(first posted 9/23/2016) General Motors’ “professional grade” division, GMC, has always been an honest-to-goodness truck brand: big, tough trucks for big, tough jobs and big, tough drivers. Surely GMC wouldn’t indulge in any of that “special edition” malarkey, right? Wrong. Let’s look at five examples of GMC taking its trucker cap off and letting its hair down.
GMC Sonoma GT
Years produced: 1992
Total production: 806
The GMC Syclone was a legendary sport truck. Packing a turbocharged 4.3 V6 with 280 hp and 360 ft-lbs of torque, the Syclone put pony cars to shame and could even spank plenty of Europe’s finest at the drag strip. But a $26,000 price tag on a Chevrolet S-10 – albeit a heavily augmented one – had buyers baulking and only 2,995 units were produced for a single model year, 1991. The sporty compact pickup wasn’t dead at GMC, though: despite scrapped plans for a 1992 Syclone, a more affordably priced and similarly-styled truck, the Sonoma GT, was introduced.
An overly high cost of entry deterred buyers from the raging Syclone but the same could not be said for the Sonoma GT: it retailed for a whopping $10k less. Despite this, only 806 units were produced. The GT didn’t receive the boosted engine, instead settling for a higher-output version of the naturally-aspirated Vortec 4.3 V6 with a stout 195 hp and 260 ft-lbs. The standard version of the Vortec produced 160 hp, although the higher-output version was optional across the range. With a curb weight of 3300 pounds, Car & Driver recorded a 0-60 of 7.6 seconds, or around 2 seconds slower than the Syclone. There were still some mechanical enhancements over lesser Sonomas, however, with a lowered sport-tuned suspension standard. The suspension’s firmness and the Sonoma’s simple and ageing underpinnings meant that although the GT was a tidy handler, this was at the expense of a comfortable ride. Also, no stickshift was available – the only transmission was a floor-mounted four-speed automatic.
The main draw of the Sonoma GT was its styling, very closely resembling the Syclone. That extended to ground effects, a deep front air dam and fog lights. Unlike the Syclone, the Sonoma GT was made available in other exterior colors such as green, red, blue and white. It was also available in teal, like pretty much every car in the 1990s. Inside, the interior was identical to the Syclone, featuring black or gray cloth seats with red piping and a leather-wrapped steering wheel. Drivers were also rewarded with full instrumentation. The overall look, inside and out, was handsome but ultimately quite subtle. Perhaps that is part of the reason why these GTs sold poorly. After all, the base regular cab Sonoma started at around $3k lower and buyers could select the higher-output Vortec, although certain features of the GT package were not available options on other Sonomas. Nevertheless, the GT package simply wasn’t enticing enough to buyers and it lasted only a year.
GMC Mule
Years produced: 1979
Total production: ?
Over the years, GMC has released myriad special editions of its trucks. Many of these, like the Indy Hauler trucks, were featured in numerous GMC brochures and other promotional material. Many of these, too, have been kept in running condition and/or restored. But what of the 1979 Mule? Well, this is the one GM media piece I can find that features it, and nobody seems to still own one. The Mule, then, is truly an enigma. An enigma with a great big cartoon donkey plastered on the tailgate.
What says sporty more than the name “Mule”, a dorky cartoon mascot, black-and-gold paint and oak side rails? Well, by the end of the tape-stripe 1970s a lot of leeway was given for the word “sporty”. The interesting oak side rails are a rustic touch and something not commonly seen on 1970s pickup trucks, while the mascot is very early 1970s Mopar. The ad is for Chicagoland dealerships, so was this a dealer special? Do any remain?
GMC Gentleman Jim
Years produced: 1975
Total production: ?
Picking just one more special edition GMC pickup out of many was hard, but the Gentleman Jim stood out. That wasn’t necessarily because of the flashy black-and-gold color scheme, considering the aforementioned Mule was similarly painted and black/gold was a popular combination in the 1970s (see: AMC AMX, Pontiac Trans Am). No, the Gentleman Jim is notable because it presaged the Ram Laramies, F-150 Platinums, Sierra Denalis and Silverado High Countrys of today. This was a lux truck.
