How is this for a lift?

[greatdaen]

Thought everyone would get a kick out of this image - no tricks, fake photos, or otherwise... Just a day at the office.

You can't tell from the photo, but this was one of a few prototype GMT800 2-door Tahoes. A real shame they decided not to make them. We were working on some high-performance suspension mods and this was one of the tests. Driving about 38MPH accross a series of concrete trenches about 8 inches deep.

And the best part is that I was getting paid for this!

-dch

[72c10step]

Hey, I've got a pic of one of those! And I too wish they would have made them, I would have bought one in a heartbeat!! Why do they always get rid of the vehicles people want? (Camaro, Firebird, 2 door Tahoe, Chevelle, etc)

[TIMSPEED]

DAMN! Anymore info on that badboy?!

[1/2_man_1/2_amazing]

Man, I wish I had your job. Thats one sweet ride to.


Cody

[72c10step]

This is all the info I have. It was sent to me with the pic from a friend of mine that works at GM. He sent it to me about a year ago:

"I remember you saying that it would have been cool if they would have made a 2-door Tahoe with the 99-02 front end, the one pictured has a two inch body lift and 285/75R16 BFG A/T's. There are two of them that are exactly the same and that's the only two. They were made with soft tools and were used as chase trucks."

[BigDaddyCMU]

I wonder if the chassis is custom too. Seems to be from a regular cab shortbed pickup. . .

[greatdaen]

BigDaddy, the frame is for a 2000 Tahoe 2-door. Its a prototype built from scratch by the frame supplier - maybe BUDD.

Jay,

Great Picture! Your pic is of one of the two that I was working with. I cannot tell from your photo which one though.

Your friend's information was close, but there are a few holes.

At the time his photo was snapped there were only two of them. But more had been originally built. I don't recall the exact number, but in the 6-10 range.

The two units I worked with were not quite the same. One had rear swing-out style doors and the other had a liftgate. The interior of the liftgate unit was LT with leather and all the bells and whistles; the interior of the other was cloth.

These probably were made with 'soft' tools. For those of you who aren't familiar with that term - early prototype panels are stamped on dies usually made from laminated wood. The dies give great results, are fast to make (and cheap), and relatively easy to modify. The only problem is they don't have much of a lifespan before wearing. The 'hard' production tooling takes a long time to make and cost millions and changes are expensive. But they have to stamp out millions of the same panel.

The interesting point in this is that the 2-door tooling was the hardest to build technically so it required the longest lead time. So GM ordered it first. AND it got made before the program was cancelled. There are some 2-door Tahoe dies sitting in a warehouse someplace!

Although these two units got sent to the desert to be used as chase vehicles in Off Road racing, that never happened. GM Truck's involvement with Team MacPherson's Trophy Truck and Class 7 race car ceased before these Tahoes saw any service. Instead they were used to develop some high performance suspension mods that you'll see in production sometime in the future. They are already being used in GM military vehicles and US Boarder Patrol vehicles. The first production vehicle will probably be the H2 in a couple more years.

The suspension geometry has not changed on these. They had the 2-inch body lift, the larger tires, Bilstein take-apart 46mm shocks with custom valving and custom internal bypass work, and one of them had a Scott Russell rear suspension linkage.

Glad to see that another picture survived besides mine.

Why didn't GM build them? Those darn 'bean counters'. At that time, the 4-door was super hot and they couldn't make enough of them. The 2-door market was only 15% of the utility market and had been shrinking each year. The cost of developing the program and the production requirements didn't make sense to them. They decided they wanted the assembly line capacity to be for all 4-doors.

You would think that since No One makes a full size 2-door anymore, there would be a market. But then again, these are the same people that told my group in '95/'96 it would be a cold day in Haiti before the public would by an SUV with a pickup box - Avelanche, Explorer Sport Trac - or a 4-door 4x4 with a short box.

-dch

[72c10step]

Originally posted by greatdaen

Why didn't GM build them? Those darn 'bean counters'. At that time, the 4-door was super hot and they couldn't make enough of them. The 2-door market was only 15% of the utility market and had been shrinking each year. The cost of developing the program and the production requirements didn't make sense to them. They decided they wanted the assembly line capacity to be for all 4-doors.

You would think that since No One makes a full size 2-door anymore, there would be a market. But then again, these are the same people that told my group in '95/'96 it would be a cold day in Haiti before the public would by an SUV with a pickup box - Avelanche, Explorer Sport Trac - or a 4-door 4x4 with a short box.

-dch

I just wish that there was some way to get them to change their minds about the 2 door SUVs. I guess I'll just have to settle with get a used older style 2 doors instead of a brand new one when I graduate from college next year.