How A Revived GMT400 Could Be The Real Bare Bones Basic Truck People Are Clamoring For

I don’t know if Andy Warhol’s theory about everyone getting fifteen minutes of fame holds true for cars, but if so, the new Slate truck is receiving its quarter of an hour right now. Maybe even half an hour. Along with the still-cooking  REO pickup, the interwebs are all a-Twitter about bare-bones basic vehicles under $25,000 hitting the market.

Dare I say it, but some of the Slate enthusiasm borders on the rabid levels of Cybertruck fandom a few years ago. “How dare you give us power windows, extended cabs and radios,” they scream, demanding hair-shirt austerity and going so far as to claim that legacy automakers could give us such affordable products but are refusing to do so. Their conspiracy theories battle with the unreleased water-powered engine or 100-mile-per-gallon carburetor for silliness.

Still, the ruler of the tiny island nation of Jasonia – Dear Leader Torch – is sympathetic to these fanatics, as any man with a 29-horsepower car would be, and he’d love to see one of the Big 3 answer the call for a Basic Truck. Torch thinks the answer is not creating something brand new, but instead reviving the legendary GMT400. Is he a mad genius, or just mad? Regardless, an opportunity popped up for him the other day that, in the alternate universe, made it possible.

At Least He Didn’t Ask For The Chevette Tooling

“We’re shutting it down, Jason.” Torch knew this was coming.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra has been closing down unprofitable overseas divisions for years, and she eventually realized that GM of Jasonia’s taillight and turn signal factory was bleeding cash. Still, as Dear Leader Torch of Jasonia listened to Mary on the other end of the line of the car phone (hardwired) in his gleaming black Tatra limo, he was aware that fast action was needed on his part to save jobs for his loyal subjects.

“That’s too bad, Mary. Sorry to hear it. Of course, you know your predecessor signed an ironclad contract and a 25-year lease. You can probably get out of it, I’m sure, but a dispute with an emerging nation would be a really bad look for a big car company like yours and …”

Mary cut him off mid-sentence. “What do you want, Torch?” she barked back, having little time for his crap, especially when he held at least a few good cards. Emerging nation my ass. “Well, Mary, do you happen to have the tooling for the GMT400 trucks? I’ve always loved those things and …” Once again, Mary interrupts. “How about I ship you the tooling for those old single- and extended-cab pickups, you get me out of the factory lease, and we never talk again?” Jason agreed, and the phone went dead. He wasn’t sure if Mary had hung up or the horrible Jasonian phone service had failed once again (they have only one service man in a faded old 1974 Pacific Bell Econoline van).

Torch had gotten what he wanted for himself and the Jasonian citizens: they would get to build, sell, and drive the last great full-sized GM pickup. Maybe you’d like one too!

Pickup Man

Let’s face it: almost any American truck becomes an icon as it ages. Still, despite being released nearly forty years ago, the 1988 to 2002 GMT400 is one example that just doesn’t look right in a country music video or on a T-shirt trying to show an “old truck.” It’s still too modern looking for that.

Our own Adrian Clarke wrote an excellent post on how pure the design was on these evergreen things:

Just how good were they? Think about this: Not only were they in production for nearly twelve years, look at what came before and after. The GMT400 was a huge step forward functionally, technically and aesthetically over the previous GM ‘square body’ that preceded it. The design language was so successful the first time around it couldn’t easily be improved upon, and the replacement GMT 800s that appeared in 2000 were a retrograde step, visually speaking.

If the GMT 800 was a retrograde step, what on earth can we say about this latest version of Chevy’s popular full-sized vehicle?

For one, I’d say it looks painfully busy and heavy-looking. It’s also incredibly tall, a fact that becomes painfully obvious when you go to carsized.com and compare it to a GMT400:

The length of the regular cab 2026 isn’t that much longer, but the height is vastly increased. In front, the styling does no favors to the big and blunt nose, but my guess is that the designers were trying their best not to conceal the height and get the most massive-looking truck they could.

From the rear, it’s clear that, despite the bulk, the cargo space is not appreciably different on the new truck versus the old one.

The designers and engineers at the now-Torch-controlled GM of Jasonia love the GMT400; this would be almost like Jasonia’s own Slate or REO truck. It’s a big, useable pickup with just enough modern amenities and none of the excess fat. However, some of them questioned selling such a vehicle to modern buyers. They could add new airbags and such, but would it still be legal in today’s world?

Jason isn’t worried. “Well, you can buy the Chevy Express van here, right? That’s nearly as old as the GMT400. Would other new cars be safer than this old truck? Sure, but you know that going in. Seriously, are we going to ban riding motorcycles? Same thing here.”

Well, maybe Torch had a point. Even if he didn’t, they had no choice but to proceed with the revival; hell, they still had jobs, right? “This sounds like it will be the ideal work truck,” said one of the GM of Jasonia executives. “Yes,” quipped Jason, “but I’ve got something better in mind. I want this to be bought by the coolest tastemakers on earth.”