There were no ventilated Nappa leather seating surfaces, of course, but the cabin was as luxurious as many personal luxury coupes of the time. Features included cut-pile carpeting, woodgrain trim and, intriguingly, vinyl or cloth bucket seats. There was also standard air-conditioning, AM/FM stereo and power steering, while all Gentlemen Jim came equipped with a Turbo-Hydramatic 350 automatic transmission and a 350 cubic-inch V8.
The Gentleman Jim didn’t survive beyond 1975. At the time, pickup trucks were seen as more utilitarian vehicles, and the Big 3 couldn’t begin to imagine how fat the profit margins would become and how lucrative the segment would be a few decades later. Why own both a plush sedan and a utilitarian truck when you can merge the two? The gaudy, golden Gentleman Jim was ahead of its time.
GMC Jimmy Diamond Edition
Years produced: 2000-01
Total production: ?
Diamond-quilted leather trim has become the latest design fad in luxury car design, gracing everything from the $36k Kia Optima SXLs to the $300k+ Bentley Mulsanne. Shhhh, don’t tell Bentley that GMC beat them to the punch with the Jimmy Diamond. The gentlemen and ladies at Crewe would surely bristle at the comparison. The Mulsanne may be an acquired taste, like a glass of Moët & Chandon or a fine blue cheese, but the Jimmy Diamond is more akin to a can of Easy Cheese and a wine cooler.
Ok, so the interior looks like it was constructed from cheap handbags, but kudos to GM for trying something a little different to spruce up the drab, plasticky Jimmy interior. A diamond-quilted interior makes sense in a special edition called the Diamond, but GM wasn’t content to leave it there. The exterior had to be modified as well, and ASC assisted with the modifications.
GM’s press release read:
Two standard features of the Diamond Edition are its grille guard and tubular side step rails. These accessories, while common to the industry, are rarely offered as original equipment.
Translation? Crap that you probably didn’t want to fit after purchasing your car has been fitted to your car. What, no giant mudflaps, gold badges or pasted-on hood “vents”?
Perhaps some found the Diamond’s styling to be their cup of Mountain Dew Code Red, much like Chevrolet managed to sell plenty of NASCAR-edition Monte Carlos. Ultimately, though, the Diamond was an attempt to maintain interest in an ageing truck that was being stomped in the sales race by the Ford Explorer. Alas, a $30k truck with a name like a two-bit Atlantic City mobster simply wasn’t going to cut it. Not even the more tasteful Jimmy Envoy edition would turn the tables against Ford, although it was a prelude to an entirely new and better truck.
GMC Envoy XL Denali
Years produced: 2005-06
Total production: ?
GMC’s Denali line has always followed a simple formula:
Step 1 – Take a regular GMC pickup or SUV.
Step 2 – Add some features, a big, blingy grille and raise the price.
Step 3 – Profit!
The aforementioned Jimmy Diamond was a pleasant-looking truck afflicted with some horrific visual detailing. The Envoy XL Denali was the inverse. The extra Denali gingerbread may have been flashy but it was relatively attractive. On that note, the regular-length Envoy was a handsome, square-jawed, modern-looking truck. Something got horribly lost in translation, however, when stretching the GMT-360 body to make the GMT-370 Envoy XL, Isuzu Ascender and Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT. And although GM slapped almost every badge they could on the GMT-360s, the Oklahoma City-manufactured GMT-370 was exclusive to the Chevrolet, Isuzu and GMC brands and lasted a mere three model years. The Envoy XL Denali lasted only two.
The GMT-370 trucks stretched the regular-length models’ wheelbase by 13 inches (to 129 inches) in order to comfortably fit in a third row of seats. A total length of 207.6 inches put the GMT-370s between the Tahoe and Suburban in length. Some “mid-size SUV”, huh?
