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What Are The 2018 Chevy's Going To Made Out Of?

gottemfeathers

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Interesting. I know that the Ford dealerships around Gary Indiana were having a tough go of it when Ford switched to aluminum for their pickup truck bodies. The union guys (and a lot of their friends and families) from the steel mills wouldn't buy them. It will be interesting to see what they do now. Maybe they will only buy RAM pickups.
 

RSchneider

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Here's an interesting one. It's the production of the i3. When you watch it, you'll see that the chassis is aluminum and the body is made out of a variation of carbon fiber. It's an interesting video because it shows much more than I would ever expect from a manufacturer. Plus, you see how automation is taking over. It wouldn't surprise me that GM is looking into using the same processes and materials because the R&D for it has been done.

If you can ever visit the Porsche factory, take a plant tour. It'll blow your mind with the mixed materials they use and plus they do something that people freak out about, they glue most of the car together (which they learned from motorsports). For example, if you wipe the front of a 997 GT3 Cup Car, Porsche makes the front clip replacement and all you do is cut off the glue to the main tub and then glue on a new one. Honestly, it's much easier and cheaper to fix. Plus the car is just as structurally sound as it was when brand new.

Here's the 83 minute i3 production video:
 

Ty

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Interesting. I know that the Ford dealerships around Gary Indiana were having a tough go of it when Ford switched to aluminum for their pickup truck bodies. The union guys (and a lot of their friends and families) from the steel mills wouldn't buy them. It will be interesting to see what they do now. Maybe they will only buy RAM pickups.
I wonder how local that phenomenon is. They sell as many as they can get around these parts... enough so that my truck's resale value is actually pretty darn good!
 

RSchneider

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Ford truck sales were up 5.2% in 2016 with that aluminum truck.

The sales for the first 11 months of 2017 and 2016, shows this.
2016 - 733,287
2017 - 807,379

2016 - 820,799 (all 12 months)

Aluminum truck sales will be up yet again because all Ford has to do is sell 13,420 trucks in December and they are typically running around 70K/month.
 
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airforceguy6

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I just wish Chevy would combine the sales of GMC's with Chevy and the numbers would run a lot truer.
Exactly! Gotta love how Ford and Ford owners always mention they are "the best selling trucks every year"...when in reality, if you combine the sales of the Sierra and Silverado you get the true number. Hope to buy a new Denali someday if they ever bring back the Quadrasteer option.
 

Coss

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Exactly! Gotta love how Ford and Ford owners always mention they are "the best selling trucks every year"...when in reality, if you combine the sales of the Sierra and Silverado you get the true number. Hope to buy a new Denali someday if they ever bring back the Quadrasteer option.
You left out a part, if you combine them, they are much higher then Ford. Chevy alone comes close, but when you add in the GMC (they are just HD Chevy's) the number is almost double what Ford sells.
It's called "creative advertising" not "Honest Advertising".
 

RSchneider

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It's a catch 22 for GM. The GMC brand has a following and so does Chevy. It's just branding but in the end, it works out the GM. Many like going to a GMC dealer because they are all working on trucks and thus geared for that. We have a Ford dealer here in town and it's the dealer to do go for truck service because half of the service department is only truck (they do lots of fleet service). From the outside, you'd never know. We also have a GMC dealer but they sell Buick. So, half the service area is full of trucks and the other with Buicks.

For Chrysler, I'd think if they had certain dealers that only sold Jeep and Ram, they could even do better with those brands.
 

Coss

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It's a catch 22 for GM. The GMC brand has a following and so does Chevy. It's just branding but in the end, it works out the GM. Many like going to a GMC dealer because they are all working on trucks and thus geared for that. We have a Ford dealer here in town and it's the dealer to do go for truck service because half of the service department is only truck (they do lots of fleet service). From the outside, you'd never know. We also have a GMC dealer but they sell Buick. So, half the service area is full of trucks and the other with Buicks.
For Chrysler, I'd think if they had certain dealers that only sold Jeep and Ram, they could even do better with those brands.
Here they do, the Dodge/Chrysler dealer sells the cars, and two blocks away is the Dodge Pickup Center, they separate the two so that the people that are looking for trucks, find a dealer that sells, just Dodge (Ram) trucks; the one thing about this dealer is that they create as many stores as they can, they have a lot of different brands, but they're all Hannah Dealerships, his buddy, Alan Webb has the Chevy Dealership, and Chevy Trucks, plus Mazda, and a few others that Hannah doesn't, so these two guys pretty much have all the brands covered.
 
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