Why General Motors’ GMT400 Truck Design Remains Legendary 30 Years Later

The late Sir Terence Conran, foremost of the wave of industrial designers who introduced design literacy to a grey post-war Great Britian, believed everyone’s lives could be improved with a better-designed salad bowl. I’m not sure about that, seeing as salads are to be endured rather than enjoyed, but the point is that good design should be democratic and accessible — available to everyone in the products they use everyday. The humble Bic ballpoint. IKEA’s Billy bookcase. A Bialetti Moka stove top coffee pot. The Swatch. Nike Air Max 90 sneakers. These are everyday goods whose great design is overlooked because of their sheer ubiquity. To this list of design underdogs I will add one, an everyday vehicle that never gets the attention its outstanding design deserves: the GMT400 trucks and SUVs. (Yes, I’m aware the SUVs had different platform codes but they’re essentially identical, and I’m including them for the purposes of this discussion.)

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.

It’s an automotive irony that the minivan, that most visible manifestation of virility, is a sex-free device. More efficient in terms of packaging and fuel economy, by the mid-eighties it was well on its way to replacing traditional sedans and wagons on driveways across America. But if you wanted accessible eight-cylinder power, plenty of space for passengers and cargo, and body-on-frame simplicity in a style that didn’t look like you had given up on life, your options were becoming limited. Recognizing customers were starting to buy pickup trucks for personal use, GM went all out to make the GMT400s as refined as possible.

But before I, an automobile designer, get into the legendary styling, let’s talk about what this truck was.

A Massive Step Forward

The GMT400 marked the first time trucks moved away from being strictly utilitarian commercial vehicles. The truck market was evolving – by the early 1980s they were no longer being purchased solely as work vehicles. Non-traditional customers wanted a more car-like driving experience with better ride quality, improved fuel economy and increased interior comfort. Previously trucks had been hardworking, mechanically robust but somewhat unrefined vehicles with few concessions to anything other than standing up to an honest day’s hard work – heavy duty live axles and leaf springs were great for hauling and towing, but not good for providing a car-like driving experience.

Introduced in 1988, the Chevrolet C/K 1500s (and their GMC Sierra twins) were a revelation. According to the CarHP website, they were the first trucks designed using CAD (Computer Aided Design). I couldn’t corroborate this but the slickness and consistency of the GMT400s’ appearance, coupled with the fact they were fractionally lower and narrower than their predecessors while providing larger door openings and increased interior volume, certainly points to the surfacing and body engineering being carried out with the aid of digital tools. [Ed Note: This sounds plausible; the first Jeep designed using CAD is known to be the Jeep Grand Cherokee, developed in the late 1980s, so the timeline makes sense. -DT]. 

Underneath, the front suspension did away with the live axle and all its attendant compromises, and replaced it with an independent control arm set-up – sprung with coils for the 2WD models and torsion bars for the 4WD trucks, which introduced the Insta-Trac shift-on-the-fly transfer case, further increasing usability. There was power steering as standard, and ABS on the rear axle to prevent empty-bed lock ups. The front frame rails were hydroformed to reduce weight and increase strength and rigidity.

Why Use One Button When You Can Use Two

The interior banished the cold vinyl and harsh trim of the previous trucks. In came plush velour liberally applied across the seats and door panels. Because GM was incapable of getting everything quite right, the original GMT400 dashboards had confusing half moon dials in an odd layout that, according to Hemmings, were hard to read. GM was also in the habit of using two buttons where one would do, leading to confusing secondary control arrangements, although both these issues were addressed in an update for 1995.

Upon introduction, aside from the regular cab, there was an extended cab available and a sporty step-side bed made from fiberglass. The larger cab and narrower bed were not GM firsts – Ford had previously offered a step-side on the F-150 but dropped it in 1987, and Mopar had an extended cab Ram until 1982. But GM offering them on its new truck range was an acknowledgment of the changing nature of the types of customers buying trucks, and both Ford and Mopar were forced to follow the GMT400’s lead when their revised trucks emerged in 1992 and 1994, respectively. In terms of expanding the appeal of trucks to non-truck buyers, GM was leading the way.

In 1990, Chevrolet debuted the SS454 with a honking 7.4 liter V8. A short bed, regular cab muscle truck good for sub-eight second runs to sixty, it was the progenitor of all today’s high performance full-sized pickups. Then two years later came a further body style on the GMT400 theme whose magnificence was matched match only by its capability – a car so perfect it in its appearance it simply makes me weep – the 1992 Suburban. Now the GMT400 range truly offered something for everyone.

