I loved the look of my 95 Chevy, truck was just a piece of junk tho

I'm right there with you on that. In my opinion the new Ram sucks too. Obviously it's nowhere near as bad as this Chivy, but Ram replaced a nice-looking truck with one that is "fussy" looking and has an over-complicated design. Sure glad the truck I own is the last truck I plan on buying.

Since the late 80s, it seems to me that they have designed the front ends almost as if they dared you to buy it. Each design tries to out-do the last one from ugly to W-T-F uglier. This isn't an old man talking, this is a reasonable opinion. The 1994 Dodge Ram was not a great design in MY opinion but it sparked a trend of massive grilles, Big Rig inspired, industrial design and utility over beauty. The '94 Ram reinvigorated the Dodge truck sales so despite my opinions, the styling did appeal to a whole lot of people.
The '73-87 GM trucks were iconic. I owned a 1984 C-10 that was a solid and reliable truck that was a nice looking design.
These new GM trucks look like the manufacturers are saying Screw YOU...BUY me!
Sometimes the far out styling grows on you. I immediately dismissed the 1982 Camaro and the 1988 Chevy.GMC trucks. They still don't appeal to me. I never warmed up to the 1994 Ram but I have owned 3 of the 2002-2008 Dodge trucks. The new Ram looks far better than the Ferd and GM trucks but I'm still not getting one despite clicking 352,230 miles on my 2007!

The '94 to '02 Dodge was the best balance of aero and curves with the appearance of a serious truck. The fourth Gen 1500's (not the 2500's ) are next up for best-looking trucks.

The 2500's of everything available today is just a truly sad event of having no pride in what you drive. We had all 3 of them ugly things at work last winter and my 2 Gen attracted the most attention.

I've noticed these scoops as well in the past few years - only on diesels from what I've seen too.

....

In Bob Lutz’s book, he discussed the revolutionary styling of the ‘94 Ram. Whereas the general rule for evaluating new designs was to show them to focus groups and go with what was liked by the largest % of the people in the groups, when they did the new Ram they went a different route by looking for a design that got the biggest reaction and for one that people actually either loved or hated, not just liked. The thought was that a design that a certain number of people loved would strongly motivate them to buy, and with Dodge then being a distant 3rd in the pickup truck market, that was what was needed to get their brand out of the cellar by gaining increased sales.
It was a bold and ingenious concept as it put Dodge in the spotlight and resulted in their truck sales getting up there with GM and Ford, which continues to this day over 25 years later. Who knows if Dodge/Ram trucks would even still be on the market today if they’d gone with more conventional styling instead back in ‘94?
I loved the design myself and decided I would buy one, a ‘95 1500 I bought used in ‘97. I’m in the market now and can live with the new styling, but much prefer the previous look. I’d rather buy a used 2018 if the used market wasn’t so inflated currently.
An engineer colleague of mine said that although not publicized, GM’s final design for the new truck was chosen by a special needs kid as a Make a Wish event. If true, that’s nice and charitable of them but no way to sell trucks!

I saw that too. Guys in La, Miss, and Bama call them things bad names. Mostly N-word knockers there are some crude rednecks there. Like you could hit someone with them walking.
Looks like they would fold in. The rednecks and coonass' do get drunk and do hit crap with the bolt-on ones and cave the door skins in $0.02

Standard operating procedure for Blunder Motors to blame someone else, let alone a special needs Child on their ridiculous design. Wonder who they blamed the aztek on?

Some magazine should do a fuel economy comparison of those mirrors at a steady 70 mph,
then in the second comparison what replacing the huge stock mirrors with tiny video cameras that have even greater back and side field of view does.

I would guess the difference would be about 1 MPG.

I would guess that if a curious “average Joe” driver coasted that truck down a blacktop highway on a steady 4% grade, the miles per hour “terminal speed” would differ by 1-2 MPH.

Many highways have 4% grades leading down to the bridges across rivers.

In our MBA program, that was a topic of discussion. According to GM, the Aztek program was perfect. They had a cross functional team that was motivated by the rah-rah, and anyone who had criticism was off the team. The project met all the targets that were set. So in one way it was perfect. But the vehicle was a failure because it didn't have the criticism that was needed to steer it to what the market wanted.

T.J.

The Aztec was a Picasso painting that was morphed into a vehicle.... What a piece of carp styling wise.

I like the (probably unintended) nod to Vic Hickey with those "pocket" bed steps. Just wish they hadn't gone and blown it by turning them into oversized, plastic gee-gaws. Completely ruined them and made the truck look even worse.

I didn't mind the last style of GM nose but the currrent one is down at the bottom of the pile with the Aztek.



And that was the ugly style of box front. The 90s ones looked better but only after they got rid of the chrome and started with the body colored trim.

Yes, I will give them that, if it's the 350ss/454ss trucks you are talking about.

I think these redesigned Chevies and GMC pickups are hideous looking. I think they modeled them after transformer toys. Maybe they are trying to appeal to the young guys that played with those toys years ago and are now old enough to be in the market for a truck. I'm also very disappointed in the new Ram look. I wish they had just tweaked it a little instead of an all new truck. If you watch the market you will see that the vast majority of the ones selling are the monotone paint look because it tones down all the unattractive styling. The new ones with chrome front ends is just too much (gawdy).

I have an 84 Chevy as my work truck. I was going to move up to a newer model but all the truck beds are narrower now. Taller but narrower.

I can put an B/E body front sub frame in the bed of mine and it will sit on the floor of the bed. Anything newer than my body style and it will have to sit on the bed rails, all of the companies went narrow.

Is this one any wider or just tall and ugly.

That is interesting. They sure don't look narrower, but they are no doubt way taller.

Best looking GM trucks are the 67-72 and the 89-98. Sized right and basic clean lines.

"Fugly" is a word that comes to mind. The "Transformer" styling does seem to be the thing now, but to my eye it's clutter & nonsense.
Regarding the Aztec debacle, Bob Lutz said the same thing: the fanboys in GM loved it & pushed it through.
For GM trucks, I like the 55-57, 67-68, and the 89-whenever GMT400, the cleanest of all.
I'm still happy with mine; had it since 1994, so it's arguably free now...

If 3D printers would just get a bit bigger table capacity at modest prices I would guess small businesses could sell a lot of replacement grilles and custom front end parts.