Usually, Cold Start is a place where I reveal absolutely universe-rending thoughts and concepts, the sort of things that, I imagine, many academics take and build entire careers from. I mean, I don’t have any actual evidence that this is true, but I, know, have my suspicions. This time, though, is going to be a bit different, because today’s Cold Start is just going to be delivering one crucial piece of information, a bit of information that is absolutely crucial for that very specific segment of the population that needs it.
Here’s what that bit of information is: there seems to be only one new mass-market car available for sale in America here in the year of someone’s lord, 2024, that has no LCD screens. No center-stack infotainment screens, no touch screens, no controls contained on a touch-screen interface. What is that car?
A GMC Savana. Okay, it’s a van, not strictly a car, but you get the idea.
There’s no LCD screens on that dash. Just look!
Sure, the radio has a monochrome dot-matrix display, it looks like a vacuum-fluorescent one, but that’s hardly what we think of as a modern touch screen, the kind that we now expect on pretty much anything. This Savana dash could be from the late 1990s!
Even the cheapest car you can currently buy in America, the Mitsubishi Mirage, starting at a still-reasonable $16,695, has a center-stack touch screen. Look:
The Savana starts at almost $50 grand, and it doesn’t have LCD screen one on that dash. It’s incredible.
So if you’re really, genuinely sick of the tyranny of touchscreens, if you can’t bear the thought of perversions such as touchscreen-based glove box latches, if you just want nothing to do with this blighted era of human-automobile interaction, and you need a new car, now, then you really just have one choice. A GMC Savana.
It’s one of the oldest platforms still being built and sold, but it’s a reliable workhorse and it’ll get your ass from Point A to Point whatever letter you feel like, along with 11 of your bestest friends! And all without a screen on that dash.
You could also look at the Savana as an embarassingly outdated and overpriced machine, still being sold, cynically, but that’s no fun at all. Besides, if you want to be pissed at GMC for something, you can be pissed that they sell crappy license plate frames for $40 and more:
Who is paying $40 for a plastic GMC license plate? You could probably get a plastic plate with an airbrushed wizard or some kind of warrior princess with an absurdly skimpy armored outfit on it for that price, available at participating state fairs and swap meets.
But still – a dash with no big touchscreen! In 2024! It’s a motherflapping miracle.
My license plate frame says Ralph Spoilsport Motors
Except for the addition of a button or two, shuffling the locations of the secondary gauges and adding chrome rings to them, and reshaping the passenger airbag cover, the Express/Savana dash has remained unchanged since the vans got facelifted in 2003.
$50k for a Savana??? How much do they charge to paint “FREE CANDY” on the sides?
I have noticed these vans have an issue with paint peeling, for certain model years, and it is fairly bad. But I would put up with it if it can last 300k+ and am too poor to spend for a newer van….
What year is that van? I thought back-up cameras were mandatory from 2017(?) onward.
The Cameras are in the rear view mirror on them.
Displays at least
*nervously looks around*
Yes, right, only a display in the rear view mirror, no cameras.
Thanks. I didn’t expect a dinosaur like this to have that feature.
I’m pretty sure these exist just to be sold to U-Haul for renting out. Not that they won’t sell you one but I doubt they put any effort into it.
At least that is my only experience with these. Good rental vans for occasionally moving large things around.
Lots of business and churches buy them too, not just uhaul.
If U-Haul rents me one of these, I’m going back into the office for a Transit or ProMaster.
It depends which size box you order. 10′ vs. 12′ gets different makes, for example. I forget which was which though.
At least that’s how it was when I rented 2 years ago.
Oh, I was thinking about the vans, not the trucks. My wife owns a plant store, so we’ve rented the plain white vans plenty of times. I think you’re right, no choice on the trucks.
depends on what you want to haul around i suppose. the Transit and Promaster are definitely less capable for the really heavy stuff generally. I see more of these going to repair fleets that have to lug around a lot of heavy things.
That seems like a lot to pay (not to mention a lot to drive) to avoid touch screens, but you pay extra for prescreening at the airport or the doctor, so I guess this is normal.
I was surprised it came in a color other than white and went to the website to see if there were others (just red, white, silver, and black). But seeing it starts closer to $42k in commercial form made me feel better about the pricing.
Most of the ones I see around are actually two tone, white and exposed unpainted sheet metal
The ones I see are usually white over rust, because Michigan. The E-Series vans seem to rust out faster than the Express/Savannah in my experience.
Actually, it’s the exposed primer coat.
KISS Who would’ve thought it would just keep working?