Simple, Not Simplistic

None of this would have mattered one bit if the truck didn’t look good. Fortunately, it looked every inch the modern, capable all-American vehicle it was. Remember, this truck debuted in 1988, so serious design work would have probably commenced in 1983 or 1984. It’s staggering how advanced for the time it is – flush door handles, flush glazing (with an increased glass area), flush trim. Every detail sits perfectly on the surface without interrupting the overall cohesiveness of the appearance.

The profile is simple, almost like something a child would come up with if you asked them to draw a truck. Little more than three boxes placed end on end. But it’s not simplistic and rigid. The filet that runs along the top of the bed and continues into the cant rail and down onto the hood is subtle; not too soft, and not too tight. The feature line management is exceptionally clean; one single line that runs off the top of the taillight, down the bed, creates the bottom edge for the side window and gently arcs down the top of the fender.

There’s a neat inset feature running between the wheels and around the rear that provides a border for the trim pieces worn by the higher trim levels, so they look properly integrated and not just tacked on. The inset also works perfectly as the break separating the paint colors of two-tone trucks. The gentle curvature of the body side gives a feeling of solidity and strength – important because you don’t want a working vehicle to look weak. Anchoring the whole thing are wheel arch flares that are small but extremely sharply defined, meaning you get a nice straight consistent highlight along the length of the truck without any interruptions.

There’s a crease running down the center line of the car I like to think is a call back to past GM Vice President of Design Bill Mitchell’s ‘sheer look’. Whether it is or not I don’t know, but he certainly would have approved of the GMT400’s front Down the Road Graphic – cleverly hiding its verticality with split lighting units and strong horizontal shapes to emphasize width over height. The grill strikes a balance between quiet authority and boldness without looking overbearing – something lost on the furious visages of today’s trucks.

GM created what they called a more formal look for the GMC version by isolating the grill with vertical body color elements. I don’t think the GMC treatment is quite as successful as the Chevrolet grill, but the real horror show was reserved for the hastily introduced first generation Cadillac Escalade, rushed into production in 1998 to compete with the newly released Lincoln Navigator. The more rounded, pillowy forms and enlarged grille and bumper simply don’t work are out of place with the rest of the bodywork.

Remember in the Aztek discussion how I talked about how the bumper supporting the tailgate in the lowered position was badly done? At the back of the GMT400 as the inset feature line wraps around to the rear it becomes the gap to allow the tailgate to drop, supported by a simple bumper with an upwards facing surface. It’s how these little details are so considered and integrated that make the overall design so good. It’s all of a piece – nothing jars or stands out to upset the harmony of the whole thing.

So Good I Used Suburbans As Mood Images

I could wax lyrical for hours about how good I think the Suburbans are. It’s a big car at nearly 5.6 meters long but it hides it so well. This is due to two things – the wraparound glazing runs up to the roof, so there isn’t an overabundance of painted metal work adding visual weight. And something shared with the trucks: the stance; the rocker panels are in line with the center of the axles, exactly where it should be – so the body side is not too deep and heavy. Both the trucks and the SUVs have an overriding feeling of precision – constituent parts being slotted tightly together to make a seamless body.

What’s remarkable about this design, in some ways, is how unheralded it is. For all the designers you could easily name as an enthusiast (Mitchell, Shinoda, Bangle, Horbury), there so little written appreciation for this vehicle that I couldn’t find out much about the designers. I was told designer Clark Lincoln was involved, but it turns out he worked on the GMT800. Matt went so far as to ask GM President Mark Reuss about it, and he confirmed Donald Wood as the chief designer, but that’s about all we could collectively discover.

The tenth-generation F-150 is sometimes considered as being at the vanguard of truck gentrification. I think it’s a soft blob with none of the GMT400’s confidence or assertiveness. The ’88 Silverado and Sierra bought a more approachable truck a full eight years before the F-150 came to market specifically targeting car drivers. When the GMT400 SUV versions arrived in 1992 it’s no wonder they became a valid choice for hauling families and all their gear – there was basically nothing that could match their combination of ruggedness, comfort and space at the time. Squint a bit and you can see their restrained yet commanding influence in some of Land Rover’s better efforts. Not for nothing was I using Suburbans and Tahoes as mood images when posting my own sketches up for review in the studio.

Andy Warhol once said “what’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.” The GMT400 is a classic design that is the epitome of everyday America: at home on the work site, the camp site and in the motorcade. A democratic design good enough for proles and Presidents. You can’t help but feel Sir Terence would have a wry smile at that.

This article would not have been possible without the assistance of the GM Heritage Archive, whose researchers patiently dug into their archives for these exclusive images. Many thanks for your help. 

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