Chicago 2014: Chevrolet City Express Van Live Shots

by Matt Fink

February 6th, 2014 3:49 PM

chicago 2014 chevrolet city express van live shots

We’re on the floor at the Chicago show, checking out the new Transit Connect and NV200 competitor.

It appears a little larger than the Ford, with 122.7 square feet of cargo room. It’s 4 feet from the floor to the ceiling, and 7 feet from the seats to the tailgate. It should be fuel efficient as since it is powered by a 2.0 liter 131hp 4 cylinder with CVT. I asked if this would ever become a passenger vehicle but was told that is not in the plans at all, mostly because of all the additional safety concerns that go into making it a passenger vehicle. In fact, they rushed to get this together out of necessity from requests from current customers. It will be released this fall. They told me to think of it as 1/2 the size of the Chevy Express, but twice the gas mileage. The interior is basically a work van with lots of hard plastics. Although it wasn’t mentioned during the press conference, this is actually built by Nissan in Mexico and appears to be almost identical to the NV200. Think of it as the Chevy LUV for the twenty-first century tradesman.

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 42 comments

Corey Lewis on Feb 07, 2014

Yup that's a Nissan power mirror adjustment. The same one is in my M, and my mom's Pathfinder. I suspect the NV will have better resale value later.

Like Reply
Old Man Pants on Feb 07, 2014

It's tall, boxy, mostly empty and has a 4-banger. What's not to like? Will it be cheaper than the NV? Not much point to it otherwise. BTW, did they really decide to cut a dime or two by giving this CVT the same brake pedal as the MTs sold in the rest of the world? Now *that's* cheap.

Like Reply

Recent Comments

Damon Thomas Adding to the POSITIVES... It's a pretty fun car to mod
GregLocock Two adjacent states in Australia have different attitudes to roadworthy inspections. In NSW they are annual. In Victoria they only occur at change of ownership. As you'd expect this leads to many people in Vic keeping their old car.So if the worrywarts are correct Victoria's roads would be full of beaten up cars and so have a high accident rate compared with NSW. Oh well, the stats don't agree.https://www.lhd.com.au/lhd-insights/australian-road-death-statistics/
Lorenzo In Massachusetts, they used to require an inspection every 6 months, checking your brake lights, turn signals, horn, and headlight alignment, for two bucks.Now I get an "inspection" every two years in California, and all they check is the smog. MAYBE they notice the tire tread, squeaky brakes, or steering when they drive it into the bay, but all they check is the smog equipment and tailpipe emissions.For all they would know, the headlights, horn, and turn signals might not work, and the car has a "speed wobble" at 45 mph. AFAIK, they don't even check EVs.
Not Tire shop mechanic tugging on my wheel after I complained of grinding noise didn’t catch that the ball joint was failing. Subsequently failed to prevent the catastrophic failure of the ball joint and separation of the steering knuckle from the car! I’ve never lived in a state that required annual inspection, but can’t say that having the requirement has any bearing on improving safety given my experience with mechanics…
Mike978 Wow 700 days even with the recent car shortages.