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GM Officially Drops Half-Ton Chevrolet Express, GMC Savana Vans

As the market continues to swing toward more European-inspired full-size vans in the U.S., Chevrolet has officially announced that it will end production of its light-duty Chevrolet Express 1500 and GMC Savana 1500. According to Autoblog, the final Chevrolet Express 1500 rolled off the assembly line last week at GM’s Wentzville, MO plant (pictured above).
Chevrolet Express 1 photo
Photo: Chevrolet
Despite the loss of the light-duty 1500 model, GM will continue to produce the heavy-duty 2500 and 3500 models of both vans. In its overall full-size van sales, GM says that percentages of half-ton vans has dropped off considerably with 23 percent of the Express vans coming in 1500 form and just 7 percent of the Savana being of the light-duty variety.

While that’s a lot of sales to leave on the table, GM hasn’t given up on this segment. For customers who must have a van, Chevy will soon offer the all-new, Nissan-based 2015 Express City, and GM is also getting ready to introduce its next-gen mid-size pickup trucks, the 2015 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. Not only will the Colorado and Canyon take up some of the slack in terms of the light-duty Express sales, the extra capacity saved from the low-volume vans will be utilized to assembly the new truck at the same plant.

Along with Express 1500 and Savana 1500 models, so too dies GM’s 4.3-liter V-6 that dates back to the late 1970s; the 4.3-liter EcoTec3 V-6 used in the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra is unrelated. These were the last vehicles to use this engine, and it also looks like GM is dropping the 5.3-liter V-8 from the lineup leaving the 4.8-liter gas V-8, 6.0-liter gas V-8 and the 6-6-liter turbo diesel V-8 as the remaining engines offered in the van, wagon and cutaway models.

With newer and more capable vans like the Ford Transit, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and Ram ProMaster, it isn’t clear if GM has any plans for a next-gen full-size van just yet.
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