With a live rear axle, the GMT-360 couldn’t host a comfortable third-row of seating. This explains why the GMT-370 was so awkwardly long and why the roof was raised at the rear by 3.6 inches: stretching was easier than engineering a new rear suspension. Curb weight was up by more than 300 pounds and fuel economy was worse. The upper reaches of the Envoy XL range also sat uncomfortably close to the more conventionally-styled Yukon in price. Although the Envoy XL Denali was a cool $10k less than a Yukon Denali, it also had a less powerful 5.3 V8 (versus a 6.0 in the Yukon) and, even by 2005 standards, the feature list wasn’t that impressive. All an Envoy Denali added over a lesser SLT was some different trim, heated seats and power-adjustable pedals. Besides, you could forego the billet grille and get a mid-range Yukon for the same price. Many people did.
Sales were sliding and the Envoy XL Denali never met that 2000s level of SUV fame: it was never mentioned in a rap song or featured in a music video. Not to mention, the imminent arrival of the redesigned 2007 Yukon would have been the nail in the Envoy XL’s coffin. GM also had the purpose-built and genuinely good Lambda crossovers launching, which they didn’t half-ass by simply stretching an Equinox 13 inches. GM shuttered the Oklahoma City plant and with it the GMT-370s, including the Envoy XL Denali.
In Part II, we will look at some rare models from some of the shorter-lived brands in GM’s menagerie.
Related Reading:
1957-1959 GMC 900 Series: The Worst Truck Facelift?
Vintage Ad/Capsule: 1992 GMC Typhoon – The First Performance SUV?
Curbside Classic: 1963 GMC Pickup – The Very Model Of A Modern V6 Truck Engine
A long time ago, I read something about the Gentleman Jim. The console is what prompted the name, as at the time it was common to have your lady sit on the middle of the seat, practically on you, in a pickup. This took the Rambler idea of encouraging closeness, and flipped it on its head by keeping a barrier between you and your date ensuring one was a gentleman by keeping their hands to themselves. As the father of a teenage daughter, this is a magnificent idea.
So, in a sense, the Gentleman Jim concept is alive and well today with the abundance of partitions, I mean consoles, in (primarily) automobiles. One might argue GM was uncharacteristically ahead of the times on this one.
The Mule is unfortunate; the jackass tie-in isn’t a good one. No wonder it’s so obscure.
Those barriers are fairly prolific in trucks as well. I’m most familiar with Ford, and any truck with Lariat or higher trim will almost always have a console. This seems to be the case since at least the 12th Gen (2009-2014).
My low-trim F-150 has a divider of sorts but it doesn’t consume the floor like an automotive console does. I haven’t been in very many higher trimmed pickups lately – is the divider limited to an arm rest of sorts or has it sprouted onto the floor also?
The consoles are huge, and run along the floor, but the vehicle is so big that it fits in comfortably, unlike some Ford cars.
When I was shopping trucks a few years ago, I wanted a higher trim for business purposes, but six passenger for our family lake trips. The Lariat trim with a front bench was possible, but dealers ordered virtually all of them with buckets and consoles. I shopped trucks as old as 2010, and found exactly one Lariat bench.
This is the 2014 Ford console, but it is very similar to my 2012…………
Well it may be hard to find, but at least Ford does the bench right, with a shoulder belt and head restraint for the middle passenger. And when folded down it still offers a pretty good amount of storage.
My only complaint about the bench, and this may have changed, is that it does away with the HVAC vents for the rear passengers that the back side of the console has. Sure there are still some under the seats, but in my ’06 there’s just not much air flow back there.
Still, I’d take the bench every time over a console.
I remember seeing the rare Gentleman Jim back in the 70s, but they were certainly never common. They were indeed 20 years ahead of their time.
The Mule is really interesting – I have never seen one or even heard of it. I wonder if it was a regional package done just for dealers in the Chicagoland area.
The Mule looks very amateurish, and almost undoubtedly something put together by a dealer group. I cannot see this coming from GM directly.
Any other decade it would be easy to spot as amateurish. The 70’s makes it tougher to discern. 🙂
The “exclusive model designation” made me think it was factory, but they may just be talking about the stickers.
