The GMC CarbonPro carbon composite bed may be the hottest thing in the land of pickup trucks today, but it’s certainly not new to General Motors. In fact, some may remember that, just after the dawn of the 21st century, GM introduced the Pro-Tec composite box on the Chevrolet Silverado pickups. Billed as a game-changing product that could change the way pickup trucks were built, the Pro-Tec box was a great idea, but it died just two years later.
The GM Pro-Tec box was available exclusively in a short bed length and had the benefit of being lighter, resistant to rusting and denting (from both inside and outside), and probably would be much cheaper to build in the long run. A total of $64 million were invested into the GM Fort Wayne plant in Indiana to build the Silverado 1500 with the new Pro-Tec box, which was then sold as an $850 option.
However, that $64 million wasn’t likely an all-in investment from GM, but rather a trial run to explore producing composite pickup boxes en masse, which is probably the reason Pro-Tec was only offered in a single length.
And that’s where the problems started. GM did not market Pro-Tec whatsoever, placing the responsibility of selling the Pro-Tec box to customers on dealerships, which had to take a chance on ordering a Pro-Tec-equipped Silverado despite little consumer interest and demand. GM projected 50,000 sales in the first year, but only about 10,000 units of the box were sold during its entire production run spanning two model years before being discontinued.
Now, almost two decades later, GM is giving composite pickup boxes another go with CarbonPro. Unlike Pro-Tec, the new CarbonPro is a carbon fiber composite (as opposed to a plastic composite) and it will be available on the GMC Sierra, rather on the Chevy Silverado, at least initially.
GMC will launch CarbonPro with a limited-run model called the GMC Sierra CarbonPro Edition that will be available on the half-ton 2019 Sierra AT4 and 2019 Sierra Denali. Availability will then expand for the 2020 GMC Sierra 1500 and to the 2020 GMC Sierra HD. Rumor has it that the Silverado will also get a version of the same box at some point in the future.
Here’s to hoping that GM has learned from the Pro-Tec mishaps, and markets CarbonPro in the same aggressive fashion that it’s advertising the MultiPro tailgate.
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Comments
Pro-tec beds were the entire bed, inside and out. I love those! No rust. I may be wrong but aren’t these carbon beds just the insides with sheet metal outer skins? If so, I don’t see the benefit given the metal will still rust away. You’d be just as well off buying a bed liner IMO. If the carbon beds are the entire beds like the pro-tec was, it’s a winner in my book.
CarbonPro is the entire bed and walls inside the box. It’s a better and smarter solution all around than Pro-Tec.
This is false. CarbonPro is NOT all composite. The outer box sides are still steel.
ProTec was superior as EVERY part of the bed was composites. Insides and outsides.
A lot of the SS Silverado guys would trade a child for a Pro-Tec bed
I think the Pro-tec was a good idea for it’s time. With a little promotion along with that improvements along the way from GM it could have been a success. But then GM has a reputation of innovating things only to let them die on the vine by not promoting them,offering them in very limited numbers and not improving them.
If people had the chance to look back and see what their short bed pickup quarters looked like in ten years they would have bought the Pro-Tec option.
The dealers played the biggest role in the early death of the Pro-tec bed. Dealers wanted to sell customers the bedliners they offered, not a truck with a bed that wouldn’t need one. Maybe not all of them did that, but a lot of them did.
The Protec beds were nowhere near what we have today. People were Leary paying nearly $1k more for a beds that was not as strong and durable as the steel bed.
Today the Carbon Pro is stronger and more durable than the steel.
“And that’s where the problems started.” “Here’s to hoping that GM has learned from the Pro-Tec mishaps,”
Was GM supposed to jump in with both feet, with their most important vehicle, with something that had never been done before?
Gary Flint, chief engineer at Honda R&D Americas Inc.
“This isn’t the most cost-efficient way to make a bed,” Flint admits. “If you’re knocking out 900,000 trucks a year, steel would be cheaper. But that’s not our volume target.”
https://www.autonews.com/article/20050124/SUB/501240701/honda-ridgeline-forgoes-steel-for-composite-bed
This was all going on while GM was and had always been working on new and better (lighter) body panels for the Corvette. GM deciding to see how far they could go with it and put some doe into it, to, test the market, being first and all was a “mishap”. It would be a problem if their dealer network struggled to stay afloat. I do know one thing financing a bed liner over 60 months is foolish, no thanks.
Did they really get it wrong? was it a “mishap”? in price maybe, trucks cost quite a bit less in 2001 and $850 was a much bigger chunk of change then. One thing is for sure, it would have been foolish to go all in without testing the truck market first.
Was it a “mishap”? I don’t think so, there are fowl balls in baseball!
We now have a Corvette with a hi-tech light weight body. Can’t wait to see all the goodness in the C8!
In that era GM was going broke. They also were trying to continue to develop product that really was not ready for the market but by using the market to show their advancements.
The Protech bed was more of a way to test the waters and to test the product in customers hands to see if it had enough of what it needed. Like the 4 wheel steering and 864 engines it was a little before its time.
The same with the Impact car. It was no where near ready for the public hence the lease deals. The cost was too high and there were still limitations. GM made the decision to get them out into the public but the publicity came back t burn them as too many think they were fully viable profitable cars when they were no where close. GM needed to have kept those in house and not have leased them. They should have been a program much like the Chrysler Turbo’s in the 60’s.
Materials today have come a long way in a very short time. Steel has made the most progress and next Carbon Composites will be the next. The mixed material builds GM adopted are now the way of the future in the industry. Things like all Aluminum trucks are not going to continue. Note the Ranger did not go that route and the next F150 will begin to mix more materials.
I think the ratio is for every 6% of weight loss you gain 10% more MPG. So this will be big. As metals get thinner they will make them stronger. they are around $2-3 a pound. Composite’s were around $7-8 but are coming down with the cuts in production time. The first molded Composite’s were 7-8 min cure time. We are now down to one min. They hope to reach instant soon.
SAE magazine has several very good stories on this this month.
I have a Pro-Tec bed on my work truck, I wish the whole body was the same. No rust!
Only problem is finding a tool box that fits it.
This new bed has no way to attach an aftermarket cover or fiberglass cap to it. This is a huge oversight by GM. I have worked
for an ARE cap dealer for twenty years and and I know what I am talking about. Guys keep this I mind when looking at new GMC pickups.