Autoblog

General Motor's "commercial grade" truck unit may be losing two of its planned products, leaving some to contemplate the future of the nameplate in general. It's too early to consider GMC dead, but with the apparent cancellation of the next-generation Acadia CUV as well as the planned unibody truck inspired by the Denali XT Concept, GMC dealers are likely left wondering what, beyond the new GMC Terrain, they are supposed to be selling in the next few years. We're not all that sad to see the Acadia go as the Chevy Traverse is a better looking overall package and it makes more sense to offer the CUV as a Chevrolet anyway. What's more, with most GMC dealers also offering Buick vehicles, they'll still have the Enclave to offer potential customers.

Current rumors also predict an end to the Saturn Outlook, the slowest seller of the original Lambda-based trio, which would leave the Enclave and the Traverse as the two remaining GM crossovers. There still seems to be a good chance that Chevrolet will get an SUT based off the platform as well, so nothing too important seems to have been lost with this decision.

[Source: GM Inside News]

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UPDATE: The 2009 GMC Terrain will be a new, Jeep Liberty-sized vehicle and not the Middle East version with the same name shown above. Details here.

With the Torrent dropped from Pontiac's long-term plans as the brand returns its focus to performance-oriented cars, GM appears to already know how and where it'll replace the small crossover. The answer was apparently unveiled back in November when GMC introduced the Terrain in Kuwait. Like the Saturn Vue, the GMC Terrain is essentially a badge-engineered Opel Antara; and it's reportedly coming to the US, according to an Automotive News report that's set to hit the wires tomorrow. Due as a 2009 model, the Terrain will be GMC's first foray into the compact SUV CUV segment. As you can see above, the division's branding looks right at home on the Vue/Antara bodywork. The long-in-the-tooth Chevy Equinox can't be hanging around much longer, either, and while GM has denied plans to do so in the past, we've got to believe the Chevy Captiva version of the Antara is waiting in the wings to carry the Equinox moniker forward. At least we hope that's the case.

[Source: All Cars All The Time]

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Ever wonder what a rebadged version of the Saturn Vue, which is already a rebadged version of the Euro-only Opel Antara, would look like? Wonder no more, as GMC unveiled just such a vehicle earlier this month at the Dubai Motor Show called the Terrain. Since we missed that show (next year it's Dubai or bust, baby!), we had to wait until the Terrain showed up at the Kuwait International Automobile Exhibition 2007 this week for GMC to release an official image of the vehicle. The Terrain is GMC's first compact CUV ever and will be sold at least in the Middle East; we've not heard any plans about possible exporting it to additional markets.

Truth be told, the Terrain is pretty handsome. We find that the simple cues of GMC's design language look good when applied to a blank canvas like this little CUV or the brand's Lambda-based CUV, the Acadia. While we know the Terrain is earmarked for the Middle East, we're curious to learn whether or not it's also being considered for sale in the U.S. With three different versions of the larger Lambda CUV on sale in the U.S., what would be the harm in giving the Saturn VUE an identical twin?

[Source: GM via egmcartech]