It certainly was way ahead of its time! As usual, timing is everything in the auto business……too ahead, and you won’t sell enough; too far behind and you’re riding the coattails of an innovator and run the risk of being redundant. Just last week, I had joked with someone that “wouldn’t it be funny to go back in time to the 60’s and 70’s (maybe 80’s) and say that trucks would be a status symbol around the turn of the Millenium?”. In the mid fifties, automakers started to get more stylish with trucks, but they were still very utilitarian. Though with things like the Lil Red Express, they were starting to establish trucks as performance machines that could be bought off the dealer floor. Still, everything like that was very niche oriented, very limited in its appeal. Same thing with the Syclone.
It’s my contention that Black & Gold was so popular in the 1970s was due to the success of The Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers then ?. As far a the Syclone, It also was kinda representing the future in an unexpected way. GMC is now basically Buick level trucks, Why not a Grand National pickup?!?
I’ll go along with that, although I don’t think I’ll be adding gold touches to my black Tahoe anytime soon.
There was also an Isuzu version of the GM T370. Obscure for sure. But there is a green one in my neighborhood nonetheless
Ah yes. The LWB Ascender. Very rarely seen in either length, but Isuzu did get the 370 as well as the 360.
Chris, I’m a fool! I had even written up the GMT-370 Ascender some time ago, but still forgot about it. I’ll update the text.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/future-classic/future-curbside-classic-2003-08-isuzu-ascender-where-were-you-joe-isuzu/
It wasnt popular* so dont be hard on yourself.
*Except in Charlotte NC…Folger auto group had an Isuzu franchise so you can find a surprising number of late Ascenders, I series trucks and Axioms even!*
Looking at those square GM trucks made me think of the “Heavy Half” – what was production on those suckers?
A neighbor had one in the late 1980s early 1990s that he had actually restored back to factory original after the tinworm had taken its toll.
If I may…
Now that GMC no longer makes over-the-road tractor-trailers, is there any legitimate reason for them to exist…beyond giving Buick/Cadillac stores (that don’t carry Chevy) a truck to sell?
What GM has unwittingly done in continuing the GMC line, is give Chevrolet a downmarket perception compared to Ford, who has successfully covered BOTH Chevy’s AND GMC’s bases. Hence they own the sales lead and dominate the conversation.
Only in the past few years have Chevy’s corporate strings been loosened to offer more premium models in their lineup. But improving Chevy’s perception will take years, if not decades.
True, GMC is quite profitable, which is why they weren’t killed off in 2009. I just wonder how much more profitable the whole might be, if the marketing and design dollars were poured into one truck line covering all the bases, instead of two.
If anything, it was the 2002 Envoy, the first GMC vehicle that was uniquely styled and not just a rebadged Chevy, that proved that GMC was worth keeping around. And every GMC since then has been uniquely styled from its Chevy cousin, which provides an alternative to those who might like a Chevy in all aspects except its looks. Also, GMC outsells Chevy in Canada, which might be attributable to GM pushing GMC more than Chevy there.
I’m convinced that the Terrain was meant to be a Hummer H5 or H6; they’re likely to keep that look going forward, a more blocky and truckish crossover than its’ Chevy and Buick counterparts.
There is no Buick counterpart (at least, not yet), but I think you’re right. The Chevy and GMC versions of any vehicle will and should continue to subscribe to different aesthetic schools, if only to attract a wider range of buyers.
Personally, I prefer the squared-off Terrain to the “textbook CUV” Equinox, even though I’d never own a mid-size CUV (or any mid-size vehicle) if I could help it.
I quite agree with you. The Equinox’s current styling has never sat right with me; it has a feminine vibe (not that that’s a bad thing, but something that doesn’t interest me) and it just looks awkward from certain angles. The Terrain is a good-looking vehicle; if it was meant to be a Hummer (which I can see) they successfully exicsed the cartoonishness.
Well, have you ever seen a man driving a Terrain? My two twin nieces have matching Terrains. They appear to be very attractive to young women.
