After Ford Bronco Reveal, Is GM Ablaze With Envy?

Putting aside your author’s own predilection for traditional sedans (a kink shared by many a TTAC resident, but fewer and fewer buyers), one can understand why General Motors canned its Chevrolet Sonic, Cruze, Volt, and Impala, and why Buick stands to become a utility-only brand come 2021.

Less understandable, especially after last week, is why one newish model arrived in its present form. And it seems some people at GM are wondering that, too.

As soon as the fawning over the 2021 Ford Bronco began, so did the collective dumping on what could have been its rival: the Chevrolet Blazer. It’s not the Bronco’s rival, of course. The Jeep Wrangler is.

The Blazer, which arrived for the 2019 model year, marches to the beat of a different drum. Eschewing its heritage, unlike the Bronco and Wrangler, the Blazer returned to life as a crossover built atop a front-drive passenger car platform. Filling the significant CUV gap between the Equinox and sizable Traverse made sense (Ford has the Edge, after all), but using the Blazer name for this entry rubbed many purists and history buffs the wrong way. Many felt that, unless the model in question was a body-on-frame SUV with real off-road chops, resurrecting the Blazer name was inappropriate.

We remarked on it then, and the griping continues to this day. It continues in the pages of The Detroit News, too.

While one can understand a company with no intent to offer up a rival in the dedicated off-road SUV space choosing to get some mileage out of its history by dusting off a familiar nameplate for a new CUV, it also locks a company into its current direction. Better not change product plans, as that name’s now out of commission.

Columnist and associate business editor Daniel Howes offered up the usual lament for what might have been re: Blazer, but the surprising takeaway from his piece is that apparently GM’s leadership might feel the same way. That’s the claim.

In describing the overwhelming enthusiasm for the history-steeped Bronco and GM’s decision to sit out that battle, Howes writes:

A winning strategy it’s not, if only in the never-ending PR battle. The mountain of pre-orders for Michigan-made, compact Broncos flooding Ford Motor Co. is a harsh reminder that GM’s Blazer revival as just another sporty midsize crossover, something it originally wasn’t, is shaping up to be one big missed opportunity. No less than CEO Mary Barra, I’m told, tersely reminded senior product planners as much in a meeting amid last week’s Bronco brouhaha.

We can’t confirm whether this inside line is a juicy nugget of pure truth, but GM, like any major automaker, doesn’t want to find itself lagging behind its biggest competitors if it can help it.

Trouble is, the Bronco belongs to a segment that grew suddenly scorching, past Wrangler success notwithstanding. To start pursuing its own off-road SUV now would lead to a terribly belated market entry for GM, as well as a product that can’t access the model name it should be able to lay claim to. The heat could easily have died down by then, too. And besides, GM’s future isn’t something that’s just scribbled on the back of a cocktail napkin (regardless of how some readers might feel about the company’s electric ambitions). There’s a structured plan afoot, just as there’s a cost-cutting strategy. There’s also a pandemic and a concurrent recession underway. Money isn’t plentiful right now.

GM could choose to make use of the frame underpinning the next-generation Chevy Colorado, but there’s no word on any green light for such a product, or even corporate musings related to the hypothetical beast.

Still, it’s interesting to hear that the person who’s led GM since 2014 reacted in such a manner (or at all) following the Bronco’s debut.

[Image: Ford, General Motors]