SUV inside, pickup outside
Chevrolet gets it right with the new Avalanche
Chevrolet's Avalanche is a slick combination of a pickup truck and SUV. From the outside, it appears to be a pickup, but get inside and you feel as if you're in an SUV. Drive one and the immediate reaction is: Don't let this get lost in the cloud of gloom and doom hanging over Detroit.
In this corner there's always been a soft spot reserved for those vehicles that share running gear with mainstream vehicles, but have a unique body style or configuration -- like old panel trucks, the Subaru Brat and Baja, El Caminos, and even the old Pinto runabout.
The first generation of the Avalanche, which hit the market as a 2001 model, fit that mold with its unique "midgate" design. Fold down the rear seats, lower the midgate, and -- presto! -- you have an 8-foot covered cargo bed, one that achieves the old benchmark for a "real" full-sized pickup truck: It can hold a 4- by-8-foot piece of plywood.
The original Avalanches also had a cladded exterior and a rather pedestrian interior. Cladding is a matter of individual taste, but it never passed muster here.
Generation II, which Chevy executives liked so much they rushed it to market last fall, is more refined and stylish, features a classy interior, and a smooth and capable power train that can take flexible fuels such as E85. It still features the novel midgate that turns the rear seat into composite-covered cargo area. The Subaru Baja has a similar design, but without the full midgate.
For those of us not used to parking and maneuvering such behemoths, Chevy added a pair of helpers to this mid-level LT model: a parking-assist beeper and rear camera. Both helped a lot, but maneuvering a big vehicle in tight quarters is akin to docking a cruise ship in Boston Harbor on a summer day with pleasure boaters all around.
On the road, the Avalanche is smooth and powerful. Our test vehicle was a two-wheel-drive version with GM's Stabilitrak stability control system. With 9-plus inches of ground clearance, it would go nicely through a New England winter.
Our off-roading experiences were limited to a trip down the rutted dirt road to the town dump and a run down the washboard surface of the unpaved half of Plum Island. The spring-over-shock front suspension and multilink rear system nicely smoothed out the ride in both instances.
Making the conversion from SUV to cargo-carrier takes only a minute. I've always been leery of "one-touch" fold-away seats and storage systems, but the engineering has gotten better over the past few years, and it's easy to use the midgate feature and also to unlock and remove the three pieces that cover the cargo bed. A pair of nice features combine to keep cargo both safe and out of sight. The bed cover is lockable and the tailgate lock works in conjunction with the door locks, from the remote on your key chain, making for secure stowage.
The cargo area has multiple configurations. Leave the midgate closed and take over the bed cover and you can haul bulky and dirty items that are separated from the vehicle's living quarters. Remove the rear window and midgate and you've got added height and space that can be accessed from the front seats, side doors, and cargo bed.
Take an Avalanche tailgating and you can fill the in-bed storage areas with ice and have a pair of onboard coolers complete with built-in drains. Once you're done hauling, it's an easy job to sweep out or hose down the cargo area.
Removing the cladding from the exterior has resulted in a clean design. With the disappearance of the front bumper, the Avalanche, like many other big vehicles, has a heavy lower lip under the single-bar grille.
Style-wise, the raked front windshield nicely offsets the slanted back braces that run from the back of the roofline to the top of the bed rails. The signature design tells you that this is an Avalanche and not a regular pickup.
Even as Chevy hustled to get the Avalanche to dealers, the new Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups are coming along, too, and GM has high hopes for both as evidenced by the glut of TV commercials. With Avalanche pricing beginning at $33,000, pickup buyers can start looking at half that figure.
A final note on the Avalanche interior: Once dashboards were massive walls in front of the driver and, in trucks especially, they were truly nondescript. Not in the Avalanche. The low leather dash has nice wood appointments and space for an optional navigation system.
It's another thing that Chevy got right in this truck. 