GMC Sierra pickup truck moves north

"We find customers coming out of the Mercedes and BMW sedans who want to get into this beautiful high-end truck," said Matt Noone, GMC Chief Design Officer, at St. John's Harbor, at Earth. -Neuve. "Denali's success has exceeded all our expectations. The (market) appetite for high quality trucks is a priority. "

According to analysts, the success of General Motors in promoting GMC and its Denali badge is a clever reading of a market where truck customers demand luxury, while enjoying the robustness of trucks.

GMC succeeds where Cadillac and Lincoln failed in the early 21st century by supplying a van that competes with German luxury car manufacturers.

Named after the largest mountain summit in the United States (also known as Mt. McKinley), the Denali trim was introduced on the GMC SUV Yukon in 1999 to complement the stunning Cadillac Escalade SUV launched a year ago. The badge was added to the Sierra range in 2001.

As the market moved to SUVs after the Great Recession, the general positioned GMC – and Denali – to take the lead with his medium-sized Acadia and compact terrain.

Denali's growth has been meteoric.

Since 2013, sales have nearly doubled from 74,795 units to 140,403 units last year. Denali's average transaction price in 2017 was a stratospheric level of $ 55,656 – higher than that of Mercedes, BMW and Audi.

"After the recession, people have been willing to pay for technology," said Stephanie Brinley, Senior Analyst at IHS Market, after a tour of the new Sierra. "They opened their checkbooks to buy content and this benefited GMC and Denali."

Ford and Ram compete with the Sierra with successful high-end versions such as the F-150 Platinum and the Ram 1500 Limited.

The premium image of GMC is so coveted that it has transformed the brand. While the standard, $ 40,000 in sales, was limited to 40% of SLE sales, but it only has 9% of Sierra's volume. Meanwhile, popular SLT and Denali products now account for 75% of sales, says marketing director Phil Brook. Denali alone – which starts at the end with $ 59,495 – accounts for 20% of Sierra's sales.

No one claims that the 2019 lorry sheet gave the truck builder the opportunity to push the boundaries of his family.

"Customers have told us – you have this great brand, you have to do more with it. We would like the truck to be different, feel different. It has features you can not get on a Chevrolet – or any other truck. "

GMC follows a familiar path to luxury car manufacturers such as Lincoln, Acura and Lexus: it shares a basic architecture with the classic Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck – and then enhances its stylistic and unique features.

"This is the biggest gap between GMC and Chevy," says analyst Brinley. "The only sheet they share is a rear door, a roof and a rear bumper – and GMC puts the technology in front of Chevrolet."

The Sierra's exclusive MultiPro tailgate is an engineering marvel – essentially two tailgates in one that can be configured as a lectern, a wood loading stop or an entry stairway into the crib .

The new AT4 off-road trim gains a 6.2-liter V8 over its 5.3-liter V-8 Chevy Trail Boss. It will also be offered as an option with a carbon fiber bed, a lightweight and durable material that is usually found on exotic performance cars.

"With Denali, we focused on luxury, luxury," Noone said. "But we also have 100 years of ruggedness, so we're bringing a capacity-based AT4 – the carbon fiber bed is the strongest box we've ever made."

While Cadillac has struggled to differentiate itself from German automakers, GMC is accumulating luxury sales. Denali sales alone were only 14,000 fewer units than the Caddy division. According to Bloomberg News, GMC's average vehicle is selling for about $ 44,000, nearly 40% more than the average US deal.

The Sierra Denali pickup will reach more than $ 67,000. But while the Cadillac Escalade SUV can earn $ 100,000, do not expect luxury goods manufacturers to enter the pickup business anytime soon.

In 2002, Cadillac (EXT based on Escalade) and Lincoln (Blackwood and Mark LT) introduced pickup trucks. They were abandoned earlier in the decade after poor sales.

"When it comes to a luxury brand trying to deliver a van, it did not succeed," said Brinley of IHS Market. "Pick-up buyers want to have confidence in their abilities, but they do not want a Cadillac truck, they want the brand of their truck, and they want to reward themselves."

Even Mercedes, which sells its mid-size X-Class pickup in Europe and Latin America, does not intend to compete with Detroit's premium titans in the US market.

"I think Mercedes would be struggling here," says Brinley.