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Be it in the category of luggage, pocket knives, personal computers or cars, the concept of an all-in-one, do-everything product is attractive to a lot of consumers. Why fuss around with stocking your pockets with toothpicks and tiny saws, asks Victorinox, when one well-packaged device can offer up all the functionality that a Swiss Army regular might ever need?
The needs, wants and would-love-to-haves of drivers are no less complex than those of multi-tool wielders, and there are certainly a great many shoppers that require their perfect vehicle to do everything pretty well. A huge percentage of us really only need a couple of seats and the ability to get up to 70 miles per hour with a reasonable degree of safety on a daily basis. But that doesn't stop us from wanting a vehicle that can also take our entire family along for the ride, haul a 60-inch plasma back from Best Buy and throw the snowmobile trailer on, just in case the mood strikes to do some sledding.
I pretty much never have to do all of that all at once. Be honest, neither do you. But the groundswell of popularity for SUVs and crossovers – to say nothing of our decades-long love affair with the pickup truck – can trace its roots to that utilitarian mindset.
For many Americans, for a lot of years now, the perfect answer to the do-everything question has been a small or midsize pickup. Small trucks require compromises in interior space, and their fuel economy generally isn't leaps and bounds better than their fullsize counterparts. However, they offer just enough towing and hauling capability to go along with wieldy driving and parking manners, and, critically, a comparatively painless price point. Considering the longtime class-leader Toyota Tacoma is well past its prime, Chevrolet believes the time is right to reintroduce its midsize Colorado, now with more on offer than ever when it comes to livable, daily-drivable, multi-purpose behavior.
Asking fewer compromises than ever before, does this Colorado stack up solidly against the fullsize-truck bargains, and the now-ubiquitous small crossovers? I thrashed on one in Southern California in an attempt to find out.
Actually, my stint in the new Colorado (followed by seat time in its GMC Canyon twin... look for more on that soon) was already the second invitation I'd gotten to wheel The General's new pickup. Chevy officials asked me out to a super-secret early preview of the truck at the company's Milford Proving Grounds this summer, where I was to vet the ride, handling and powertrain performance in some not-production-ready prototypes on a piece of road course that incorporated sections of diverse surfaces (broken concrete, washboard ridges, etc.) as well as a section to go flat out and attempt hard cornering. What's more, the team even brought along a Toyota Tacoma and a Nissan Frontier for direct comparisons, as well as a Ford Escape to prove its competitive-with-crossovers theory.
Performance in terms of restricting vibration and harshness was pretty excellent on Chevy's home turf. The Colorado offered a controlled ride with good isolation of road harshness for the driver. In fact, the most basic four-cylinder-powered Colorado seemed tuned to mirror the placid ride of the Escape, which is pretty high praise considering how rough-and-tumble the Toyota and the Nissan seemed on the same roads.
In terms of that aforementioned fast cornering; it's safer for me to simply recommend that this shouldn't be your move if you're looking for some kind of NASCAR truck for the road. You probably wouldn't expect an I4 Colorado to offer huge lateral grip and ultra-precise steering, which is good, because it doesn't. Pushed to anywhere near its limit, the Colorado with offer up safe, benign understeer, as the front tires politely ask that you settle down a little.
For what it's worth, the aged Frontier really felt like the nippiest handler of the three midsize trucks I sampled at MPG, but none of them were particularly spirited.
On the roads around San Diego, the story was more of the same. The Colorado was smooth and amiable over mountain roads and through a smattering of California highway traffic, with very low levels of engine, exhaust and wind noise to boot. At cruising pace, the Colorado is every bit as unobtrusive as the most lux'd out fullsize trucks I've driven, and right in the game with CUVs like the Escape and Mazda CX-5.
Unless, that is, you ask up wide-open-throttle from the four-banger, at which point the exhaust note gets pretty pointed and ragged. Be more careful with your throttle inputs, however, and the four will silently steed you along.
Chevy will be happy to sell you a Colorado with its 305-horsepower, 269-pound-feet-of-torque, 3.6-liter V6 engine under the hood, but I was particularly interested in sampling the truck with that smaller, more frugal, and slightly raspy 2.5-liter four. In the service of attempting to do everything well, there just seems to be more potential here for fuel economy and price, without giving up too much in terms of truck-ability.
At 200 hp and 191 lb-ft, the four-cylinder moves the Colorado around confidently but not quickly. I never once felt as though the 2.5 was underpowered for basic commuter duty, though adding more passengers or a bed full of peat moss could slow down the reflexes a bit. There's no question that the beefier V6 is the way to go if you're at all interested in a tangible sense of power, but the four does score some interesting points for the balance of your checking account.
