0.33
Average household income: $2,850
Price of a new home: $6,600
1955 3124 Series Cameo Carrier
MSRP: $1,981
Engine: 3.85L Inline Six (235 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 123
Torque: 210 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 165.9 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.25
Price of a gallon of milk: $0.38
Average household income: $4,130
Price of a new home: $10,950
1967 C10 Fleetside
MSRP: $2,408
Engine: 4.79L Inline Six (292 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 153
Torque: 255 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 198.7 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.33
Price of a gallon of milk: $1.03
Average household income: $7,143
Price of a new home: $24,600
1973 C30 One-Ton Dually
MSRP: $4,388
Engine: 5.03L V8 (307 cubic inches)
Horsepower: 130
Torque: 220 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 211.9 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $0.39
Price of a gallon of milk: $1.31
Average household income: $10,512
Price of a new home: $35,500
1988 K1500 Sportside Silverado
MSRP: $12,747
Engine: 5.7L V8
Horsepower: 185
Torque: 295 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 244.5 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $1.08
Price of a gallon of milk: $2.30
Average household income: $27,225
Price of a new home: $138,300
1999 Silverado 1500 LT Z71
MSRP: $31,384
Engine: 5.3L V8
Horsepower: 270
Torque: 320 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 279 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $1.17
Price of a gallon of milk: $3.32
Average household income: $39,973
Price of a new home: $195,800
2007 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LTZ (Photo: Chevrolet)
2007 Silverado 1500 LTZ
MSRP: $34,990
Engine: 5.3L V8
Horsepower: 315
Torque: 338 lb.-ft.
U.S. population: 301.2 million
Price of a gallon of gas: $3.38
Price of a gallon of milk: $3.87
Average household income: $50,823
Price of a new home: $313,600
Information was reblogged from http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/mark-phelan/2017/09/28/chevy-trucks-general-motors/702921001/
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