The 2019 Chevrolet Silverado is all new, and comes in a new Trail Boss model that's jacked up and ready for the rough stuff. Fox News Autos Editor Gary Gastelu got his dirty boots and checked it out.
What's the romantic vehicle? Probably not the Chevrolet LUV
by Gary GasteluThe Chevrolet LUV is adorable, but its name isn’t exactly what it seems.
The economy pickup was a rebadged Isuzu compact launched in 1972 to help Chevy compete with the wave of small, affordable import trucks hitting the market.
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According to Hemmings, the starting price was $2,200, or about 15 percent less than a full-size Chevrolet C-10 pickup. The tiny truck was powered by a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine with just 75 hp, but its efficiency helped build sales through the gas crises and Malaise Era, which peaked at over 100,000 in 1979. It's affordability and available 4x4 drivetrain made it popular among off-roaders.
The LUV was updated a year later and sold in the U.S. through 1982, when Chevy finally got around to building its own small truck, the S-10, to replace it.
As for the name, while it spawned plenty of plays on words about how much people LUVed their trucks, it was actually an acronym for Light Utility Vehicle, which is really about as cold and descriptive as names get.