Though I drove the six-speed-manual truck at Milford (and loved it, even though the throws were long and the automatic makes a lot more sense for the powertrain), the 6AT will clearly be the volume transmission, which is mostly a good thing. I heard the trans hunting a bit moving through traffic on the highway, but for the most part, it would simply move into top gear as soon as it felt a steady-state cruise, and fade into the background. Kickdowns into lower gears felt a little rough, but not jarring.
Outfitted with that optional automatic trans and two-wheel drive, the Colorado will deliver 20 miles per gallon in the city and 27 on the highway (those figures drop to 19 city and 25 highway for 4WD models). That's a nice jump from the Tacoma's ratings of 19/25 city/highway in similar 2WD form, especially considering that the Taco's 2.7-liter engine tops out at 159 hp and 180 lb-ft. Leading the class, even a small class, in both power and economy is a pretty strong position from which to sell trucks.
And sell they will, if my eyes and the early commentary about the interior and exterior design is a critical factor. (Hint: it's always a critical factor.) Even the very basic trim of the truck you see in our photos doesn't do a whole lot to dull the Colorado's curb appeal. The 50/50 mix of strength and sport in this design has hooked me since the truck's debut, and the truth is that it holds up in person, too. The first pickup I ever really fell in love with was the Toyota SR5 that Marty used to take Jennifer up to the lake in Back to the Future, and, not to start a turf war with the Taco Club, I think the jacked-up rear stance and sharp front end of the Colorado do similar things on a modern level. Get this truck an agent.
But it's the cabin treatment that is the number one reason I believe smiling Chevy product planners when they tell me that the Colorado can work as a CUV replacement. That the new truck's interior is a better place to spend time than the confines of the ancient Nissan and Toyota midsizers goes without saying, but the truth is that it offers comfortable seats, quite a lot of available technology (including 4G LTE wifi), and nice touch points. Yes, the GMC iteration is really the superstar in terms of furniture and finish, but the Colorado cabin could easily accommodate someone used to driving mid-tier Japanese CUVs, for example. Again, my photo car was basically stripped of interior options, but the only thing that particularly calls that out is the tiny, standard info screen where the eight-inch MyLink system optionally lives.
So, in the 90-percent portion of the driving cycle and needs list, the Colorado stacks up pretty well as a one-size-fits-most tool. But what about the truck stuff? Throw the optional towing package on the V6-powered Chevy and it'll haul a respectable 7,000 pounds on a ball hitch. The four-cylinder that I drove for the bulk of the day will do half that. That does give the Colorado a bit of extra capacity versus Nissan and Toyota, however; a V6 Frontier maxes out towing a 6,300-pound load, while an I4 Tacoma is 100-pounds shy of the new Chevy, towing 3,400 pounds. GM has already promised a 2.8-liter Duramax turbodiesel engine option for the 2016 model year, and it's likely to be the towing workhorse of choice when it arrives.
Payload is a similar story. In the trim you see here, RWD with the six-foot, two-inch bed, the Colorado can lug 1,450 pounds to 1,175 for the Tacoma. The V6 truck outdoes its Nissan equivalent by about 100 pounds of payload, depending on trim. Chevy also boasts of features like 13 adjustable tie-down locations, GM's popular CornerStep rear bumper and a soft-open feature for the tailgate, seen below, to make the cargo space as civilized as possible.
Starting at just under $21,000, and arriving pretty well zooted for under $25k, the Colorado isn't a price leader, but it does feel like an awful lot of truck for the money. The Frontier is still the budget special with a base price around $18,000, and the Taco just a pinch cheaper at $20,765, but you can clearly see (and hear, and feel) that Chevy has spent your money well in both engineering and finishing school. In case you're curious, today's fullsize pickups start at about $6,000 more and comparably equipped models can total roughly $10,000 more.
GM doesn't just think it's got the new best product in the segment, it is sure that it has leapfrogged the existing competition by a pretty significant margin. I'm not usually one to swallow that kind of rhetoric without contest, but the truth is that even five minutes of comparison driving should convince just about anyone.
Beyond that – a decade-old competitive set is hardly noble, even if it's the reality – the Colorado is a fine product on its own merits. I think that the CUV-competition angle is valid, though it'll take a lifestyle choice as well as a practical one to convince a RAV4 or CR-V shopper to give the Colorado a look. Similarly, there are likely to be plenty of fullsize truck buyers that would prefer a larger, decontented F-150 or Ram (or Silverado) to a slightly less butch midsize pickup. This is America, after all.
Still, while the Colorado may not do everything, it's a very capable, attractive and useful thing. Perhaps the Swiss Army will place an order?
