GMC Once Sold A Widly Misnamed Van With The Most Generic Tagline Ever

How does one name a van? This is a question a child might ask, but not a childish question. Our co-founder Beau once told me, with a faraway look in his eyes, that naming cars is the “sport of Kings,” and he’s not wrong. Naming cars is notoriously difficult, and that includes vans, of course. You’d think a van’s name should convey things like utility and maybe spaciousness or workhorsitude or perhaps even evoke certain exotic locales or suggest maybe a bit of adventure, depending on the van’s configuration and target audience. But I don’t think there’s a good argument to be made for naming your van after a type of car racing suited to small, nimble, fast, and rugged cars.

I’m talking about the GMC Rally, which was the GMC-badged version of the G-series Chevy Van. The GMC versions were called the Vandura for the cargo variant, and Rally for the passenger version.

Now, Vandura is actually a pretty good van name – combines what the car is (van) with some made-up suffix that suggests a known word with positive connotations pretty readily (-dura/durable). It’s the Rally name I want to talk about now, because while I get that “rally” as a concept in the automotive world is an exciting one but if you think about the cars that are known to be great rally cars – Lancia Stratos, Ford RS200, Audi Quattro, Mitsubishi Lancer Evos, and so on – these are cars that share almost nothing in common with vans. Even passenger vans.

“Rally” just seems like such a mis-applied name for a van like this, which is primarily a passenger van. You know, like a church van, maybe, or a van for a big family, pretty much among the last sorts of vehicles you’d want to take on a rally, unless maybe that was an experience you just had to share with 11 of your closest friends.

I suppose in terms of people-per-rally stage, this thing could be quite competitive, one driver and 10 co-drivers and maybe an on-board mechanic, too.

This 1983 brochure has a lot of interesting stuff once you get past the strangely off-base name. Like what seems to be the motto for GMC’s line of passenger vans:

“It’s for going place and doing things.”

This motto is fantastic because I think you should be able to apply to pretty much any motor vehicle ever made, except perhaps for really specialized things like airport luggage trolleys or maybe mining trucks. But even then, it kinda works. What vehicle of any type isn’t for going places and doing things? A horse-drawn chariot is for that. So is a tank. So is an autogyro or hovercraft or a 1985 Honda Prelude or the presidential limo. They go places, so the people inside can do things. Things at places.

It’s a tagline that almost incorporates the definition of a noun: it’s for [people] going places to do things.

It’s really incredible in its powerful non-specificity.

This brochure has some other subtle and fascinating details. Like that seat up there, which, when folded down, somehow looks more like a person attempting to limbo than any seat I’ve ever seen, and I’m not certain why, exactly.

Or these paragraphs, which really feel like some copywriter was desperately trying to pad out the text in the brochure:

I feel like a picture with labels would have done this better. It’s odd to see trim level details like this spelled out in such a straightforward way? I mean, I don’t mind having the brochure walk me through headlamp and parking light sizes, number, and location in words, I’m just not used to it.

This is a great cutaway, though.

Oh, and here’s something I can’t recall ever seeing in a brochure before:

So, we currently talk about EVs and how long it takes them to recharge, but I can’t think of another example where a carmaker has touted the time it takes to fill up a fuel tank on a car before? And, in this case, I think I see why they’re so excited: 20 gallons per minute? Holy crap that’s fast! But doesn’t that depend on the rate of flow of the pump? And, how are they doing this? Is the fuel filler diameter the size of a watermelon?

I can see how this would maybe be an issue for a commercial truck, but for a private passenger vehicle? Anyway, fascinating!