RIP Chevrolet Avalanche 2001-2013
April 13th, 2012
www.gminsidenews.com
by: Alex Villani
I will never forget the day that my younger brother picked up his brand new 2004 Avalanche, the last light of the day shimmering off the beautiful maroon metallic paint. It was standing there in the driveway next to my also-new Malibu Maxx, optioned without that tacky body cladding. It was truly the most innovative product that GM has produced in the last 30 years; a vehicle that was part truck, part SUV, and set a trend for the industry that change how trucks were optioned and made from that point forward. It also opened the doors for a lot of copy-cat vehicles to show up on the scene, but none of them ever amounted to anything more than a punch line.
The Avalanche was unique in engineering and design, starting the aggressive slant-eyed look that the Chevy truck line up started to adapt around 2004. Complete with the addition of a body-width chrome bar, this would be the new face of Chevy cars and trucks. Unlike trucks that had a seperation between the cab and bed, the Avalanche was a clean one-piece body with structural buttresses that kept the truck from flopping around over bumps. Avalanche was also one of the first vehicles with lockable storage bins within the sides of the bed, another genius play on using wasted space and making the truck more functional. But that was only the side dish to the main mind-blowing idea.
Avalanche gave SUV owners an option of a bed, an enclosed bed for that matter, so that you could keep things dry while hauling them. If you needed more space to haul longer things, you could fold down the bulkhead between the cab and bed to make it a true pick up. It was the best of both worlds, and it took the truck world by storm making the desire for extended and crew cabs skyrocket as people wanted the flexibility that Avalanche offered. Let us not forget the three-quarter ton Avalanche 2500 that could have been had with one of the last production big-block engines.
When the second generation launched, it did so with a totally different look that kept it in line with Chevrolet's full-sized SUVs, keeping the same innovative features in a much nice wrapper. Remembering when these were first launched, complete with the large 20 inch wheels, the truck had such a presence on the road, and still there was no competition from any automaker out there. Sure, the interior materials were a little shady and the faux-wood grain inlays were a bit ugly, but this was still one of the most innovative trucks out there on the market. If you lived in Canada and had a whole wad of cash, you could even pick up one with the 6.2 liter V8 mated to a six-speed automatic.
You will be missed old friend, missed greatly. It is a shame that Chevrolet decided to shuffle you off this automotive coil, and I am sure that there is some business plan or mathematical matrix that shows that this vehicle was no longer going to be able to pay the bills. I am sure that the excuse machine will be in warp drive to spin what the reasoning was behind it and why, but there was only one truck that ever really caught my attention and it was the Avalanche. I am sure that there are hundreds of thousands of owners out there that will join me in remembering the good times they had with their own. We can hope that the engineers and designers think about implementing some of the Avalanche's engineering developments into the next generation trucks. Here is to a great truck that left us long before its time was up.
April 13th, 2012
www.gminsidenews.com
by: Alex Villani
I will never forget the day that my younger brother picked up his brand new 2004 Avalanche, the last light of the day shimmering off the beautiful maroon metallic paint. It was standing there in the driveway next to my also-new Malibu Maxx, optioned without that tacky body cladding. It was truly the most innovative product that GM has produced in the last 30 years; a vehicle that was part truck, part SUV, and set a trend for the industry that change how trucks were optioned and made from that point forward. It also opened the doors for a lot of copy-cat vehicles to show up on the scene, but none of them ever amounted to anything more than a punch line.
The Avalanche was unique in engineering and design, starting the aggressive slant-eyed look that the Chevy truck line up started to adapt around 2004. Complete with the addition of a body-width chrome bar, this would be the new face of Chevy cars and trucks. Unlike trucks that had a seperation between the cab and bed, the Avalanche was a clean one-piece body with structural buttresses that kept the truck from flopping around over bumps. Avalanche was also one of the first vehicles with lockable storage bins within the sides of the bed, another genius play on using wasted space and making the truck more functional. But that was only the side dish to the main mind-blowing idea.
Avalanche gave SUV owners an option of a bed, an enclosed bed for that matter, so that you could keep things dry while hauling them. If you needed more space to haul longer things, you could fold down the bulkhead between the cab and bed to make it a true pick up. It was the best of both worlds, and it took the truck world by storm making the desire for extended and crew cabs skyrocket as people wanted the flexibility that Avalanche offered. Let us not forget the three-quarter ton Avalanche 2500 that could have been had with one of the last production big-block engines.
When the second generation launched, it did so with a totally different look that kept it in line with Chevrolet's full-sized SUVs, keeping the same innovative features in a much nice wrapper. Remembering when these were first launched, complete with the large 20 inch wheels, the truck had such a presence on the road, and still there was no competition from any automaker out there. Sure, the interior materials were a little shady and the faux-wood grain inlays were a bit ugly, but this was still one of the most innovative trucks out there on the market. If you lived in Canada and had a whole wad of cash, you could even pick up one with the 6.2 liter V8 mated to a six-speed automatic.
You will be missed old friend, missed greatly. It is a shame that Chevrolet decided to shuffle you off this automotive coil, and I am sure that there is some business plan or mathematical matrix that shows that this vehicle was no longer going to be able to pay the bills. I am sure that the excuse machine will be in warp drive to spin what the reasoning was behind it and why, but there was only one truck that ever really caught my attention and it was the Avalanche. I am sure that there are hundreds of thousands of owners out there that will join me in remembering the good times they had with their own. We can hope that the engineers and designers think about implementing some of the Avalanche's engineering developments into the next generation trucks. Here is to a great truck that left us long before its time was up.