GMC Once Teased America With Pickup Trucks That Had Everything From A Laptop And A Cellphone To A Motorcycle Ramp And A Generator

Here in America, the pickup truck is often treated as a sort of everything vehicle. It’s your office, your date car, your hot rod, and your toy. Pickup truck manufacturers have spent decades turning their trucks into jacks-of-all-trades, but few have gone as crazy as GMC. Back in the 2000s, GMC built a pair of one-off pickup trucks that explored the idea of your truck being what was essentially a jobsite and office on wheels. The 1999 GMC Sierra Professional Concept and the 2001 GMC Sierra Pro Plus put laptops, phones, ramps, generators, coolers, massaging seats, briefcases, air compressors, and so much more into GM’s legendary GMT800 truck.

The GMC of 2000 went through a rebranding. It spent the 1990s telling customers slogans like “It’s not just a truck anymore. It’s quality on the road,” and “The Strength of Experience.” At the same time, Chevrolet’s truck division ran its iconic “Like A Rock” ad campaign. GMC’s trucks needed something to really set themselves apart from their similar Chevrolet brethren, and “We Are Professional Grade” was just the thing. It was a signal to buyers that a Sierra was for the hard-working person in the trades. The slogan leaned on GMC’s past as the commercial vehicle experts of General Motors.

This rebranding was more than just a slogan, as GMC wanted to show America that it meant business with this whole “Professional Grade” thing, and decided to build a flurry of concept trucks meant to work harder and be more comfortable than the typical work truck. One of the pickup trucks that helped kick off this new era of GMC was the 1999 GMC Sierra Professional Concept, which made its debut at the SEMA show that year.

The GMC Sierra Professional Concept

GMC says it built the Sierra Professional Concept to showcase innovative features for construction industry professionals. At the time, General Motors was pushing the GMT800 platform, the successor to the legendary GMT400 and GM’s big swing to claw back sales from the Ford F-Series.

GMC rolled into the 1999 SEMA show with what it marketed as the “Ultimate Builder’s Truck.” As with many SEMA builds, it was a nod to what you might be able to make with aftermarket parts. Unfortunately, like so many things from around this time on the Internet, press releases and images have largely been lost. Thankfully, PowerNation TV has kept its video of the truck online. Click here to watch.

Starting with a Sierra 2500HD extended cab, GMC made drastic changes to the interior, turning it into a mobile office. Where the radio would normally be is a touchscreen, and GMC says it controls all of the mobile office electronics. The screen, for example, can deploy a laptop that motorizes out of the dashboard. This laptop has wireless internet access and can be used as a big GPS. The dash screen can also be used as a GPS and has a clock and a stereo function. The vehicle’s electronics also feature OnStar.

GMC says it partnered up with the Lear Corporation on the center console, and it gets pretty crazy. It starts with a pocket that slides open to reveal a mobile phone. Next to that bit is a set of electrically powered cupholders that can keep drinks hot or cold.

Opening the console reveals even more gadgets. A color printer is directly under the hatch. Under that is a removable electric-powered chest that can keep food items either hot or cold. GMC says the interior also has a removable trash can and clipboard storage.

There’s even stuff going on in the back of the cab. Under the driver’s seat is a compartment for blueprint storage, and under that is a tub for power tool storage. On the side wall in the extended portion of the cab is a flip-out compartment to charge tool batteries.

All of this joins an auto-dimming rearview mirror, urethane floor mats, and vinyl seat covers that are made to be easy to clean. For a finishing touch, GMC carved out a compartment into the rear doors where an interior color-matched briefcase lives. GMC was able to add all of this without affecting the rear bench seat.

The bombastic changes continue outside, where GMC and Lear added a 5kW generator that runs from the truck’s V8 engine. The outlets for the generator live behind a fuel-door-like flap under the driver’s-side rear window.

Moving to the rear, the tailgate has a built-in Gator Ramp to roll equipment or maybe a motorcycle into the bed. That bed then has more tricks, including an air compressor and a stainless steel toolbox.

Under the bed is a Quic’n Easy telescoping and shock-absorbing trailer hitch. The idea behind this bad boy is that the hitch can move around, making hitching easier. Then, the shock-absorbing portion is supposed to reduce wear on the truck and trailer during towing.

Another towing aid is a set of mirrors that electrically extend into a towing position. These mirrors look like they come from a previous-generation GM truck. Up top, a rack system that can carry 1,000 pounds of ladders, lumber, kayaks, canoes, or whatever else you’d want to stow over the bed. The finishing touch is a Warn winch with a 9,500-pound capacity.

As I noted, a lot of these parts were aftermarket pieces that you could have picked up and installed on your own truck. That included the winch, the tailgate ramp, the Quic’n Easy trailer hitch, the air compressor, the rack, and the toolbox. Some were specific to the SEMA truck, like the dashboard computer and the generator.

GMC Did It Again

Amazingly, the Sierra Professional Concept wasn’t a one-time deal. In 2001, GMC went back to SEMA with the Sierra Pro Plus, and this one went even harder. Unfortunately, despite a lot of digging, I found zero interior images. GMC lists all of the changes:

Specifications
– Heavy Duty 4WD extended cab with 6½-foot composite pickup box.
– 6.0L Vortec 6000 V8 with Magnuson supercharger package (under consideration for future models by GM Performance Parts) increases maximum hp by 20 percent to 328 hp @ 5250 rpm, and increases maximum torque 23 percent to 356 lb-ft @ 4500 rpm.
– Automatic 4-speed transmission with overdrive.
– 4.10 rear axle ratio.
– Handling/trailering suspension and trailering equipment.
– Electronic shift transfer case.

