Every now and then, a car company does something that makes you squint. Whether it’s the lightest of facelifts or the five generations of Viper, every so often, a first glance of a new car gives a strong sense of deja vu. This is allegedly the new 2026 GMC Terrain and man, does it ever look like a compact crossover.
Now, the GMC Terrain is a particularly boring vehicle, but bear with me on this one, for it’s still an important one. Last year, GM sold 71,857 of them, making it a pretty big deal in GMC’s lineup. As such, it wouldn’t be surprising if the new one starts popping up everywhere shortly after it goes on sale, and you might even end up with one as a rental car.
However, even if you do end up with one, you might not immediately realize that it’s an entirely new generation of the brand’s compact crossover on first sight. Why? Well, just take a look, because this is what the old GMC Terrain looks like.
Okay, now that we’re able to look it up-and-down, let’s take a gander at the new one, and you might just see what we’re on about. There’s just such a sense of deja vu to it, perhaps in part because GMC chose to launch the new one in black.
Some big things like the lighting signature, squared arches, grille proportions, and even some of the body surfacing are instantly familiar, but if you look closely, you’ll see that just about everything is different. The doors, the C-pillar treatment, the fenders, the hood line, even the dimensions. This new compact crossover is two inches wider than the old one, but I bet you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know. We almost didn’t.
However, if the outside looks like more of the same, the big changes are on the inside, where the new GMC Terrain really looks all-new. The contentious button shifter arrangement has been replaced by an electronic stalk on the column, freeing up enough space for what looks like the screen from a Taco Bell drive-thru. This 15-inch touchscreen infotainment system comes standard on all trims, and it features a splitscreen arrangement where up to three applications can be viewed simultaneously. Currently, there’s no official word on Apple CarPlay, but a greyed-out icon in press shots suggests it’ll make it to the final product.
Granted, the 2026 GMC Terrain isn’t all-new, chiefly because it carries over the old model’s powertrain. There’s a 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine under the hood making 175 horsepower and 203 lb.-ft. of torque, and it’s hitched to an eight-speed automatic transaxle that sends torque to all four wheels. Sounds like a way to leave one place and arrive at a completely different place, right? Admittedly, GM’s 1.5-liter turbo four isn’t one of the greatest engines of all time, or one of the greatest engines in its segment, but it’s definitely an engine, and it should be capable of doing engine things.
As part of rationalization with other models in GMC’s lineup, the 2025 GMC Terrain comes in three trim levels — Elevation, AT4, and Denali. Currently, all we know about the Elevation is that it gets 17-inch wheels, the 15-inch infotainment screen, and an 11-inch digital instrument cluster. However, the AT4 trim sounds more interesting.
Every manufacturer these days seems to be feeding compact crossovers some protein, and GMC seems to be drawing from its truck expertise to make the Terrain AT4 more than just mall-rated. It gets an actual metal skid plate, all-terrain tires, a mysterious and unspecified increase in ride height, actual recovery hooks, and an off-road drive mode. On paper, it has the stuff to make Subaru’s Wilderness line seem a bit meek, so this trim might be GMC’s ace in the hole.
On the other hand, GMC chose to release a rather underwhelming list of features for the Denali trim, such as heated rear seats, 19-inch wheels, and animated lighting. On the face of it, that doesn’t exactly read as premium, but we’ll wait and see what information’s released closer to the launch of the 2026 GMC Terrain in 2025. Yep, we’re waiting until a new calendar for this. However, with a vastly improved interior, the new model can’t come soon enough. If sales figures hold, more than 70,000 Americans each year will be buying what looks like it could very well be a better car. In the end, that’s all we really want, right?