I doubt the Terrain was meant to be a Hummer; it would have been a terrible brand dilution. The Terrain was designed to replace the Pontiac Torrent, given how many Pontiac/GMC combo dealers there were back then.
This argument will never be solved, the logical direction is to start building over the road tractor trailers again!
I think enthusiasts and fans are often prone — I have been as well — to what I’d call “brand fallacy,” or, if you prefer, “putting the brand before the profit.” There’s the assumption that the brand has some internal integrity or identity that means something or needs to mean something. The truth is that modern business logic places absolutely no stock in that idea (brochure copy notwithstanding). Stuff happens because (a) it’s making money or seems like it’ll make money or (b) it fulfills some kind of internal agenda (stroking a senior executive’s ego or giving lucrative deals to somebody’s friend or brother-in-law).
So, the idea that a corporation should retire a brand just because it lacks coherent identity or whatever ends up seeming both quaint and naïve. I’m sure it came down to some PowerPoint presentations showing that the additional marketing investment for two brands would produce good ROI. As long as it continues to, no corporate executive is going to dump it.
Business needs customers as much as they need businesses. Executives maximize the bottom line with their products and I don’t think anyone is critical of that, that is until it begins to have a negative impact on function, quality, and whether it’s useful to them anymore. As enthusiasts and fans that pattern is recognized all too well, and when it happens it’s like having the rug pulled out right from under, where suddenly this brand they were drawn to, were quite pleased with and raved about for years, no longer offers a single product resembling what drew them in in the first place.
Quaint and naive? Perhaps, but as a business they’d rather have my money than not, the consumer is the life of a company. If a company has aloof consumers, expect an aloof company. Declining and bitter consumers – declining and bitter company. Optimistic and enthusiastic consumers – optimistic and enthusiastic company. These things bear discussion, businessmen may scoff at the questioning of their decisions, painstakingly put together in PowerPoint, but that’s our role in the market. Buy, review and discuss.
Except when you add GMC and Chevy together, they more than spank FoMoCo in truck sales, year over year.
“The Gentleman Jim didn’t survive beyond 1975. At the time, pickup trucks were seen as more utilitarian vehicles, and the Big 3 couldn’t begin to imagine how fat the profit margins would become and how lucrative the segment would be a few decades later. Why own both a plush sedan and a utilitarian truck when you can merge the two? The gaudy, golden Gentleman Jim was ahead of its time.”
It may be unintentional, but this sort of seems to imply that the 1975 lux truck was ahead of its time, and died back for some years. The idea was very much alive, and was in full gear by the early ’80s. I got my first ride in a lux truck around 1979, a Chevy Silverado with every option in the book – including power windows and locks. I was a 6’1″ teen by then, and was wowed by the space and what you could get in a truck. My friends and I were city boys, but there were a handful of trucks in my school parking lot, standing tall in the sea of GM Colonnades and F bodies.
Gentleman Jim was a spin up of the High Sierra interior with standard bucket seats and console. All of the parts were still in the bin for 1976……………..
IIRC the cloth buckets were never offered on pickups outside of special editions, they were a regular option on Blazers and Jimmys, though.
They were an option on regular pickups, at least certain years, because I’ve seen them, and not on special editions, just fully loaded trucks.
Back to the other part, yes indeed luxury trucks continued into the 80s and blossomed in the later 90s, outside of Silverado and High Sierra, you have the Lariat from Ford, a mainstay for decades.
“…[T]o make the GMT-370 Envoy XL and Trailblazer EXT twins.”
I wouldn’t call the Envoy XL and TrailBlazer EXT twins, seeing as how they had completely different bodies, sharing only the front doors and rear liftgate. In fact, the standard Envoy was the first GMC to have a unique body from a Chevrolet model, which is now the standard practice.
Fraternal twins, of course 😉
I almost thought this series jumped the shark seeing a Syclone on the header – Oh come on, how can this be considered obscure! – but then saw it was in fact a Sonoma GT… Oh… never mind then! I do vaguely remember those now, thinking they were Syclones with standard wheels swapped on by the owners for whatever reason(winter use I assumed). Typical GM, water down the best cars they make with poseurs like this.