Interior Features
– Magna lockable floor console including Palm Pilot and cell phone storage station with always-on charging outlets, thermo-electric hot/cold cupholder and removable thermo-electric hot/cold cooler.
– Lockable, reconfigurable storage box under rear seat.
– 60/40 split bench rear seat with 40-percent portion removable.
– Portable multi-bin tool box/organizer that installs in place of the removable 40-percent portion of 60/40 rear bench seat.
– Rear driver door panel with removable Panasonic Toughbook laptop computer in magnesium case.
– Rear passenger door panel removable tool kit bag.
– Front seat back storage hook system with storage tube and matching interior accents for holding drawings.
– Instrument panel cluster with electro-luminescent white gauges and brushed aluminum gauge bezels.
– Custom steering wheel leather wrap and brushed aluminum accents.
– Professional grade seat covering with woven vinyl seat inserts (front and rear).
– Door panels with matching woven vinyl inserts on trim bolsters.
– L.L. Bean Waterhog front and rear floor mats.
– Driver and passenger Grammer Air Ride seats including massage lumbar system.
– Sunshade mounted 12-Disc CD holder (GM Accessories).

Exterior Features
– Magna Reconfigurable Tailgate Module acts as bed extender or extendable ramp.
– Delbar/PowerVision power extendable trailering mirrors.
– Dura power rear sliding window (under development by GM Accessories as a future accessory).
– Quarter side storage with tool box, tool trays, tool kits, storage buckets, portable snake lights, blueprint clips and interchangeable bins designed for specific trades.
– TracRac Bed Rack System (GM Accessories) modified on this vehicle to hold ladders, wood, pipe or other construction materials.
– Accent rear lighting to illuminate bed area of the truck.
– Tone-on-tone roof marker lamps.
– Webasto dual power sunroofs.
– Adjustable cargo bed.
– Peragon brushed aluminum hard sliding cargo cover with lock.
– Reese dual port hitch system for pulling trailer or attaching carrying rack.
– Optimum Charcoal paint styled by Nippon Paint – Color Design Studio of America (CDSA) and formulated in Sherwin-Williams paint.
– Custom wheel flares with industrial fastener accents in body color.
– Tone-on-tone front fascia with integrated driving lamps and grille.
– Custom body-color molded hood protector.
– Bodyside molding with protective brushed accents with rubberized “Sierra PRO PLUS” badging.
– CustomTow hooks with brushed accent finish.
– Rocker step shield and running board system, wheel-to-wheel in body color with brushed accents and Pro-Tech rubberized/glass accent paint (acrylic-based urethane produced from recycled materials).
– Panther 17” x 8” machined aluminum six-spoke wheels with eight lugs.
– 17-inch blackwall on-road/off-road tires.
– Dual exhaust with brushed tips.

Rounding out this build was an upgraded security system, plus a Porter-Cable Sawboss circular saw, Tiger saw, half-inch keyless-chuck hammer drill, and a flashlight.

The GMC Sierra Professional

Perhaps the most impressive part to me was that GMC didn’t just tell customers to go to the aftermarket and try to replicate these trucks themselves. In 2002, GMC made a sort-of production version of the show truck with the GMC Sierra Professional.

The Professional edition gave the buyer a Sierra Heavy Duty grille (even on 1500 versions), fender flares, body moldings with “Sierra Professional” embossed on them, a pre-installed bedliner, and aluminum wheels.

Inside, a storage compartment lived under the rear bench seat, and the center console was a sort of watered-down version of the concept truck’s. There, you got a docking station for a PDA, electrically heated and cooled cupholders, a hot and cold electric cooler, and a large bin for a clipboard, files, or other things. The cupholders were specifically designed to hold the biggest fast food drink cups available in 2001. Optional was a bed rack, hood protector, brush guard, and bed extender.

The Sierra Professional package was made available to both Sierra 1500s and 2500HDs, provided they had a short box and an extended cab and were either an SLE or an SLT. GMC did not advertise a price in its documentation, and MotorTrend never mentioned a price in its quick drive review. It’s also unclear how many were made. What I can say is that Sierra Professional trucks do show up in GMT800 communities sometimes, and the truck folks in them go wild for them. So far as I can tell, the Sierra Professional was a one-year-only model that was meant to be something for fans of the concept to buy, which explains why they’re rather rare.

I just love that GMC went nuts like this. The pickup truck makers of today brag about their rigs having built-in generators or places for your clipboards. All the way back in 1999, GMC thought you’d want a truck that spat a laptop out of its dashboard like one of those car stereos with a deployable screen. Personally, the part I love the most is the cooled cupholders. Somehow, I’ve never driven a single pickup truck with such a feature, and I bet they would make a summer drive so much cooler.

I wonder what a more modern interpretation of this idea would look like? Some of these bits, like the winches, built-in generator, infotainment screen, towing mirrors, and so on can be found on today’s trucks. But I’d love to see a truck spit out a MacBook and have a built-in cooler. Come on, Detroit, give us another hardcore work truck concept!

Top graphic image: GMC