Dot-Matrix(not her real name)
25 years ago when I was in college I worked for its internal car rental service that rented these to student groups going on trips. The interior hasn’t changed a bit, save for that radio has a slightly bigger screen. I wonder how much of that 50 grand is profit by now.
Half.
That’s why it’s still in production.
That and they are full frame work horses that Dodge and Ford have basically abandoned. The E350 is only available in Cab chassis design at this point for Ambulances and motorhomes.
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with the radio.”
I learned to drive in one of these.
I’m now 40.
Coming to a small LCD screen near you soon! “The 40 Year-Old Student Driver”…
I am now 72 and I live in one.
How is life down by the river?
Much better than life in the rat race.
Of note the sister Chevrolet Express is also screenless.
I said this here previously, but I honestly consider the Express/Savana twins as supercars. Their form factor was so nearly perfect for the task the first time out that they’ve barely needed to be changed in the decades since.
We had one for a long time and it was pretty reliable. The only persistent issue – and one that I’ve noticed on others around town – is that there is something that messes up the right rear tail light. It never works right. I thought it was a fault caused by the conversion in ours, but I’ve noticed it on work vans, City-owned vehicles, random other conversions. That one tail light is always messed up somehow.
I have a 2008 9-3 convertible, and the radio lcd is identical to this. And I’m pretty sure it was outdated in 2008.
That’s an LCD on the radio. It’s not a touch screen, but it is still a liquid crystal display. You have to look to the top of the market to find cars without LCDs – I know the Genesis GV70 uses an OLED screen (which is not an LCD). But I don’t think that was the point you were trying to make.
Yeah, I was going to say, a small/monochrome LCD is still an LCD, which means we can’t buy any vehicle without one. I suspect the odometer would have to be one, too, so it actually has two screens
Analog gauges are pretty nice to see, though
is it an LCD, though? I think it may be a VFD matrix display?
It doesn’t seem glowy-enough for a VFD…
You should reach out to your GM contacts for technical clarification
Someone at GM would be like, “Those weird guys at The Autopian are bugging us about dumb shit again… they’re great!”
Since it’s the same one they had since the early ’00s, it’s definitely glowy enough.
Even then, I’m not 100% sold it is VFD. VFD is traditionally supported by multiple rectangular display segments (sometimes called “characters” or “fields) stitched together, typically resulting in gaps between each segment.
You’ll commonly see the VFD displays advertised by the number of dots/pixels in each segment, and then the number of segments. So it’d be something like “5×8, 3×20” which would mean each segment is capable of displaying 5×8 dots, and you can display a three lines of characters and 20 characters long.
Most cheaper ones, you can see they display segments even when off. This you can’t see them–which isn’t entirely atypical, but combined with the lack of gaps between them (the preset buttons are continuous), has me leaning towards LCD.
This one looks like it would be one really large field.
Heck, VFD, LCD, and OLED are all capable of doing somewhat similar monochromatic dot matrix displays.
Unless they changed that stereo from the last one I saw – doubtful, it’s the old GM corporate radio and they haven’t had any incentive to update, and why would you change the display and also keep it exactly the same – you can definitely see the individual dots. On a lower resolution photo they can blend together, but in person it’s pretty obvious. They do it as a “just dots” setup instead of the bulkier ones that have number segments.
It’s not the dots I’m referring to, it’s the segments/characters.
Just googled “VFD display” and you’ll see that each character is a bunch of square dots (typically 5×8 dots), but there is blank space between each character and you typically can’t display anything in that blank space, because they repeat these 5×8 dot chunks. It’s between the chunks.
And for cost saving measure, sure they would update it. Heck, they don’t even make the radio. Some supplier does. If the supplier says, “Hey, we can make an equally reliable display but it’s X instead of Y and it saves you money and is virtually indistinguishable to the end user,” the GM considers it. With this being one of the last vehicles made without a color LCD screen, it’s feasible the supplier doesn’t want to mess with VFD screens.
Right, the dots are surrounded by a blank space, and that’s what I meant. Some VFD displays have larger segments for numbers, but this uses a bunch of dots to display graphics, and each dot is surrounded by nothing, so the dots are spaced out – but this is hidden by jpg compression. This radio is identical to the one GM used for a decade – and it should be recognizable to anyone who used a GM product at that time.
The supplier probably made a ton of these radios already and they’re probably just being pulled from a warehouse somewhere for the few base-model Savanas they sell. It’s not a hugely popular configuration, none of their other models use it anymore, but they made millions of the thing when it was new – it was in almost every GM product. You could probably equip the Savanas that use it with just spares for a decade.