The Jimmy diamond edition, blech! I think that pattern resembles a tacky handbag in the current Bentleys, what do I think of it in a Tupperware 90s GM product? Take a guess!
GM should dump “Chevy” trucks, and concentrate on GMC, their “real” truck division. And why is the “Yugo” division of GM (that would be Chevrolet) selling something as upscale and expensive as the Corvette? The ‘vette SHOULD be a Cadillac… Makes no sense to me, and just my opinion.
The Corvette has been a Chevy for all of its 63 years, why mess with that now? I guess if you spun the brand off you could sell it out of Cadillac showrooms but that’s about the only advantage I see.
Same thing with the trucks. There are Chevy guys and GMC guys even though they’re the same truck. Take away one of the nameplates and you’re going to annoy your consumer base. I’m guessing that the advertising and R&D that go into GMC get recouped by the higher sticker prices. The only advantage there would be *maybe* taking the overall sales crown from Ford, eventually. Wouldn’t even happen right away most likely.
Whats the difference? Most all GM cars, and some trucks, have been “Chevy” now for 36 years thanks to that wretched 2.8L 60 degree V6 and its derivatives, all a complete waste of cast iron and aluminum, worked on many. File those under “The GM cars you will never see at a Barret Jackson auction”
I never really think of the Chevrolet division when I think of Corvette in more recent generations, it’s almost a brand in and of itself that happens to be sold at Chevy dealers.
Look no further than the fact it has it’s own dedicated emblems front and rear rather than the prominent big gold(ugly) bow tie. It’s in there, but it’s tiny.
Exactly. It, to me, and it’s only my opinion, is like buying caviar with food stamps.
They did make a Cadillac Corvette–remember the XLR?
I feel like I’ve seen a Gentleman Jim on the street some years ago. I could be making that up, but why? So I’m guessing I did spot one at some time.
The Mule amuses me because a college friend had named her truck “The Mule”. It was a beat half to death early 80’s Ford Courier (this was around 2000) that traveled around in a large cloud of blue smoke. About as far as you can get from this dressed-up Sierra.
Well this is what I thought of when I saw it:
The GMC Sprint SP and Caballero Diablo, twins of the El Camino SS, are kind of forgotten also. Some will see them as Chevys first.
I knew a dude with a Sprint. It was a rare one, actually: a 1972 Sprint SP, with the 396 Invader engine. Yes, that was essentially an El Camino SS 396! It was loaded…TH400, buckets and console, even factory air conditioning. It has had about ten engines in it at various times…from a 402 built to stock 396/375 specs except for headers, to a fire breathing tunnel-rammed 427, to a 327, to three different 454s.
Currently, it has a crate 502/502 dressed to look like the original 325HP 402, except for headers, 3″ exhaust, R134a air conditioning, and a TH700 swap.
There was also a Beau James edition GMC pickup, similar to the Gentleman Jim. As for the Mule, those were very rare, and seemed to be inspired by the Dodge Warlock which had a very similar tape stripe package. Probably the rarest GMC special edition of the 70’s was the Sarge pickup. It was introduced at the time GMC brought out the General long-nose conventional semi tractor. The first Generals were painted metallic silver with red and orange stripes, the Sarge wore a similar finish.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/37/b4/02/37b4028468d8318facaefd1d17e034b8.jpg
Another rare GMC special edition was the Aero Astro tractor of 1984. About the first time anyone tried to radically improve a cab-over’s aerodynamics. The Aero even had a retractable air defector on it’s roof, adjustable to the height of whatever trailer was being pulled.
http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/uploads/monthly_07_2013/post-5381-0-37381100-1373014346.jpg
My theory of how the Mule happened:
[Undressed business people sitting near depleted case of beer]
“Hey, at Pontiac they sold a ton of those “Judge” cars. Nothin’ but a GTO named after a character on a TV show. Why can’t we do somethin’ like that?”