Engine: 3.6L V6
Power: 305 HP / 269 LB-FT
Transmission: 6-Speed Auto
Drivetrain: Four-Wheel Drive
Engine Placement: Front
Curb Weight: 4,420 LBS
Towing:7,000 LBS
Seating: 2+3
Cargo: 41.3 CU-FT
MPG: 17 City / 24 HWY
Warranty: 3 Year / 36,000 Miles
Base Price: $26,725
As-Tested Price: $39,760
As discussed earlier today, the 2015 Chevrolet Colorado is a new standout in terms of midsize trucks. But the Colorado wasn't the only pickup the General Motors team brought to San Diego for us to sample. Also along for the ride was a pack of GMC Canyons, the slightly more expensive and polished platform-mate to the Chevy.
There's no question that the Canyon and the Colorado are a lot alike under the skin – almost entirely, in fact – so GMC has worked to first create some daylight between the two trucks by way of sheetmetal. This is most obvious from the front view, where the blocky and blingy GMC grille replaces the more subdued tone and shape seen on the Chevy's nose. Projector headlights with LED running lights come as standard, and, again, with the squared-off look that is typical of the brand. 16-inch aluminum wheels come stock on the GMC, too, with the 17-inchers seen on my photo truck offered as standard equipment on the top-trim SLT.
GMC considers the Canyon to be the only premium truck in the segment (which is clearly true), and the team has spent a ton of time and effort to get the interior correct to prove out that point. "Any trim that looks like metal, is metal," I was told at the product briefing, a certain indication that the company is serious about bringing a new class of buyer to a truck segment that it hopes to redefine.
But it's not all chrome and heated leather seats. GMC has delivered a truck that's pretty swell to spend time in, from soup to nuts.
Driving Notes
The 2.5-liter four-cylinder that was the focus of my First Drive of the Colorado is the standard engine for the Canyon as well, but the truck I drove was equipped with the far punchier (and thirstier at 17 miles per gallon city, 24 highway) 3.6-liter V6. Not only does the six make a healthy 305 horsepower and 269 pound-feet of torque, but the throttle modulation and automatic transmission programming both work to let you take advantage of the power in short order.
For the sake of reference, though GMC doesn't offer up any performance specs like 0-60 times, I can say that the Crew Cab, four-wheel-drive Canyon I drove weighs in at roughly 4,420 pounds, which would give it a power-to-weight ratio that's just slightly better than a Honda Civic Si. Tell this pickup to giddy-up, and she'll go.
Perhaps more pertinently, she'll also tow. GMC asks a reasonable $250 for the trailering package, which adds a two-inch receiver hitch and four- and seven-pin connectors. So equipped, the midsize Canyon can pull a legit 7,000 pounds, or, as I like to call it "more boat than I can afford."
Unladen, handling offered by the GMC truck is part and parcel to its Chevy contemporary. Steering is stable at speed but not quick nor full of feedback, and pushing the Canyon over, well, canyon roads, doesn't yield particularly stirring results. The ride control is excellent however, when it comes to ironing out uneven surfaces. A cruiser, not a carver.
As I alluded to above, the interior of this all-boxes-ticked GMC is a pretty excellent place to drive in. Leather and soft-touch surfaces abound here, with nice stitching on the instrument panel, and hide wrappers found on both the steering wheel and the shift lever. Not as cowboyed up as Ram's Longhorn Laramie package, I'll grant you, but slightly more sophisticated than that, too.
Noise, vibration and harshness levels are all very low for a pickup truck – they're even pretty low when compared with sedans, frankly. I caught a bit of wind rush off of those big, chromed mirrors at highway speeds, but otherwise this is a nice space to cruise and kick the Bose stereo.
Which brings us to equipment offered. The un-optioned Canyon starts with things like a backup camera, automatic transmission, LED lighting and a chromed rear bumper, but for my money it starts to separate itself meaningfully from the Chevy at the mid-level SLE trim. Stickering for $30,980 you get 17-inch wheels, power side mirrors, foglamps, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, the far-nicer eight-inch infotainment display and the ability to turn use your truck as a 4G LTE hotspot via OnStar.
GMC made a big deal about the driveability offered with a midsize footprint, and I can agree that something Canyon-sized feels more graceful around town than does a fullsizer. Still, there'll be a learning curve for any drivers transitioning out of a compact crossover – like a Honda CR-V or Ford Escape – especially with the longer (six-feet, two-inches) bed size. Having that rear camera and good forward visibility should help in parking lots though.
With a premium look and feel, and the ability to option in to a very large number of bells and whistles, GMC really is breaking new ground for a truck segment that has mostly existed for value shoppers, thus far. The nearly-$40k-as-tested price of the truck you see here proves that Canyon can get expensive in a hurry. But if lessons about luxury-added-specifications can be gleaned from the fullsize truck market though – and GMC most certainly thinks they can *– than there could be a lot of money to be found in this new niche.
