GM Chassis Class C

carringb wrote:

mlts22 wrote:
GM isn't making many cutaway class "C"s, because the factory was retooled to make Chevy Colorados/GMC Canyons. This is why Forest River has switched to Ford for almost everything.

This is the correct answer. From what I can find early 2014 was the last shipment of 4500 cutaways. I'm not even sure they are building 3500 cutaways anymore. Navistar will start building new Chevy cutaways next year, but TBD wether it will be the traditional Express, or a rebadge of the Class-4 Navistar chassis.

Most interesting. Ours is a 2016 on a 2015 4500 chassis.

I can imagine GM's upper management in meetings after meetings discussing whether to continue the cutaway line or re-tool & start up the Colorado/Canyon line. (Ok, it was probably only one meeting. Maybe it was a single managers directive. Who knows how these decisions are made...)

Speaking of Colorado/Canyon, we looked at the new units as they were arriving on the dealer lots. Yuk. They set the body so high that this 6 footer cannot reach over the pickup box side or tailgate & touch the box floor. On a medium size stock height pickup! Our '93 GMC 3/4 ton 4wd set lower than that. I don't like the current styling line of "set it higher, make it look BIG!". So much for usefulness.
Because they were so tall, we decided to keep our older Canyon, and our friend discarded the idea that he wanted one as well. That's two lost sales.

GM, are you listening?

No doubt it's getting difficult to find the Chevy chassis for larger Class C's.
In September of last year, we looked at Sunseekers (Forest River) class C's on a dealer's lot. The 31' models were on the Ford chassis. Our 2015 we purchased used, is a 27' model (actually almost 28') that we selected because we liked the leg room in the passenger area in the Chevy chassis and my DW won't drive the Ford. We had a Roadtrek class B years ago on the Chevy chassis that she enjoyed driving. DW says it feels just like the Roadtrek we had in the 1990's. (Happy wife, Happy life). The 4500 chassis is fully adequate. It rides nice and pulls a toad fine. We enjoy the rig a great deal. Where we live in FL now, there's a Chevy Car/RV dealer. Most Class C rigs for sale there are Chevy's which is quite convenient for maintence purposes.

Interesting concept,that Tiger.But not new.

A throw back to the original Class C (Chassis mounted Camper) of the 60's.Also built on P/U frame. Chevrolet was the choice even back then!

Like this one

mlts22 wrote:
GM isn't making many cutaway class "C"s, because the factory was retooled to make Chevy Colorados/GMC Canyons. This is why Forest River has switched to Ford for almost everything.

Yes, but for Tiger the Provan/tiger factory orders a pickup-bed-delete chassis. They do the cutting themselves. Except for reroute of the fuel filler line and changing the location of the spare tire, my Tiger is pretty much a stock Chevy Silverado.

IMHO Thor Four Winds has the best build quality inside. REAL oak cabinet doors thru out and real hard wood for the drawers slides etc. No matter what price range you are looking at.

The only thing I found was when I thought my couch/bed was shot when it wouldn't stay perfectly upright. I called mobile repair to replace the couch and he came out and said "I'll show you why it won't stay up."

Real wood is the frame but real thin pieces that had shredded from use. My mobile guy pulled that all out and replaced the whole frame with 2x4's and reattached it. Couch is like brand new again and actually sits better than when new.

Coachmen still shows several floorplans on the Chevy 4500 chassis. Of course, Coachmen is owned by Forest River.
Our 2012 Coachmen is on the Chevy 4500. I love the chassis, but am not too happy with the build quality of the coach.

mlts22 wrote:
GM isn't making many cutaway class "C"s, because the factory was retooled to make Chevy Colorados/GMC Canyons. This is why Forest River has switched to Ford for almost everything.

This is the correct answer. From what I can find early 2014 was the last shipment of 4500 cutaways. I'm not even sure they are building 3500 cutaways anymore. Navistar will start building new Chevy cutaways next year, but TBD wether it will be the traditional Express, or a rebadge of the Class-4 Navistar chassis.

It's too bad they're not made anymore, but the old Chevy/GMC Kodiak/Topkick 4500/5500/6500 medium duty commercial trucks were used to make some really heavy duty class C motorhomes and toterhomes, a decade and more ago.

You will find a plethora of Chevy chassis in the 24 foot size Class C's.
Once you get into the 31 ft size the Ford V10 is the engine of choice.

I wanted a Chevy engine and spent 'months' trying to find a 31ft with a Chevy chassis which is how I came to find out that they where only found in the smaller C's. I've seen a couple of the larger toy hauler Class C's with the Chevy chassis though.

GM isn't making many cutaway class "C"s, because the factory was retooled to make Chevy Colorados/GMC Canyons. This is why Forest River has switched to Ford for almost everything.