GM had better get back into the Class 4 and 5 trucks this time around! Ram is doing amazing things with their 4 and 5's. I'm in car sales in Canada doing fleet and commercial, and Ram has been wining a lot of tenders for those sizes of trucks because we at GM don't have anything to compete with!

Why would they need to run a 4x4 beam between the frame and flat deck?
A 4500 might have a different frame so a 3500 deck might not fit?

Am I missing something or didn't we already see the GM HD's naked, I wouldn't think the Chasis Cab would be any differant.

The 2x4 is standard equipment on trucks with bodies. Most body companies put wood between the frame of the truck and the frame of the body. Looks like someone didn't paint after the install of the body.

Big difference between a chassis-cab and a "box delete" truck. That looks a lot like a box-delete because of the curved frame rails. True C/Cs have straight rails to make body mounting easier, and they generally start with the longer 60-inch CCA dimension, which is an industry standard, over the 56-inch CCA found in most 8-foot-box pickups.

The Ram 3500 chassis-cab has a completely different frame from the 3500 pickup... same with the F-350 C/C vs the F-350 pickup.

They forgot to mention that the front bumper is low enough to double as a snow plow...

I agree with you Toycrusher, that front bumper looks as low as a bumper on a sports car! Why are they wearing camo when the HD's have been released, is it because they are embarrassed how ugly their front ends turned out!! LOL Why did they tape up the corner steps on the rear bumper when we know that they are there??? I wonder why the black truck has camo on it, are they releasing a 4500 version to compete with Fords F450?

It looks like they've copied Ram and made a straight frame chassis, once again they are only how many years late getting caught up with the competition. I was at a Ram dealer and they said that the Ram chassis cabs are prewired with a bunch of connectors so when their customers buy one it's pretty much a plug and play when they put their choice of beds on, no splicing wires or running wires, Ram's tried to make it as simple as possible when up fitting their trucks. I wonder if GM will do the same?

Hey! It looks like a real ute! Something to use for work, not a SUV pose.

Whats that big flat thing on the back?

My very first ute was a trayback (flat bed). It was a 1969 Datsun 520.

The bed was clamped to the chassis with large U bolts that went over the top of the bed frame and was fastened under the chassis rail.

It also had a piece of timber between the flatbed frame and the chassis rail. It was also profiled with a bandsaw to follow the curve of the chassis.

Nowadays there are legs that drop down off the flatbed and bolt directly to the lugs on the chassis mounting points.

This truck looks to be nothing more than a 3500HD dually pickup with the 'box delete' option. It does not appear to have the chassis-cab frame under it, looks like the regular pickup chassis. Still, it could be anything, maybe a mule rigged up to test components for another truck.

GM desparately needs to get back into medium duty. I hope the rumors are true.

Here is something that will be an eye opener for some of you guys. This link is to a truck we are getting in Australia.

These trucks run Cummins diesels. The ISF 2.8, which was tested in the Titan. The Cummins ISF 3.8 litre.

These trucks will carry what most HDs are use for in the US.

These trucks will accept up to a 16' tray and have up to a 8 500kg GVM (20 000lbs) that's not including a trailer.

The cost of these in the US would be about $20 000 and they are made in China.

This is what the world is up against, the problem is the vehicles actually work. Scroll throught the different models and take not of the engine size and combinations. They are being made for the global LDT market.

http://www.fotontrucks.com.au/vehicles/

Here is a link to a Hyundai LDT we get, it's about the size of a SuperDuty Ford F-250. But it will take a 14' flat bed. Has nearly 500ftlb of torque.

http://www.hyundai.com.au/vehicles/hd-trucks/range-specification

We do have HDs here, but they are used a boyz toyz for towing horse floats, 5th wheel campers etc.

For work this is what we use in lieu of what you use you HDs for. As you can see they run much cheaper on fuel.

As scary as this stuff is for some this is where the future is heading.

I was picking up some 18' timbers last week at a lumber yard. I was looking at the various pickups/trucks in the yard. I was astonished how low the flatbeds were on the GM pickups. It a jobsite/deliverly location didn't involve any rough terrain or off-roading, I could see this as a positve trait. I personally would never want such a setup, but I could see that certain consumers would--really easy and nice to load/unload.

For the past few years, Pickuptrucks.com has been alluding to larger commercial trucks returning to GM's model lineup. I can't say that I have seen any real evidence, just rumors. Know something, Mark?

@dmiller - I do not recall ever seeing wood between the deck and the frame. I'll have to take a close look the next few times I see a 1 ton deck truck.

The bumper itself is not that low, its just the lower valance that hangs low, I guess for arrodynamics if it even helps on a truck like this probably not.

I just realized that super low valance is actually a warning system. If you hit that valance coming up to something (speed bump), it lets you know that if you keep driving your going to SMASH your DEF tank once the tire makes it over!

@Lou_BC:

A wooden separator is standard on any 'TILT' box. Couldn't they have put a dump bed on that thing?

Chasis cab is not a pickup, I thought this was pickups.com

That is a chassis cab frame and not a box delete frame because it's not a boxed frame from the regular pickup line.

ALL of the frames are the SAME for GovtMoCo and Chevrolet's. LOW SLUNG. They DO NOT have SFA's. It's called Torsion Bar Syndrome. Like Down Syndrome because it drops Down but for a Truck. Box Delete means JACK. Go BACK in time and LOOK at the PRE-88 Chevy or GovtMoCo models with Box Delete. SAME as DODGE and Ford are NOW. WHY???? SFA.

There are a couple of different cab and chassis frames. The shorter wheelbase version uses the same boxed frame as the HD pickup, the longer versions is different. It is C-channel from the cab on back.

@MoparMadness.. and that SFA gets you what exactly on a 8k lbs+ truck that will spend 99.9% of its entire life on flat paved roads, or at the very best a flat muddy field or mildly rutted logging road, or some snow. You Ram and Ford guys take the cake for being completely and utterly delusional. Its just sad because I will tell you, theres nothing more fun that that juddering sloppy feeling you get everytime you hit an expansion joint in an SFA vehicle. Or when you do go offroad and drag that basketball sized dif pumpkin around in the muck like giant iron boat anchor... woohoo now that thar's some fun mmmhmmmm. Nothing like 100's of extra pounds of unsprung weight and sail like wind resistance to make highway driving even more fun. Im sorry, thats just a bit much for me.

Who cares????????