I have never understood the appeal of pickup trucks. To me, using one as a daily driver makes as much sense as using a pogo stick as mode of transportation. Based on years and years of sales figures, I'm clearly in the minority when it comes to that sentiment; the heck do I know anyway growing up twenty minutes from Times Square anyway. Apparently, as Joe Diffie pointed out so succinctly more than twenty years ago, there's something women like about a pickup man. Big and, as is in the case of our subject today, small. Again, the appeal, both big and small, escapes me. Particularly the little guys like this.
Chevrolet's first foray into small pickup trucks was this rebadge of an Isuzu pickup they called, "LUV". If I had any pickup sense when I was a kid this horrible wreck violated it when I first saw one years ago. "LUV", an acronym for "light utility vehicle" was Chevrolet's response to the growing popularity of small pickups sold in the United States by Datsun (now Nissan) and Toyota and was the first small pickup ever marketed and sold by one of the Big Three. Despite being as brutal riding as a farm wagon and slower than a ride on lawn mower it sold quite well particularly on the west coast. Chevrolet sold the LUV from 1972 through 1981.
Remarkably, after the ugly little LUV, Chevrolet produced something even homelier, the all new for 1982 Chevrolet S-10. The S-10 was the first compact pickup produced, marketed and sold by the Big Three and despite being only somewhat smoother riding and slightly more powerful than the LUV, sold surprisingly if not amazingly well. When I think of Joe Diffie's "Pickup Man", I don't think of women drawn to men who drive S-10's but again, Mr. Long Island here. What do I know about these things?
A refresh of sorts for 1994 put a somewhat modern spin on the sheet metal although underneath she's still the same ox cart simple doofus as before. Twenty plus years later I find it no less ugly than I did when it was new. These things ride and drive so crudely and bounce around so much you feel as though it has balloons for tires you'd think they designed that in. You could say they did since it's roughness was due to a lack of overall engineering. The 1994 vintage S-10 was sold through 2004.
Chevrolet not only changed the name of their compact pickup in 2005 they also introduced it on a new truck platform, the GMT355. With an improved front suspension and new 4 and 5 cylinder engines, (the five presumably fit better in the narrow engine space than a V-6 although GM did squeeze a V-8 in there in 2009 so who knows...) Chevrolet also went for it with aggressive new styling that even I find somewhat appealing. Somewhat. There something that women like about a man that drives a Chevrolet Colorado?
Must be the layer of crud on this well worn worker or the handsome contrast of the black rims with the red as to why I find this little guy, ha, little - still weighs two tons, somewhat appealing. However, this little guy is only marginally more refined than the S-10 it replaced and the funky in line five giving no more performance than the V-6 it replaces. You'd think that a given seeing it has one less cylinder but in this modern world of overhead cams and fuel injection you'd hope at least for a performance upgrade. Nope. Not going to happen. Say hello to the 5300 V-8 in 2009 although I pity the fool who has to work on it.
Then again to each his own. The owner of this thing, the maintenance guy at the gym I go to, loves it and says its the best truck he's ever had. He likes the styling too although he wishes it resembled his father's first small truck more. When I pressed him for what that little truck was he told me it was "that little Chevrolet thing they sold back in the '70's."
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