GMC Terrain Proves Badge Engineering Is Alive And Well

All new for 2010, the GMC Terrain is a twin to the Chevy Equinox. The newest GMC model, available in front and all wheel drive, will be in showrooms this September.

General Motors (GM) is in for the fight of its life, working diligently to restructure in the midst of bankruptcy by overhauling the way that it does business. One thing that won’t be changing all that much is the automaker’s predilection for badge engineering, the sort of practice whereby a company creates a model for one brand and then rolls it out in some other form for one or more other brands.

Copying The Chevy Equinox

The most recent example of this practice is the Chevrolet Equinox which will share its body with the GMC Terrain, the latter expected to go on sale this September. But that shouldn’t be surprising because mostly everything sporting a GMC insignia is also sold as a Chevrolet, with trim level differentiations and external badging offering the other distinctions between the two.

GM has priced the GMC Terrain from $24,995 for the front wheel drive model and $26,745 for the all wheel drive version, destination and freight charges included. For its thoughts about the Terrain GM says, “The Terrain allows us to build on the evolution we started with the Acadia, applying the distinctive styling and capabilities that have always been a part of the GMC DNA to smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles that customers are seeking in today’s rapidly changing market,” said Susan Docherty, GM North America Vice President, Buick-Pontiac-GMC. “We think Terrain is a bold statement of GMC’s key role within the reinvented General Motors.”

Bold statement? Not hardly. A welcome change? Perhaps.

Walking Out The Company Talk

Ms. Docherty, who will be soon dropping the Pontiac portion of her job title, is clearly amplifying the company line. Not that she has much choice because GM is bent on standing with four brands – Cadillac, GMC, Buick and Chevrolet – while ditching four others – Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Hummer (plus Opel) – which leaves GM with fewer models to work with. The Terrain might work for the simple reason that it won’t be aped by Buick, at least not yet and it does, as GM says, look awfully like the Acadia which is its larger brethren.

Chevrolet is GM’s largest selling brand by far with GMC a distant second. Third place belongs to Pontiac which means that newly-minted Buick-GMC dealerships will have sell more Buicks and GMC models to make up for Pontiac’s demise. Oh, just in case you were wondering, GM is in the process of testing a new compact Buick which will be based on the upcoming Chevy Cruze sedan.

Source: General Motors

See Also – Equinox Gas Mileage Should Encourage Cruze Faithful

Equinox Gas Mileage Should Encourage Cruze Faithful

The Chevy Equinox offers a strong hint at what is come for the 2011 Chevy Cruze, especially concerning gas mileage.

Last August, when General Motors first began to really push the Chevrolet Cruze by having media specialists show up at a gathering in Lordstown, Ohio, the plant where the car will be assembled, GM indicated that highway gas mileage for the car would be quite high, with numbers as high as 45 mpg mentioned. Though I was invited to attend the event, I had a prior commitment, but I was still able to closely follow everything that was being said about the Cruze.

Ultra High Fuel Economy?

At the time, I wondered if GM was stretching the Cruze numbers, given that even the diminutive Smart Fortwo gets only 41 mpg on the highway. True, a generation ago it wasn’t too hard for the smallest cars on the road to get north of 40 mpg, but that was before emissions testing got real tough and when cars didn’t come with airbags and other heavy equipment items. I just wasn’t confident that GM was accurately portraying how well the Cruze would perform fuel economy wise.

All that began to change for me when the fuel economy numbers for the Chevy Equinox were recently released. Powered by a 2.4L I4 engine that is paired to a six-speed automatic transmission, the 2010 Equinox delivers 22 mpg city and 32 mpg highway. That latter number puts it at the top of the scale for compact SUVS, besting the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V even the Ford Escape Hybrid which delivers 31 mpg on the highway (34 mpg city).

Taking A Look At The Equinox

When I learned that the Equinox scored so well, I began to think that the Chevrolet Cruze with a base 1.4L I4 engine paired to a six-speed automatic transmission, could easily get much higher fuel economy numbers than the heavier, taller and longer Equinox. Though I don’t yet have the specifications for the American Cruze, my thinking is that the engineering for this baby combined with lower curb weight will deliver good numbers.  And, given that GM thought that the Equinox would deliver 21 mpg city and 30 mpg highway, I now believe that highway mileage north of 40 mpg with the Cruze is attainable.

We’re at least a year away from seeing the Chevrolet Cruze hit local showrooms, with GM’s restructuring playing an important part in how that timeline unfolds. However, when the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze does make it to the market, I think that it’ll offer surprising fuel economy, perhaps the best of any five passenger sedan on the market.

Photo Credit: GM Corp.

See also — GM Releases First Chevy Cruze Photographs