“Yeah, Laugh-In. Pickup people don’t watch that show. Hell, they don’t really watch TV.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that damn bumpkin show I saw last week–‘where, o where, are you tonight’?”
“You mean Hee-Haw?”
“Yeah, that’s it. They got that big toothed donkey. That’s it, we put that donkey on the truck.”
“What the hell do we call that? The Jackass Hauler?”
There is then a failure to obtain rights to the Hee-Haw donkey logo (or to persuade the corporation, or higher-ups, to do so), and a mulish attempt to show GMC the great marketing opportunity it was missing, as well as a purchase of overstocked miniature wooden livestock rails from Dodge’s Li’l Red Express.
Not to be a jackass, but I kinda want that Mule edition (maybe get a body shop to peel off the ass on the rear end?)
Something about those stake-sides I find very appealing.
Back in the 1970s when I was working at the GM plant in Fremont I remember the Gentleman Jim causing a lot of interest as it went down the line. There was one parked at the end of the line and quite a few workers came down to see it and remark favorably on it. I think the biggest problem with these trucks was that they didn’t have the extended cabins that have now become so common. It was a lot of extra money for a vehicle that seated one less person than a standard model. Pick ups really wouldn’t take off until the extended and quad cabs became available. We built both the Chevy and GMC trucks as well as the El Camino and GMC sprint.
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Whatever you can say about any of the truck featured in this piece, at least none of them were advertised using the music from the Who song “Eminence Front”, like GMC’s are today. Doesn’t anyone from GM’s ad agency know that the song is basically about BEING FAKE? “It’s an eminence front, an eminence front, it’s a put-on, . . . ” I suppose it’s appropriate, as any claim that GMC’s are anything other than rebadged Chevrolets has long been, well, an eminence front . . .
Lyrics don’t matter if the song is catchy. Case in point: “Born in the U.S.A.” is not a patriotic song.
I have often found its various uses ironic and, many times, perplexing.
I can’t believe I have seen 3 of the 5. usually my score is much less when it comes to these limited editions.(and being in the back of beyond as where I grew up has been described probably didn’t help) I remember the gentleman jim, the Sonoma gt and the envoy xl denali.
I remember the Jimmy Diamond distinctly, Envoy XL Denali, Sonoma GT and the Gentleman Jim, the latter two years after they were released (wasn’t alive in the 70s and was a kid in the early 90s).
The Beau James was aimed more at the South, I believe. My brother-in-law in Baton Rouge had one, and it really was a nice truck. He must have driven it for 10 years. I’ve only seen a couple of others (I usually noticed because I thought it might be my BIL). I really do like the Gentleman Jim better, if only for the colors. I don’t know if the Beau James was offered in any colors other than blue/silver, but I never saw any others.
Same here, I only saw the Beau James edition in blue/silver. Did see a few in So. Ca. back in the day.
I have a GMC 01 Black Diamond Edition and I love it. Very comfortable seats and the truck is loaded. I am the 2nd owner of it; it is an even more rare edition as its a Dale Earnhardt #3 edition.
Also have a 91 GMC Jimmy ST, another rare Earnhardt Edition, all black. These were 2 doors, had the red stripe at the bottom of each side. Same colors as Dale’s cars were. This truck, by far, was the best vehicle I ever had, the biggest issue living in the Midwest was rust, so I had to replace fenders, quarters, etc. but the Jimmy ST is a nice looking vehicle. Did not ride that great, Chev/GMC were not that far yet, but it got me home through alot of snowstorms.
Also another great special edition car GM put out was the 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix Golden Anniversary Edition. Only less than 5K of these cars made. Always wanted one, got close, never got one.
I remember the Gentleman Jim GMC’s back in the day. They were popular around these parts. There was also the Beau James version as well.
Sorry but that Jimmy Diamond interior is uuuuuugly!
I really like that Sonoma GT interior. I’ve always thought high end compact trucks deserved better interiors back then. And anything beats the no-tachometer having hockey stick gauge cluster the regular Sonoma and twins had at the time. I wish that interior package alone was more common on those vehicles.