(Photo credits: GMC)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The 2025 Chevrolet Equinox No Longer Looks Like A Punishment
-
Here’s Why The 2024 GMC Acadia Is About To Flood America’s Driveways, Soccer Practices, And Applebee’s Parking Lots
-
2023 GMC Canyon Review: Expensive For A Midsize Truck, Yet So Nice
-
The Surprisingly Nice 2024 Chevrolet Trax Is $21,495 Of Fundamental Goodness
-
The $36K Chevy Equinox EV Is The Best Electric Car For Most People
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
Yes, this will get you back and forth between home and work.
I don’t think GM gets enough credit for these appliances, which do everything right, have competitive features, and reasonably attractive styling.
Folks trip all over themselves to pay over MSRP for a RAV4, and it’s absolutely miserable to drive (esp the non-hybrid).
We have a current generation Terrain and a previous generation Equinox at work. They have been reliable enough, I think one sensor and the AC compressor on the Equinox and a few rear wheel bearings on the Terrain are the only issues to speak of. I get why people buy them, for the price and availability they are perfectly fine.
I heard pretty good things about that engine, I see high mileage units all the time on Facebook. Why bother changing something that is reliable enough for the majority of drivers? GM has better deals out there, this is the car you lease for 3 years and get the same one again.
This is the equivalent of the lunch special of any restaurant, people doesn’t like to try new things.
I won’t truly know what it looks like until I see the middle trim level in white with acres of dealership branding still on it and those “click it or ticket” stickers you get for free at the DMV. Ideally it would also be merging onto the freeway at 35 mph to complete the effect.
I was very pleased with a local Chevy dealer the other day, they have rows and rows of some sort of small crossover thing, maybe trailblazers, do they still make the trax? Blazers? No idea. But what was impressive was the amount of color! There was gold/yellow, blue, red, out of probably 20 cars, there were only 2 in black, no silver/grey, and only one white. I love to see color again! I’m pretty sure the yellowish gold was the most common color there.
They got rid of the infuriating shifter and the backmost side window isn’t a totally baffling shape.
As a result it is an improvement over the old one. May it never grace my parking spot.
My dad owns one and Ive driven it a few times. The button shifter isn’t the worst in my opinion (still don’t like it much) although that rearmost window is practically useless for visibility. Getting rid of that is definitely a plus.
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/2025-chevrolet-equinox_TS.jpg
It’s literally identical to the new Equinox, right down to the door pressings and ‘sail’ C-pillar. Ironic that you said “The 2025 Chevrolet Equinox No Longer Looks Like A Punishment” and then said about the exact same car badged as a GMC “I bet you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t know. We almost didn’t.”
That actually makes sense though. We’re now used to the Equinox shape. GMC chose to present this in black – the most common color for the previous Terrain – which hides a lot of the changes, while the new Equinox was presented in a brighter shade so you can actually see the new car. The design language hasn’t actually changed at all at GMC, while Chevrolet has a relatively large change in its look.
Yeah but in the photos where it’s in a color, besides the fascia shapes I wouldn’t say it’s all that similar looking to the previous gen except maybe in general shape. There’s a completely different DLO treatment and the surfacing on the bodysides is a lot sharper than the blobby outgoing model and overall it’s much squarer. It’s a directly nose-swapped Equinox more than anything else.
https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/2025-gmc-terrain-107-copy-e1723495302134.jpg
https://mystrongad.com/WCM_WilsonCountyMotors/Terrain/2023/23-GMC-Terrain-Summit-White-Crop.png
Right, but because GMC chose to present it in the color which hides all of those changes, the immediate thing you notice is that the design language is roughly the same and the nose could easily just be a facelift. My immediate thought was that it was just a facelift, because the black hid all of the substantive changes.
Did they do it in black because that’s the most popular color of because it’s just a nose job and they wanted to hide that? I don’t know.
That’s fair, but that’s why I don’t pass judgement until I see a press photo in ‘a color’ because you can’t tell anything with black. Everything looks the same in black on black. A BMW X///M looks like a Skoda Kodiaq in black on black.
