Here’s a fun thought exercise: What is the American air-cooled Porsche 911? Logic dictates the Chevrolet Corvair by virtue of its layout, or the Chevrolet Corvette due to its close competition with the German icon. However, sometimes you need to dig a little bit deeper than the surface. It’s hard to imitate oil-cooled built-backwards coupes with a reputation for spitting underskilled drivers backwards through hedges, but if there is a rough American equivalent, it isn’t a car at all. Instead, it’s a van — the Chevrolet Express.
[Editor’s Note: We editors warned Thomas that this take was too hot. But he insisted, and we have to let him learn to swim on his own. Be gentle in the comments. -DT [Editor’s Note Editor’s Note: Gentle in the comments? You don’t learn to not touch the stove by NOT burning yourself – MH]]
You might think I’m insane. First of all, that’s a requirement for working here, but hear me out: The Chevrolet Express and air-cooled Porsche 911 have more similarities than you might realize. Let’s start with the most obvious: Longevity. The Jeep Wrangler, Chevrolet Corvette, Ford Mustang — all those icons have undergone significant body changes through their histories. The Chevrolet Express? Well, it got a new front clip and eventually ditched sealed-beam headlights on the base models, but that’s about it. This means that the Express may be the longest-produced American vehicle with unchanged bodywork, running from 1996 through to the present day with just a facelift. Likewise, the Porsche 911 gained impact bumpers and wider fenders, but it was still essentially the same car from 1964 to 1989.
Then there’s the commonality of focus. Just like how shaping the 911 was an exercise in perfecting a sports car platform, the Chevrolet Express has been ruthlessly-optimized for the realities of North American van use. In my experience, rustproofing on these vans is much better than on first-generation and second-generation Mercedes-Benz Sprinters, which helps them last a bit longer in the hostile salt of the rust belt. Powertrains used are shared with common pickup trucks so parts are cheap and easy to obtain. Towing capability has been continuously optimized because you just know someone will try towing something entirely stupid with a cargo van. In contrast to many highly rules-focused societies, the guiding principle of America seems to be “don’t get caught.” Spec one of these suckers with the latest V8, and you can legally tow 10,000 pounds and illegally tow whatever you can get to move. Try doing that with a Sprinter or a Transit.
In a similar vein, the Porsche 911 took the sports car ethos and ran with it, evolving its handling, roadholding, braking, and straight-line performance for continuous improvement against the world’s best. The final 3.2 Carrera models could still hold their own in a straight line against the C4 Chevrolet Corvette, every 911 was a joy to throw through the curves, and the addition of galvanization in 1975 made it possible to enjoy sports car motoring more often. Over a 20-plus-year production span, the 911 built a reputation as the ultimate everyday sports car, just as how the Express built a reputation as the ultimate American van.
Another common thread? Both underwent a fairly substantial structural update early in life. In 1969, Porsche stretched the wheelbase of the 911 to improve handling. In 2003, GM seriously beefed up the Express’ frame with influence from the GMT800 full-size pickup truck program for improved capability. Both of these updates stuck with their respective vehicles for the life of the production run, and there’s another similarity between the 911 and the Express – both kept evolving their powertrains. From two liters of fury to the magnificent 3.2-liter Carrera, the 911 continually updated its engine lineup, and that included the gearbox. The Getrag G50 five-speed manual was an immense step up from the 915 five-speed manual, and the 915 was evolved from the 901 dog-leg five-speed.
The Express, meanwhile, has been offered with everything from a 2.8-liter diesel four-cylinder to a 4.3-liter V6 to a thumping L8T 6.6-liter gasoline-powered V8 churning out 401 horsepower and 464 lb.-ft. of torque. Depending on engine choice, it’s also been available with two four-speed automatics, a six-speed automatic, an eight-speed automatic, and it even was available with all-wheel-drive for a few years. Now that’s what I call diversity.
So what about cultural impact? Well, show any North American the silhouette of a Chevrolet Express and they’ll instantly know what it is. From helping apartment-dwellers move from Williamsburg to Bushwick, to shuttling skiers, to being faithful tour vans for fledgling bands, the Express is iconic (maybe not quite as iconic as the Ford Econoline, but still) because it’s done it all. It’s America’s mule, a star-spangled archetype of what a van is. Hell, if you asked most Americans of a certain age to draw a van, they’d end up drawing a Chevrolet Express.
