#GmcYukon

This 2000 GMC Yukon is apparently "elderly owned", making it the proverbial "only driven to church on Sundays" vehicle.

Despite hearing murmurings that the semiconductor shortage is about to turn a corner, General Motors has recently decided to begin manufacturing full-size pickups without the sometimes obnoxious automatic stop-start feature (intended to improve fuel economy) as a way to cut back on chip usage.

While this saves many the trouble of having to manually deactivate the system each time they return to the vehicle, some will undoubtedly miss having it. Those traversing the countryside or racking up highway miles during their daily commute have little to gain from the feature. But testing has revealed that city dwellers constantly exposed to stop-and-go traffic actually have an excellent shot at lowering their fuel bill. The vehicles GM has selected can do without start-stop technologies reflects this, though the compensation it’s offering remains laughable.

Longer, more spacious, and sporting a newly independent rear suspension, General Motors’ 2021 full-size SUV clan is ready to tap pent-up consumer enthusiasm… just as soon as the manufacturer scrubs off the paint-marring insect secretions.

It seems the General’s big SUVs have run into a seasonal issue near their Texas home base.

What’s the point of owning a GMC if no one knows it’s a GMC? The question no one asked is apparently being answered, with General Motors reportedly offering a lit-up badge as a dealer-installed option for its 2021 Yukon line.

Sometimes a mile-high grille filled with a red GMC logo big enough to bludgeon a man to death with just isn’t enough to get the message across.

The revamped, full-size Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban and their GMC Yukon/Yukon XL twins gain significant length, interior volume, and creature comforts for 2021, but extra MPGs seem to be in short supply.

The vehicles are now even larger than their predecessors, are still heavy, and carry identical V8 engine displacements, so no one should have expected Prius fighters. Still, the changes in fuel economy are worthy of note.

It should surprise absolutely no one that after the recent reveal of the new Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, there wasn’t long to wait before we glimpsed an updated version of the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL.

The actual surprises come in how General Motors’ truck brand intends to differentiate itself from Chevrolet while addressing criticism from journalists and the public alike on how to make a better full-size SUV.

Where were you when you first saw an Escalade? Do you recall the lesser but identical Yukon Denali? Twenty years have elapsed since the Escalade’s introduction, and the luxury brand of wreath and crest has never looked back.

But today, we’re going to.

The current generation of General Motors’ full-sized SUVs has become the dominant force in the segment. The six nameplates offered up by GM own seventy-five percent of America’s full-sized, body-on-frame, truck-based SUV market. The GMC Yukon and GMC Yukon XL are a big part of that dominance. Their high average transaction prices and robust sales have helped build General Motors’ fastest growing brand into a sales powerhouse.

The Yukon has always been a luxurious, yet restrained, step above the Tahoe and Suburban, and the 2015 model boosted the upscale feel with the addition of better materials like real wood. A more powerful engine further differentiated the model from its Chevy sibling. Unfortunately, the 420 horsepower 6.2 liter V8 was only available on the Denali-trimmed Yukons.

That is, until the 2019 GMC Yukon hits dealer lots. But there’s a catch.

No, there’s no Denali Light model in the works, but there will be a new choice for buyers seeking a low-end GMC Yukon or Yukon XL. General Motors’ truck-only division apparently has a mid-year addition planned for the body-on-frame SUV that effectively creates a one-up-from-base trim.

To bastardize an old Dodge slogan — if you can handle less content at a lower MSRP, you could be Yukon material.

Yesterday, GMC unveiled the 2018 Yukon Denali Ultimate Black Edition, billed as an “exciting new package” featuring the very best in premium GMC styling and attributes.

That’s excellent marketing-speak, but we all know why there is suddenly an uber-Denali: the regular one just isn’t good enough for the school drop-off line anymore.

Time to suspend disbelief, much like you do with your favorite television show featuring dragons and incestual relations (between people, not dragons). A new government regime has outlawed production of the private automobile. All new car sales will end in 48 hours. Much like Jack Bauer, you’ve got to make an important decision in that timespan: Purchasing your last car of choice.

Which automobile will you pick, knowing it’s the last one you’ll ever have?

11.3 percent of the new vehicles sold by General Motors in the United States in September 2016 were full-size, body-on-frame, truck-based SUVs.

The Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV, Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, and GMC Yukon and Yukon XL combined for 28,172 total sales in September 2016, a 45-percent year-over-year increase worth nearly 9,000 more sales.

September marked the second consecutive month — and just the tenth month in the last five years — that GM produced more than one out of every ten of its U.S. sales with full-size SUVs. Not since November 2011 has GM produced such a hefty portion of its sales with large SUVs.

So why can’t Buick have one?

An anonymous GM employee writes:

I have a field role with General Motors that affords me the luxury of driving (mostly) anything in The General’s portfolio. I can choose from any brand except Cadillac, and can’t drive a Corvette or pickup (because of retail demand and limited supply). I’m 22 with student debt down into the low four digits. GM pays for gas, insurance, and incidentals like oil changes and winter tires because I need a car to do my job. I live in a snow-heavy state where I’m expected to do around 30,000 miles a year for business travel alone. Finally, I switch out cars every four months because that means it remains eligible for new vehicle incentives and programs when it’s sold back to the dealer at a big discount.

Here’s the catch: the vehicle is considered a taxable benefit.

Stop the presses! There’s a new GMC Yukon in town!

Until this morning, humanity was only familiar with three trim levels of GMC’s Suburban clone. There was the SLE, which does not have push-button start and is therefore beneath contempt. There is the SLT, which is the Yukon your neighbors got when they couldn’t swing the lease payments on the Denali. Finally, there is the Denali, with which you are no doubt familiar from the line of “cars” waiting to pick up kids at your local private school. With the exception of devoted George Strait fans, everybody who imagines a Yukon in their head imagines a Denali.

I’m not aware of anybody ever questioning the density of the Yukon lineup, but it’s obviously been done quite a bit because now there’s an SLT Premium. It slots between the SLT and the Denali on price. Unless they’re holding something back in the GMC press release of which we aren’t aware, the SLT Premium package is strictly an appearance package, featuring a new shinier grille, “exclusive” 22-inch wheels, and a few extra chrome trim pieces thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Do you have the next five or so minutes free? Would you like to talk for a moment about what this all means — this new Premium trim level and the associated discontents which led to its production? If so, you’re in luck, my friend, because that is precisely the thing about which I would like to talk this fine morning.

If you’re looking to get the most money back when you drop your car onto the used market in five years, better get into something large and utilitarian.

Large and midsize trucks and SUVs grab the top five-year resale values in Edmund’s 2016 Retained Value Awards, with conventional and luxury midsize and large cars depreciating the most.