Profitable or not though, I can at least report that the Canyon's mixture of good looks, great power, and smooth manners makes for a welcome driving companion. With its brother a Chevy offering a more blue-collar version of the same basic goodness, GM has a one-two midsize punch that could knock the market for a loop.
Even without a formal review or test-drive myself (and from what little I saw at the D.C. Auto Show up on the turntable), I'm sure this new one is far better than the old....it pretty much has to be. My low opinion of the old Colorado/Canyon (and its rebadged Isuzu I-270/350 twin) bordered on contempt.
These reviews comment that both trucks look great in person and have class leading interiors... something must really not be translating in photos, because to me, the exterior of the Colorado looks about two decades old, and the Canyon, maybe one decade. There seems to be absolutely no aggression or attitude in the Chevy, and the GMC is typical hard angles and overdone chrome everywhere.
Glad to hear that the powertrains and driving dynamics seem to be top notch, but I really don't like anything else about these two trucks.
These reviews comment that both trucks look great in person and have class leading interiors... something must really not be translating in photos, because to me, the exterior of the Colorado looks about two decades old, and the Canyon, maybe one decade.
agree. i find them (particularly the colorado) to look cheap AND ugly.
Glad to hear that the powertrains and driving dynamics seem to be top notch, but I really don't like anything else about these two trucks.
Simply not being the old model is a major advance by itself. It's hard to describe how poorly done the old trucks were unless you saw them for yourself.
These reviews comment that both trucks look great in person and have class leading interiors... something must really not be translating in photos, because to me, the exterior of the Colorado looks about two decades old, and the Canyon, maybe one decade. There seems to be absolutely no aggression or attitude in the Chevy, and the GMC is typical hard angles and overdone chrome everywhere.
Glad to hear that the powertrains and driving dynamics seem to be top notch, but I really don't like anything else about these two trucks.
Fianally got to see the Canyon and the twin Colorado today. Not all that great to tell you the truth, I thought I was stuck in 1996, the interiors are drab and very dull. The GMC looked good but the Cheby looked pretty dull.
These trucks are big, and from a distance the crew cab looks like a lowered full size. Apparently the Tacoma is the same size, but the mighty reliable Tacoma does not look bloated.
I would keep my Tacoma over the GM any day of the week. The GM trucks should do ok but Toyota shouldn't worry.
While maybe dull, even the new Chevy's interior is 1000% better, with better materials, than the old one. One had to see the old trucks to really understand how second-rate they were.
I think this was their last good looking entry in this segment:
I know I wanted one in high school.
While I agree trucks of this generation looked more rugged, it does take a little sex appeal these days for even trucks as they become more popular in households that expect modern and sporty themes
I think this was their last good looking entry in this segment:
I know I wanted one in high school.
I have to agree, the last flock of S10 and Sonoma trucks were the best styled GM had. I think the interior was even better than the new one which kinda felt drab and dreary.
I have to agree, the last flock of S10 and Sonoma trucks were the best styled GM had. I think the interior was even better than the new one which kinda felt drab and dreary.
I'm sorry but that's borderline insanity... I know it's subjective, but there's no way that this:
Is better than this:
Aside from the gauge cluster where the speedo and tach leave a bit to be desired, there is real aluminum trim (canyon), a large, high resolution touch screen, solid ***** with good rubber grip, leather dash with stitching (canyon), and so on.
I'm sorry but that's borderline insanity... I know it's subjective, but there's no way that this:
Is better than this:
Aside from the gauge cluster where the speedo and tach leave a bit to be desired, there is real aluminum trim (canyon), a large, high resolution touch screen, solid ***** with good rubber grip, leather dash with stitching (canyon), and so on.
Check out the new one in person and see if you find it drab and dreary.
I'm sorry but that's borderline insanity... I know it's subjective, but there's no way that this:
Is better than this:
I agree, pbm317. Subjective, yes, but I see it pretty much the way you do. When the S-10 and Sonoma came out, GM truck/SUV interiors, in general, were just about at their dull, cheap-plastic worst, although somehow, the 1Gen Colorado/Canyon managed to extend that cheapness and flimsiness to the doors and body panels as well. Their five-cylinder standard engine was unimpressive as well. In my view, there's no question that the new 2Gen Colorado/Canyon, overall, is an enormous improvement. However, the all-new 2016 Toyota Tacoma is likely to be good competition for them....that's going to be an interesting comparison.
09-24-14, 05:29 PM
First Drive / Quick Spin: 2015 Chevrolet Colorado / 2015 GMC Canyon