Finally, there’s stubbornness. Just like how the Porsche 928 intended to succeed the 911, the Express should’ve long since been snuffed out by a variety of tall-roofed European-style vans. From the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter to the Ford Transit, some extra roof height goes a long way for working inside a van and carrying excessively bulky items. However, the Express still sells by the truckload because it’s the familiar gold standard. Chevrolet shifted 8,595 of them in the first quarter of this year, which when combined with 4,796 units of its GMC Savana twin, works out to 13,391 sales in America from January through March. Chevrolet seems set on sticking with the Express for as long as it has legs, a seemingly unshakable commitment to a thoroughly outmoded idea.
The Chevrolet Express is the last great American automotive anachronism, much as the Porsche 911 seemed charmingly outdated long before it was replaced by the 964. It never seems out-of-place or out-of-era, it’s simply a constant, like breathing air or drinking water. While the Express may be headed for the end in a few years, expect its presence on our roads to linger for decades.
(Photo credits: Chevrolet)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
These Custom Camper Vans Are Like Taking The Apartment Of Your Dreams On A Road Trip
-
The 2023 Ford Transit Trail Is A Brilliant Blank Canvas For Vanlifers To Build The 4×4 Camper Of Their Dreams
-
Here’s How The New Mercedes-Benz eSprinter Electric Van Stacks Up Against The Ford E-Transit
-
The Chevy Express And GMC Savana May Be Replaced By EVs After Nearly 30 Years Of Production
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
You have an Express you’re about to list on Facebook Marketplace, I’m assuming. That’s the evil plan, right? This article goes viral, then you list the van on BaT and BOOM. $45,000 for an Express van. If this works, I have a few more cars I’d like to suggest for your Countach comparison follow-up.
Until this article, I didn’t realize that the Cheby Express was just the van version of the Porschuh 911! And built in the very same factory too! /s
Seriously, though, this is the kind of interesting and thoughtful writing that I subscribe to The Autopian for.
In a former life, I was a delivery driver behind the wheel of an Express, on the road before the snow plows were out. The Express could easily be goaded into gentle, incredibly manageable tail-out action, something I’m not sure has ever been said of air-cooled 911’s. So, point Express.
Dude, open the garage door and then start the car! Get out, get some fresh air, take some time to relax and recuperate.
Uh, I thought Jason was the one who inhaled all the lead….
The van in my user name, and which has been my home for nearly eleven years, is a three-quarter ton ’07 Express cargo van. It’s nice to see the Express/Savana get some recognition.
If your home is a Savana, you are living in a van, that is also a river!
Oh, and I owned a third-hand 1969 Porsche 911 for a few years. But it got stolen once (but recovered) and the wheels were stolen twice. The anxiety got to be too much, so I traded it in for a GTI.
This is what happens when you’ve reached your limit of Torch exposure. Or lead dust exposure. Or maybe both.
But hey, I enjoy reading about cargo vans as much as the next guy so I’ll sit here and nod with a blank expression on my face if you’d like.
After the battery chainsaw debacle, Torch exposure is lead dust exposure.
Yeah I’m picturing Torch as a Pigpen-esque Peanuts character but instead of dirt, it’s lead dust.
This sounds very similar to the crazy guy trying to say the V6 Honda Accord was the last muscle car…
He had a pretty good point though. I liked him.
He has a Substack!
I love the express vans but one does not say that a liquid cooled car is the same as an air cooled car or vice versa.
We definitely need factory 4WD Express Vans and Manual transmission Express vans before Chevy discontinues them.
I am admittedly not Jeep or a Porche person, but it seems to me that the wrangler styling changes are more similar and better parallel the 911. Did the Jeep go through more varied changes than I realized?
While the points in the article are valid, this is the comparison I tend to make. They both have significant enthusiast communities, too, and people who are versed in them have opinions on changes the layperson may not even notice.
As a layperson when it comes to both Jeeps and Porsches, I recognize I may be way off base, but I am with you on this.
Thomas absolutely has a valid point. Perhaps not that exciting of a point, but valid nonetheless.
Now I kinda want one. I love optimized vehicles and really cheap parts. And with the right V8, you could tow a new Hummer.
A for effort.
