Chevrolet Welcomes Inbound Pickup Competition From Jeep
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Arguably, Chevrolet stole the spotlight when it reintroduced the Colorado midsize pickup after years of Toyota’s dominance in the segment. Times have changed, though.
The gamble of introducing the truck has returned incredible results celebrated by both General Motors and Chevrolet. But, as they say, competition is good for everyone, and it’s not much of a secret that Jeep is readying a Wrangler pickup to do battle with the Colorado.
During our time with the 2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, we asked the brand what it thought about Jeep placing a target on the segment, especially with the Colorado ZR2 surpassing what Hummer was capable of doing. Here’s what Monte Doran, Chevrolet trucks spokesman, had to say.
We welcome the interest in the midsize segment. The segment had been relatively stagnant before Chevrolet introduced the Colorado. Since then, the Colorado has taken a quarter of the market and reinvigorated the segment.
If it isn’t apparent, the brand is quite confident in their midsize pickup platform and clearly expects it to do great things well into the future. All we can do is sit back and see how it all plays out.
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jeep must beat out the Chevrolet model to really steal the spotlight. Jeeps are also not known for reliability. The jeep could introduce the HEMI, which would be a significant power upgrade, but the 8-speed transmission accepts many motors, and have heard some fellas walking up to a dealer and special ordering from the factory a Colorado with the 5.3 engine. The Colorado is a more sure platform, hopefully Gm keeps up the options to keep the compettion tight.
No one has “walked up to a dealer and ordered a Colorado with the 5.3L engine” from the factory. Myths, rumors, and fairy tales those are.
But let’s think about the point of the midsize pickup truck segment: it’s smaller, lighter, and more liveable — and the Colorado/Canyon is exactly that. There are also the fuel economy benefits, which GM needs in order to comply with future CAFE regulations. At the volumes in whihch GM sells full-size trucks, it simply becomes difficult to comply with such regulations. Hence, midsize trucks with better fuel economy and no V-8 engines.
I expect the Wrangler/Jeep pickup to either stick with the current 3.6L V-6 or perhaps introduce a smaller-displacement below it as the base offering, and do not expect to see any HEMI V-8s. Their vehicle will sell to the Jeep faithful, and there’s nothing GM can do about that. What GM can do is start competing with the Wrangler with an SUV off the Colorado/Canyon platform.
I think the Jeep pickup will do well, but probably not as well as GM/Chevrolet. Where the Jeep will really sell is with the “I actually take my SUV off-road” crowd. With many of the aftermarket accessories made for the JL also working on the pickup it will be easy (but probably not cheap) to modify and customize them. I am not really in the market for a pickup, but a diesel Rubicon edition would be really tempting.