That’s a good way to get fired as an auto supplier. Should GM find a defect as they use them, then the supplier is stuck with a bunch of garbage. In today’s day of Lean Six Sigma, ain’t no one in the auto world building years of supply in advance.
And let me know where to look to find the voids between the dots… https://i.redd.it/dnturnw5g8m91.jpg
Remember that this was used in EVERY GM product for a LONG time. These things were just cranked out for a long time, and there are a lot of them out there, and they’d make a lot of spares just for warranty purposes.
As for trying to find the black, look next to every dot. Just zoom in slightly, you’ll see it right away. There’s some bloom that slightly hides it when zoomed out – remember, this is a light source behind plastic – but even the slightest zoom and you’re going to see the fences around every dot.
I get that you want to avoid being wrong, but it’s VFD.
It’s not about the dots, it’s about the character segments. You still don’t get it.
I am sorry that you are wrong and can’t admit this is a possibility. I’ve used this radio before, I’ve seen it up close, I’ve touched the buttons and turned the knobs. And, most importantly, I’ve seen the screen. It’s a VFD, based on small character segments that look like dots. Each small segment is an illuminated, green light source that has that distinct glow that a VFD display has. This is true and undeniable. Please go find a base model Savana or any GM model produced in the 2000s to confirm for yourself.
I’ve clearly been open to the idea that it’s VFD.
But you clearly don’t know the different between the dot/pixel and a segment/character… so I don’t know what to tell you any more. If you can’t even understand the basic operating principle of these devices, I’m not sure how you would know it’s not LCD or OLED… which can also operate on dot/pixel principles.
Thank you for knowing what what a VFD looks like!
There may be no screen but it doesn’t have a CD player in 2024 like the Lexus IS500.
The 2024 Lexus IS500 has a CD player!?! 😮
Fantastic
Well, this dinosaur has been in productions essentially unchanged since 1996, so this is completely correct.
looks like a slightly modified (differently arranged) version of the head unit in my 2010 GMC Sierra. I am here for it.
The older ones were more rounded over – like the buttons and knobs less squared off. But otherwise basically the same layout except for what looks like an aux input?
2007-2010 Chevy GMC Truck Unlocked Radio AM FM 6 Disc CD Aux Input 15909952 US9 | eBay
I guess it’s almost exactly the same as the one in my truck – just without the CD port. I dare not use the Aux port as it makes the radio go crazy. The CD reader takes about 10-15 insertions to get it to read a CD so I typically keep CDs in for 1-1.5 years until i get absolutely sick of them.
You can also spec it with the 4.3L V6 or the 6.6L V8. Which I believe this is also the last application of the 4.3L V6.
This is true, since they stopped using it in the Silverado three or four years ago. It is worth noting that unlike most of the van, the 4.3L they offer in it isn’t from the 1990s and is only like a decade old. I don’t recall exact years, but sometime in the 2000-teens the 4.3L had a nearly clean-sheet redesign based off of the LT V8 engines.
Yeah, it’s a cutdown LT V8, which is still the same basic formula as the old SBC based 4.3
In that it is a 90 degree pushrod V6 that displaces 262 cubic inches, yes, but beyond that it shares nothing else with the old 4.3L V6.
In that it’s a small block V8 with 2 cylinders lopped of, unlike the Jaguar V6 which was the full V8 just with no pistons in the rear 2 cylinders.
Ah, I follow you now. Sorry, I misread what you were trying to say. Yeah, GM can’t help but be GM when it comes to their larger V6s.
Larger, lower-application V6s.
On the Old Site, they asked what vehicle needs a sport version, and I said the Express needs an SS model.
You can already get an LS, so slap a supercharger on it, and up to 2015, you could get AWD. Bring that back, slam it, stiffen the suspension, put on a body kit, and you’ve got a Typhoon for the whole family, plus Grandma, Granddad, Uncle Daryll, etc.
Call the the ExpreSS.
Then GM can put a big ol’ screen in the instrument panel.
Seems like an easy way to bump the price by $20k. They probably have a hotter NA engine that they can drop in there and skip the supercharger if they wanted. It would cost them $3000 more to build it. Boom, profit.
Shut up and take my money! I’m not going to lie, I’ve dreamed about something like this. Take the concept of the Ford F-150 FP700, but in a freaking van. 700 HP burnouts for days!
