Hey, GM: The American People Demand a Short-Bed, Single-Cab Pickup Truck
We get emails. A lot of them wonder why GM’s holding out on us.
Thirty years ago, no one could've guessed that each of Detroit's Big Three automakers would sell pickups for $70,000 a pop. Likewise, the decline of the standard two-door truck was unfathomable. There's still a chunk of consumers who want basic, affordable pickups, though, but at present, only one sells a single-cab, short-bed, half-ton truck in the United States—that’d be Ford, albeit in super limited numbers. General Motors could and should change that.
The Drive's loyal readers constantly ring our feedback and tips email lines with all sorts of gripes and comments. None are as frequent as those begging and pleading for GM to sell them such a truck. Why GM? Chevrolet sells that exact vehicle in the Middle East. We've covered it before, how Chevy offers a regular-cab, short-box Silverado to buyers some 7,000 miles away. It’s not just a stripper model either; in the available Trail Boss guise, I think it’s safe to say it’s the best-looking iteration of the current-generation truck. So since it already has the design and tooling on hand, it's time to bring that thing stateside.
First off, it'd be a rarity in today's market. In turn, it'd have zero competition from the surging Ram brand. Ford does offer a single-cab, short-bed F-150, though the ratios essentially bury the two-door deep down on a dealer's options list. Chevy recently slid to number three in the truck sales hierarchy for the first time ever and it could recoup this deficit by rolling out something totally unique, something that was actually all the rage not that long ago.
Chevy could sell a two-wheel-drive truck with workhorse essentials and then bump up the price for a rowdy Silverado RST or Trail Boss model. Fancy an economic daily worker or a 355-horsepower, 5.3-liter V8-powered toy? Have your (theoretical) pick. Regardless of your choice, you could have it for a significant discount, especially when compared to a crew-cab variant.
Americans are also tired of paying $40K or more for a work truck. Those who don't need eight-foot beds are stuck with—subjectively—disproportionate rigs and, what's more, buying into a truck that doesn't fit their needs to a "T." If we've learned anything from F-150 Limited models with massaging seats, it's that automakers will kick it up a notch to meet their customers' demands. The same should be done for those who need a little less.
Of course, people would actually have to buy these trucks to make it worth GM's time. This is a major sticking point and the excuse automakers almost always use for not building what enthusiasts say they want. However, if the dozens of reader emails we've received about a single-cab, short-bed Silverado are anything to go off of, people really do want these trucks.
So, GM, it's your turn to have a little fun. Breakaway from the over-bloated mold that modern pickups fall into and give the people what they're asking for. Oh, and if you decide to do a press launch in some scenic spot like Moab, drop me a line.
Caleb Jacobs is Deputy News Editor at The Drive. He buys weird things, like a '66 Ford dump truck and a '65 Chevy school bus. We continue to employ him, though we can't seem to understand why. Send him a note: caleb@thedrive.com
