Colorado is here to stay
The Chevy Colorado is here to stay; General Motors just announced that it will invest $1.5 billion to produce them at its Wentzville truck plant, keeping 4,000 jobs in the U.S. (based on GM’s wording, that may include non-GM employees or people at other plants).
The next generation is unlikely to look like the curvaceous 2016 model shown above.
The Colorado midsize pickup (and its GMC brother) were brought back against the unsolicited advice of pundits, to compete directly against import pickups; Dodge had already decided to leave the midsize pickup market after Dakota sales had plummeted, and neither Ford nor Chevrolet had been able to keep compact pickup sales going with Toyota and others dominating sales in that arena. However, the Colorado has sold very well, and another generation is not especially surprising.
The Tacoma has not exactly been threatened by the Colorado and its GMC brother, the Canyon, but the Colorado is still a good seller. In the first three quarters of 2019, Toyota sold 228,000 Tacomas, and GM sold 96,819 Colorados and 26,301 Canyons. Ford, which came in late with the Ranger, got 50,512 sales under their belt. Nissan has probably been feeling the brunt of the Colorado; its Frontier only hit 67,650 sales from January 1 to the end of September 2019.
Clark Westfield grew up fixing up and driving past-their-prime American cars, including various GM and Mopar V8s. He has ghostwritten auto news for the last few years, and lives in Farmingdale, New York.