Actually, it isn’t identical to the Chevy version in the areas you mentioned. Unlike prior Equinox/Terrain siblings, the underlying body shell is identical, but the skin is different. The door skins, fenders, quarter panels, etc are mildly altered between the two. Also, I suspect the windshield, front door and back-door moving glass is the same, but the rest of the glass is model-specific.
Even more impressive! Though I’m surprised they took all that effort for the end result to look just like the Chevy from the A-pillar back…it’s not that I doubt what you’re saying, but those rear doors look mighty identical…
https://i.imgur.com/FkmCuHq.png
But again, in black-on-black any observations about the GMC have to be taken with a grain of salt. I see what you mean about the sail panel not coming quite so far up on the Chevy, though it’s a mystery to me why they would apply the same styling feature on two brands that are meant to have distinct identities. I guess GM is going all in on ‘GMC’ = ‘Grand Chevy’?
It’s interesting, because–really–the styling kind of belongs more to Chevy, at this point. To that end, when the new Equinox first debuted, I had to squint to make sure I wasn’t looking at the new Traverse, since the former looks like a sawn-off version of the latter. The Trailblazer also has a similar C-pillar garnish.
Meanwhile, the Acadia looks a lot more conservative (and is closer, though not identical, to the Enclave). So, on the GMC side, it’s really only the Terrain that looks this expressive, even though the Terrain was the originator of this disjointed, boxy look within GM.
As someone who sells these, this is exactly what the buyers of this vehicle want. These are people that think that they’re going to be crazy tonight and get vanilla bean ice cream instead of regular vanilla. They don’t get ketchup for their french fries because it’s too spicy. We can’t keep them on lots lol.
To quote RCR: “For the guy who’s favorite food is ‘sandwich'”.
“If she was a spice, she’d be flour” – Louise, Bob’s Burgers
For those people who put a dash of black pepper on their boneless, skinless chicken breasts when they want to give their dinner a little kick.
Let’s celebrate our new Terrain Denali with an early dinner at Cracker Barrel!
I don’t much go for ethnic food but I’ll try it
I wonder what would happen if they tried spicy ketchup…which is actually so good
Chipotle ketchup is my current go to for cheeseburgers and French fries
At a glance it looks like a rebadged Subaru.
Hell, even the interior with the tacked on vertical screen says Subaru. Really dislike the vertical chrome element on the grille. Looks like the same detail on the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.
So congrats GM. You somehow managed to make a new car which look like old cars, from commodity manufacturers.
Add a “P,” and it could be a Terrapin.
Eh. It’s a CUV that will do CUV things just fine. Looks like a fine rental “SUV”.
Lol it looks like they forgot about designing a dashboard until 5 minutes before the finalized design was due.
But hey now you can keep on working on it, after the product has started to ship and push the update via OTA! 5 minutes means nothing now!
When I was growing up, you didn’t need to wonder if you could get all the way to soccer practice and then all the way back home in the same day.
Well if I ever plan to rob a bank I guess I know what I might want to use as a getaway car.
“What did the getaway car look like?”
“Well, it had definitely had four wheels.”
This thing is so forgettable five minutes later everyone is asking “what bank robbery?”
Behold, the GMC Cromulence
Looks decent and the vehicle itself is likely a competent enough entry just as the outgoing one was. But (badge engineering jokes aside) GM’s latest designs really look a lot less differentiated from one another than their predecessors. The old Terrain looked appreciably different from the Equinox, but cover up the rear of the new ones or just looking at the greenhouses and they really seem interchangeable. The new Enclave/Acadia are maybe the most egregious example, they each had pretty different styling in the previous generations but the latest Enclave looks like GMC said “yeah you can borrow my homework just change the answers a little.” GMCs usually have been boxier and “tougher” looking and I get those attributes are in now hence Chevy and Buick design leaning that way more, but still.