Today you can buy the Express from the factory with a 6.6L gas V8 connected to an 8 speed auto. It makes 401 HP / 464 lb/ft and is a $2,000 option over the 4.3L V6 (276 hp / 298 lb-ft)
You forgot Myrtle Beach for all of your wizard/skimpy armor babe airbrushed needs. Also NASCAR, confederate flags, NFL logos, and your wife/dog/gf’s name.
Source: grew up in WV, made the annual pilgrimage for 18 years. After a 35 year absence returned and found a changed but quite similar MB.
Go Savana!
In Myrtle Beach, “wife/dog/gf” might be redundant.
You could probably add /cousin.
I’ve been to Myrtle Beach more than I care to have gone and have several vans. Tell me your wizard/skimpy armor babe airbrush vendors. My wife-cousin-dog-gf pines for the mildly poo-tainted sands.
Who knew I would become nostalgic for GM’s shitty head unit that they started using, what, 20 years ago? But here we are.
For its time it was pretty good! Most others in MY2006 were still using microwave oven digits even with radio data displays, and weren’t always backlit the same way so their LCDs washed out easier. Having presets displayed along with the buttons instead of “1-2-3…” was a nice touch that usually came with a nav screen in others. Everyone else started going to integrated radios shortly thereafter but in the case of Toyota’s Bluetooth audio units they were similar in concept in display/function.
The shitty thing was the trim paint GM used that chipped off if you sneezed too hard in the car but that was true of most of their interiors in the Lutz era.
Based on my experience with several U-Hauls, I know these are tiring to drive. In particular, there’s something off about the ergonomics of the pedals. But for some reason, these look great in red.
All of the ‘legacy’ American-pattern full size vans have oddities with front legroom and posture because of the need to stuff V8 engines between you and the passenger. My gut non-automotive industry feeling is they were originally designed only with small block V8s in mind ,but eventually got the big-blocks and diesels shoved in.
Usually your right foot is scooched leftwards and right up against the internal engine hatch. In the Econolines the seats also used to be yawed very mildly outwards. The front passenger is also usually sitting sideways.
I never understood these plates and plate frames. “I need another GMC badge on my front bumper directly below the other GMC badge already there, and I need a frame for my back bumper that says Denali right next to the other Denali badge that’s already there”.
AMG package Mercedes owners often feel the need to do this too. I say AMG package, because they usually aren’t actual AMG cars, just a C230 with AMG wheels.
Special shout out to the guys who would buy out all the “4×4” badges at Pep Boys to plaster them all over their Chevy Blazer or something. Yes, we get it, it has 4 wheel drive.
I’d buy out all at the 4×4 badges and sticker-bomb my ’98 civic with em, just for craps and giggles.
Is it a wagon?
No. It’s a coupe so it would be even funnier.
There’s an old Dodge pickup nearby with a custom grille spelling out “4WD”.
Or the kid I knew back in the day who put “5.0” badges on his Escort, or the dufus I worked with a few years ago who put Hellcat emblems on his Charger… with Pentastar V6.
Why deal with Hellcat fuel economy when an emblem and yellow bumper protectors will do the job?
He wanted to do that too, but his spoiler differs from the ones with the yellow shit on them.
For the same reason a Honda or Acura needs it spelled out in huge white letters on the back window. LOL
Those people likely work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
And to pay $46/ea for the privilege.
Through no fault of Torch’s, this Cold Start makes me very sad.
I thought vehicles had to have backup cameras now (thus screens)- does this get some kind of commercial/light truck exemption?
It has a “rear vision” camera so thinking it’s just built into the rear mirror.
My 2012 Subaru has the backup camera in the rear view mirror.
Yeah, I was going to point out FMVSS 111 requires a backup camera, but you beat me to it, and as others have said, I believe it is built into the rear view mirror.
I knew it had to be a GM fleet vehicle, ’cause I’m pretty sure a friend’s Pontiac G5 had the same head unit.
It probably had the nearly identical looking one with the CD player slot. I think only the work trucks and vans got the am/fm-only radios (though this fancy one appears to have added an aux input)
I’m sure you’re right, come to think of it. My brain didn’t even register the missing CD slot here. Same layout otherwise, anyway.
They still built this thing? Isn’t it from the Clinton Administration?
Ford still makes the even older E-Series, but I think you can only get it as a chassis-cab now. The target market for BOF commercial vans sees the archaic nature as a plus.
When a company needs a new work van, one identical to the old one is best. Accessories like racks and bulkheads can be reused
Produced in Wentzville, MO (outside St Louis), alongside the Colorado and Canyon.
First manufactured in 1996 with a facelift in 2003