2018 Chevy Medium Conventional

revrnd · May 27, 2018

On 4/7/2018 at 2:34 AM, C/K Man said:

I found out something interesting about the cabs on the new medium duty trucks. Yes, they are going to use the current K2XX cab, but Navistar is actually going to produce the cabs in their Springfield plant. I figure this is so the GM truck plants (like Fort Wayne) will not have to continue to build the existing cab after the next generation full size trucks (T1XX) come out.

The G van cut-away's are still available, including a 4500 series version. Navistar builds those too.

Probably just relocating the soon to be obsolete tooling from Ft Wayne to the Navistar plant. When my plant closed in '09, the complete box assembly 'zones' were dismantled & shipped to Silao. Apparently there was little to no automation in the Mexican plant. On the other hand there were very few assemblers manning our box line. They were more or less just placing parts to be picked up by robots & placed onto the tooling before welding. All the welding was robotic.

C/K Man · August 20, 2018

I have seen the 4500/5500/6500 order guides. Looks really good, and the trucks are priced right. Should be out very soon. As far as I can see, GM only needs to make 2 additions. First, a gas engine. Gas engines are becoming a lot more popular in medium duty trucks. Right now, Ford has that market to themselves. Second, at least the 6500 series needs a 22.5" wheel option. Reason is with 22.5's the bed of the truck would be 'dock height'. That's important to a lot of users of vans and flatbeds that load and unload at docks. Most class 4/5 trucks are about a foot to low.