It’s not without precedent. The original Lambda Acadia and Outlook pretty much shared a body, though with minor changes. In fact, when the Lambdas were facelifted in 2013, GM quietly switched to using the by-then defunct Outlook’s tooling on the Acadia. No one noticed.
In the case of the Terrain vs Equinox and the Acadia vs Enclave, I suspect cost savings were the reason. The cars are so superficially different that GM is really able to maximize what’s interchangeable between them, particularly door glass and underlying door structures. Most of the brand-specific personality on these new crossovers occurs at the front fascia, rear quarter and rear fascia areas.
For the time and for Saturn, that wasn’t abnormal (and IIRC at least one media outlet did ask GM if they reused the parts in ’13 to which the PR team basically said “yeah, so what?”). I almost referenced the G6/Aura which had a very obvious similarity in the rear 3/4 view and seemed like they could swap taillights. At that time GM was starting to better differentiate even their more rebadged models like the full-size pickups and SUVs, it seems like we’ve backslid. I wouldn’t be surprised if the value/savings start further up the development process here, with either fewer designers or focused on other projects.
Really, the Aura was a 2008-2012 Malibu with a different greenhouse. But it was interesting that the G6 got the longer wheelbase first, and the other Epsilon sedans didn’t adopt it until later.
And, yeah, I think they’re putting their designers’ efforts on more of the vanity projects, like the C8 Corvette.
With Saturn less independent from the rest of GM by the 2000s, they sort of became a test bed for upcoming GM engineering. The 2.2L Ecotec got to stretch its
timing chainlegs in in the L-Series two years before it appeared in the J- and N-bodies, the VUE and ION predated their Chevrolet counterparts by a couple years and used the ill-fated VTi transmission.The 2004 Malibu being the first Epsilon of the 3 was a bit of a reversal but they did tout the Euro connection quite a bit, no matter how disparate it was from Saab or Opel. But then the 2008 did benefit with a few tweaks over the Aura’s debut the year prior and both counterparts working out some kinks.
“ On paper, it has the stuff to make Subaru’s Wilderness line seem a bit meek, so this trim might be GMC’s ace in the hole.”
I guess you’ll still receive a letter from NPS, though.
Perfect for the family who does not want to stand out in the school pickup line.
this is definitely An Car
Looks like the old TrailBlazer SS. Which for me is not a bad thing. It just needs the V8. Or even a V6.
Somehow it looks older than the old one
Just like when Chrysler updated the Pacifica
Holy Crap Did Chrysler Ruin The Look Of The Pacifica – The Autopian
I was going to say, the whole article could have been titled: “guess which model is new?”
Out of all the compact crossovers in the world this is definitely one of them. So it has that going for it in addition to an engine that we believe should be able to do engine things. That’s better than the alternative! It also has an actual torque converter which is nice in this class. GM is really spoiling us, my goodness!
…all jokes aside these are perfectly cromulent transportation. I had a family member with a limited budget who specifically wanted a certified used car with all wheel drive for 20 grand or less and these kept popping up. So I guess they’re the right car for someone out there.
Anyway if anyone’s wondering that person wound up with a certified Subaru Legacy. I found a very nice Acura ILX for them but alas…front wheel drive was a deal breaker.
I can’t decide which shade of black I’d choose!
Is it just me, or does it look like the previous gen Acadia?
As someone who has had the last generation as a rental plenty of times, I look forward to renting one of these in the future. As much as I wanted to dislike the Terrain, there are absolutely worse cars out there, and I can certainly see why people buy them compared to alternatives like the Rogue.
Yep. A friend has leased 3 of them in a row. They don’t scream luxury or bananas off-road capability, but they work. They are comfortable. They are roomy enough. A ride in one offers no complaints.
It’s just a good vehicle that isn’t all that expensive, and at the end of the day is a wise choice.
For anyone who has ever been confused by the idea of “damning with faint praise”, this is your example.
I find some humor knowing my Prius has a 1.8l engine…albeit NA and not making that much HP, even with the battery added in.