Chevy Express 1500, GMC Savana 1500 get the axe

Tue, 15 Jul 2014

Fans of truck-based, light-duty vans can officially pour one out for the Chevrolet Express 1500 and GMC Savana 1500, as General Motors has officially put its long-serving big/little rigs out to pasture. Things aren't quite as sad as they sound, though. The heavier-duty 2500 and 3500 vans will soldier on, in order to duke it out with the largest members of Ram ProMaster, Ford Transit and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter families.

The move does seem to make a lot of sense. According to GM, customers only purchase the 1500-spec Chevrolet 23 percent of the time, while the GMC captures a mere 7 percent of the Savana family's sales. With numbers like that, it's no shock that GM thinks it can shift some of its buyers into its van family's more capable variants. "We knew we could move a lot of our 1500 customers into 2500-series territory," said GM's Joe Langhauser, the product manager for the company's full-size vans.

It's not just simple sales figures dictating the move, though. The 1500 line is taking up some valuable factory space that will be better spent on an eagerly anticipated new product.

"With the Colorado coming into the [Wentzville] facility, there was a lot of unique space that was dedicated to the 1500-series van line. We were able to utilize that space much more effectively for [the midsize] trucks," Langhauser said.

The last 1500, a Chevy-badged cargo van (pictured above), was screwed together last week.

By Brandon Turkus