I figured the link would be trying to kill those behind the wheel due to too much weight behind the rear axle
Express Vans, #1 choice for bad guys to kidnap unsuspecting average Joe off the street who has no clue he pissed off the syndicate or for pedo’s trolling neighborhoods. Two things it has up on the 911…
Speaking from someone who has had to do way more wrenching on Expresses (and Econolines) than I’d like to admit. Both the Express and even the current Ford E-series have a feature that used to be very common, but is now looked as ancient…..
The HVAC controls for floor, vent, defrost modes is still (even in 2023) operate off of engine vacuum with a small vacuum resevoir. You might think “why would they do this still?”
Because Ford/GM know that the core users of this vehicle will put a minimum of 250k on them, then they get sold to someone as a carpet cleaning van or whatever… and that person will put probably another 150k-200k on them.
The vacuums based systems don’t break even with high miles, meanwhile how many other “blend door actuator/motor issues” has almost every single OEM had on other platforms? Ford had/has tons of issues with this on certain models, Chrysler/FCA/Stellantis as well.
Fun fact on the 1500’s and all of the AWD models. They ALL had rack and pinion steering, and all the AWD’s had torsion bar front suspensions meanwhile the regular 1500/2500/3500’s had coils. Belive it or not, the torsion front ends on the AWD versions ride a lot better than the coils.
Now I miss my 2010 AWD Express… but the values are too high on them now to get another one…:(
When you want to keep the floor pan uncomplicated, torsion bar suspensions are great. They also have the distinct advantage, that when the spring gets old and weak, you can trim ride height by just pulling the arm off, and moving it one tooth in the proper direction. Sorted. Base model vehicles should use more torsion bar suspensions, in my humble opinion.
I couldn’t agree more. Torsion springs suspensions (which also relay more on rubber bump stops to make a semi Moulton spring suspension) are very underrated.
They also put the stress of hitting bumps, etc.. further back in the frame where the torsion spring hard mounts to the frame.
There is a reason why GM still uses torsion bars on the front suspension of 2500s/3500s (at least 4x4s) to this day.
The major drawback of torsion bar suspensions is that you can’t really make a variable rate torsion bar, you can compensate some of that with shocks and the bump stops, but that’s about it.
It exists in a vacuum now, sort of like the last of the Panthers did in the early naughties. If you want/need a vehicle that does what the Express can do, it’s your only choice.
GM painted itself into a corner, but it’s not a horrible corner. When Ford and (at the time) Daimler-Chrysler wanted European-style vans, they just reached across the pond and Americanized their European offerings. At the time, GM owned Opel, and they could have done the same thing, but they chose not to. Now that they’ve sold Opel, they can’t just do that any more. At this point, if GM wanted to offer an Euro-style van, they would have to design it from scratch, and that’s probably too expensive of an investment to ever pay off.
For q1 2023, GM sold 13.4k vans. Ford sold 32k Transit vans. RAM sold 17.7k, and Mercedes sold 10k. So GM still holds 20% of the market with this anachronism. And that’s good enough to keep building it in it’s current form. Let them have it.
I mean, they could probably just weld in a section to make the roof higher. The tooling was probably paid off about 25 years ago.
Well, I think the reason why GM didn’t just bring their European cargo vans over from Opel is due to the fact that they weren’t Opels. The Opel Vivaro and Opel Movano cargo vans were just rebadged Renault offerings and have been since the start of the 2000’s. GM’s European division hasn’t made their own cargo van since the Bedford Blitz that went out of production in ’86.
That’s what I was about to says. Even worst now that FCA as merged with PSA, the Movano is actually a Fiat Ducato or a Ram ProMaster.
Both cars have stuck to the same ugly look forever. One because it’s a van, the other because it’s fans circle jerk so hard over mostly irrelevant things that they don’t notice it’s ugly.
RootWyrm’s note: it wasn’t just them either. If you were an Autopian member (and why aren’t you?!) you would have seen several of us warn Thomas this was a bad idea as well. He has no one to blame for this but himself. The propane and kerosene tanks are over along the wall, help yourself. Or don’t. I’m not your supervisor.
I didn’t weight in on this, but I’ll almost always encourage someone to fully flesh out a (seemingly) ridiculous take. Even if you disagree, the thought process is interesting to see.
I’d like to see more of these articles providing supporting evidence for (seemingly) outlandish takes.
I don’t have a problem with someone arguing something that appears ridiculous, but this one struck me as clickbait and not serious. I don’t mind if there are more articles like this, but I probably won’t read them.