So Cool Without Even Trying

Many months later, the back door of the GM of Jasonia factory opens, and a shiny white pickup truck rolls out with its white paint gleaming in the noonday sun. Torch hops behind the wheel of the See/Kay and crosses the Brycklin Bridge with Staying Alive playing though the stereo, rolling through streets of shabby-chic boutiques and parking in front of Laser Woof, the coolest restaurant in the Willysburg neighborhood.

This used to be a smelly fish-packing district, but now it’s the hottest neighborhood in all of Brycklin; even a closet-sized apartment has a monthly rent of like $12,000JD (Jasonian dollars, or about $3,000 USD).

A guy walks out of Laser Woof with a weathered leather shoulder bag, a thrift store shirt, and new but beat-up-looking jeans that he paid $350 for.  In front of him sits a white pickup that appears new and old all at once: a true embodiment of “truckness” that designers strive for with mood boards and rarely get right. The white finish is a perfect fit for the design, which is good since that’s the only color that Torch is going to offer for now.

“Dear Leader! Wow, man, this is cool – is it the new Slate?” Well, no, it’s gas-powered. “I prefer that anyway since there aren’t enough charging stations here. I love this new truck.” It would be pointless to tell him that the design is easily older than him or his multitude of painfully hip friends that join him. GM of Jasonia ripped off the side moldings from the original and changed the grille and bumpers to fit the design language of the latest Chevy trucks but left the sheetmetal untouched. Even the Hoffmeister kink on the rear window is a stuck-on piece of trim. That new grille is not nearly as tall-looking as on other new Chevy pickups, helped in part by the body-colored horizontal band going across the grille to break it up visually.

Here’s an animation so that you can see the difference:

Jason had to mess with the taillights, changing them to match other concurrent Chevrolet trucks and including a section with amber bulbs for turn signals.

Again, there’s barely any difference in the new See/Kay:

More compliments keep coming from the mouths of people walking by. “The interior is great. It’s simple and clean without doing the Slate or Tesla ‘we are so austere’ kind of thing.” It even has speakers already built into the doors and dash since nobody wants to drive around with a freaking Bluetooth boombox (they’re junk GM paper cone speakers, but the fun comes from buying and adding your own audio upgrades). This example had crank windows, but Jason reluctantly agrees that most will be sold with the decadence of pushbutton locks and side glass.

Indeed, the only thing Jason added was bigger headrests in back (and one for a center passenger). The extended cab versions of GMT400s had a forward-facing seat with legroom that wasn’t spectacular but was fine for occasional use and great for kids or short trips. At the same time, the rear seat didn’t kill bed length or make the truck stretch-limo long.

“I really like this dash,” said one observer, “it looks like I could upgrade if I wanted, but there’s no point since it has all that I’ll ever need.” Again, it’s totally unchanged from the final late nineties GMT400 with the exception of an Amazon double DIN radio controller and an inexpensive LCD gauge cluster from China to replace all the moving parts of the old instruments. Note also that Jason added a central airbag in the storage binnacle below the climate controls.

Jason thankfully found the tooling for the regular cab GMT400 in the crate that Mary sent over, all well:

Engine options are whatever Jason can get his hands on, but almost all will be sold with crate Chevy 4.3-liter V6 or a 5.0-liter V8. There might be diesel options as well from other sources, since Jasonian emissions regulations are not exactly world-class. “Yeah, I do kind of care about the Earth and stuff – I keep most of my crap there,” is Torch’s rather wishy washy view; he never got around to actually passing smog legislation.

The assemblage of people outside of Laser Woof is now a crowd. “I love how I can get a full-sized pickup truck that seats three people in a length the same as a mid-sized SUV!” says one observer. Isn’t that a bit larger for Brycklin? “Nah, it’ll just get bashed up a bit, but then it will look even cooler.” Now, if that isn’t the description of a true truck, I dunno what is.

From Solid Citizen To Illegal Alien

Based on the overwhelmingly positive response to the See/Kay, Jason’s move to resurrect a true icon seems to have been a good decision. Jason is quick to note that RAM successfully offered their older generation truck while also selling the new one. Torch is confident that the See/Kay will outsell the Slate on Jasonia; he has every reason to speculate that, like the Cybertruck, the Slate’s niche-market approach means that they’ll probably sell around 20,000 immediately in America to true believers, and then the rest will languish on lots.

As proof of Jason’s genius, many American tourists to the beautiful island have asked about taking one of these See/Kays home with them. Naturally, that isn’t going to happen. When receiving the tooling from Mary Barra, Torch was required to sign a stack of papers six inches tall that included a clause stating that any attempts to import the See/Kay back into the US would result in penalties that he’d need to turn the palace into an Airbnb to pay back. The official reason is “safety concerns,” but Jason is skeptical.

That’s too bad; General Motors could likely spend billions of dollars developing some Slate-like $25,000 gasoline pickup and not come up with something nearly as good as what they already made decades ago. Torch thinks believes they’re well aware of that and simply don’t want to do it when the profit margins would be paper thin. Either that, or they don’t want to cannibalize sales of their other comparatively overblown trucks. Who knows?

Maybe the whole conspiracy theory is real after all.

Top graphic base image: Bring a Trailer