Senior Editor Seyth Miersma takes a bare-bones, two-wheel-drive, manual-transmission GMC Canyon for a country drive.
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SEYTH MIERSMA: Hey, guys, this is Seyth with Autoblog, and I'm here in the 2015 GMC Canyon pickup truck. And the version that I'm in is about as bare bones as this truck gets. We've got a convenience group package, which means I have things like, you know, a remote lock and unlock. I've got a spray-in bed liner, and then I've got the very tiny, but still kind of useful, infotainment system, which, you know, allows for things like hooking up your phone, Bluetooth streaming music from my iPhone to the sound system, and things of that nature. But really, there's not a whole lot here. What you see is kind of what you get.
The interior is-- is pretty basic. We've got gray plastic, we've got black plastic, we've got these great cloth seats, which I actually kind of dig. They've got kind of a cool shape. It's comfortable in terms of the interior, but it's certainly not fancy at all. You know, you go back and look into the segment, you look at offerings from Nissan and Toyota, and you'll see that this really feels pretty plush, certainly compared to their base level trucks.
We've got the 2.5 liter four cylinder in it, still makes 200 horsepower and 191 pound feet of torque. It doesn't feel completely slow, but I'll admit that some of that has to do with the fact that I have a six-speed to play around with. So I'm-- I'm revving it up a little bit higher than you normally would with a pickup truck. It's not fast, you know? It doesn't mean that it's not a little bit fun to drive.
We've come so far in terms of overall ride quality, noise vibration, harshness, and-- and things of that nature in-- in all pickup trucks that it's frankly surprising to see something at the very bottom end in terms of price in the market be as good as this is. I think that you're going to get a lot of people who are into the truck lifestyle and like the look. You're going to get a lot of people who are moving down from bigger trucks but still want to have a little bit of capability.
And with things with this, with-- with a truck of this nature, where you're talking about a sub 25,000 price point, you're just going to get a lot of people who want a vehicle of any kind, kind of a budget vehicle. And this one offers a little bit more attitude and fun than a lot of sort of basic sedans, entry level compacts, and things like that.
One of the things that's always hard for me to judge when I'm driving trucks is the actual kind of in-use ride quality. So right now, I've got no weight in the back. It's just me in the cab. But definitely, with the-- the unloaded springs over the back, the rear end feels a little bouncier. Now, of course, that's there because that bed is meant to be filled with stuff to take a lot of weight.
I love trucks. I've never owned a truck. I can't really consider myself a truck guy. But I really like driving this one. And to be totally honest, between having a stick shift, being a little bit smaller, and just feeling pretty new, this is one of the more fun truck driving experiences I've had in a while. All right, guys, well, I appreciate you tuning and watching. We're going to have a lot more daily drives for you in the near future. So please continue to click, and we'll see you on the next one.
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