Diesel option signals plenty of life left for GM's aging commercial vans

DETROIT -- It’s rare for an automaker to allow a vehicle to stick around for two decades without a major redesign. It’s rarer still to equip such a dinosaur with a brand-new powertrain.

But that’s what General Motors is doing for its full-size commercial vans, the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana.

GM will drop its 2.8-liter, Duramax turbodiesel engine into the vans as an option starting early next year for the 2017 model year. Yes, that’s the same engine that propelled the Chevy Colorado midsize pickup to the coveted Motor Trend Truck of the Year nod in 2015.

The diesel vans also will get an eight-speed automatic transmission. The powertrain will be offered on short- and long-wheelbase versions of the 2500 and 3500 cargo and passenger vans.

The logistics are easy enough. The vans and pickups both are assembled at GM’s Wentzville, Mo., plant, near St. Louis.

Still, those products occupy polar opposite ends of GM’s vehicle stable. The Colorado and sibling GMC Canyon are two of the newest and hottest vehicles in GM’s stable. The vans were developed when Hillary Clinton was enjoying her husband’s first presidential term and a decade before Donald Trump had publicly humiliated his first “Apprentice” contestant.

The diesel investment seems to signal that GM believes the Express and Savana still have some legs in the market. But don’t take my word for it.

“The Express and Savana still have a lot of legs,” GM fleet boss Ed Peper said in an interview last month.

Industry watchers have wondered for years when GM will replace its throwback vans. As Ford, Ram and other rivals have migrated to unibody, front-wheel-drive vans developed in Europe, GM and its body-on-frame, rear-wheel-drive vans have been left as an outlier.

Peper said there are plenty of customers who prefer GM’s “tried and true” vans to the Euro offerings. I don’t doubt that. But I also believe that GM must have a plan for their eventual replacement before the Express and Savana hit, say, the quarter-century mark in 2021.

One possibility: a version of the Opel Vivaro, a slightly smaller commercial van for Europe that GM makes with Renault and redesigned in 2014. GM turned to Renault-Nissan to solve another van problem via an agreement to rebadge the Nissan NV200 small cargo van as the Chevy City Express that same year.

Might GM someday consider another tie-up with Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn to finally send the Express and Savana out to pasture?

Peper said only: “We’re always looking at opportunities to be disruptive.”