Sure, there should be things that do not interest you here and you should skip articles you don’t want to read. In order to appeal to a large audience, there will be a variety of articles that hit a large swath of automotive topics.
And the premise of this is weird. There doesn’t need to be an equivalent to everything. That said, I like that the headline outlined exactly what we were in for, unlike, say, “You’ll never believe which vehicle Thomas thinks is America’s 911!” or something like that. The premise does seem purpose-built for engagement, but in a more thoughtful way than the common clickbait out there.
I’ll agree it is better than typical clickbait, but it felt like the primary goal was to generate reactions rather than to argue a controversial point. That fits my definition of clickbait, even though the headline wasn’t misleading. It is infinitely better than the clickbait nonsense on the olde site, though.
My girlfriend’s parents own a business and her father had an Express as a work van. One day he said he was going to trade it in since his was getting old and worn out. My gf comes home that evening and sees the same old white van in the driveway so she asks her dad what happened with the trade in. That’s when he goes “I did trade it in, that’s the new one outside”
But for real, if I needed a tow rig I’d be looking into one of these instead of a truck. Properly speced, it can tow any car that I’d ever be interested in owning and the fact that it’s all covered, lockable storage is appealing to me. I could even sleep in it in a pinch and have way more room to stretch out than I would in any truck.
“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
― Mark Twain
This is basically “a vehicle designed for a particular purpose evolves slightly over the years”. One might have a similar view on school buses, 18-wheelers, dump trucks, etc.
If my soup were the temperature of that take, I’d put it back on the stove.
That’s a good point. A Peterbilt has changed much less, for much longer, and is more uniquely American.
I don’t even know what to say. This take is so absurd that I can’t come up with a reasoned response, a sarcastic comment, or an insult. It was at least fun to read, I guess?
I’m pretty sure you just described the challenger and charger but used the name express on accident. They are dog old and have seen about every engine Chrysler had at the time because if it fits why not? Still as much as they just don’t do it for me I’d take a gently used magnum with a hemi any day of the week. The dog and I would rock the shit out of that wagon at the Home Depot.
So I’m a product designer, and I’ve designed everything from lab equipment to powertools to motorcycle parts to EVs, and sometimes I work with clients to try to understand what kind of design they want to create. One adjective that I struggled a lot with, was “iconic”. We’d use image boards to add context to words, and with iconic, there was no general styling/surfacing that fit, the only images that wound up fitting were products/vehicles/things that were produced LARGELY unchanged with small updates for a very long time. That’s how you make something iconic, so while I think this is a clickbait article, there is some merit to it.
So many vehicles have been ruined by needlessly redesigning them instead of just small subtle changes to improve and refine them. The first gen TT still looks the most bauhaus, the integra is more attractive than the RSX, the G35 looks way more fresh than the melted blob that is the G37.
The 911 is an icon not because of it’s shape, but because it didn’t change, and was instantly recognizable.
That said, your argument falls apart because the express isn’t really recognizable. From a distance, it looks much like other vans in terms of proportions and silhouette. I don’t think most people on the street would be able to differentiate an express from an econoline from a ram van without the logos.
Bingo. Most people would recognize it as a van, not as an Express.
I’d throw the Suburban’s hat in the ring as well. It’s been made for 88 years over 12 generations. Each new generation (with the exception from 5th to 6th) is a clear evolution over the previous. Sure, it gets fancier and fancier, straying more and more from it’s roots, but it’s still a big boxy station wagon on a truck frame.
Like I said earlier, going from the 5th to 6th generation was quite radical. Adding another whole door and making the wheel base 1.5′ longer, but other than that, relatively small changes.
Sales to fleets & trades
Vehicle as appliance
Desire for parts interchangeability with existing fleet
Compensation for owner/driver’s shortcomings
Yeah, no. Compensation is a musclecar guy thing, not a 911 thing. I know my 911 will get roasted by a new Camry at a stoplight, but idgaf.
Because we’re debating an article nearing a Torchinsky level of absurdity, and I hoped my bit was equally nonsensical, I will attempt to continue my joke:
Compensation for owner/driver’s shortcomings
100% agree lol
Looks like a frog on LSD.
I’m now imagining a frog with a limited-slip differential. Thank you lol
Trying to catch frogs as a kid leads me to believe they generally have a maximum slip differential.
I’m imagining a frog driving down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago (hands off the steering wheel, a la Ferris Beuller.)