This year, Chevy – General Motors – elected to produce a not-Woke commercial for Christmas. But it is an embarrassing commercial for GM, nonetheless – because it features a vehicle of the type that Chevy used to make but doesn’t anymore.
Well, it sort of does.
The featured vehicle is a Chevy Suburban. The 1980s version. The version that average American families could afford to buy back in the ’80s. Back in 1982, a brand-new Suburban stickered for about $10k – if you can imagine that.
According to the government’s BLS inflation calculator, that $10k works out to about $34k today. That amount of money will buy you about half a 2026 Suburban, which stickers for $63,400 to start.
How many average American families can afford that, today?
Everyone knows the answer. It is – not nearly as many. A new Suburban is an affluent American family’s vehicle. Some will point out that the new Suburban is a much nicer vehicle and that is undeniable. It comes standard with amenities that would have been inconceivable back in ’82 and its standard port-fuel-injected V8 makes what would have been regarded as Ferrari horsepower back in ’82. The windows are all powered and the climate is controlled; the standard ten speed automatic has seven more gears than the three speed automatic that was standard in the ’82 model.
But all of that is neither here nor there if you cannot afford it.
America is not the same place it was back in ’82 – when average people could afford the things that – today – only affluent people can afford.
And is the new, twice-as-expensive Suburban actually a better vehicle?
The ’80s model depicted in the commercial is still running – 40 years later. Perhaps because it wasn’t made with elaborate, interdependent systems and electronics that do not last 40 years. The ’80s Suburban had power windows but they were not dependent upon body control modules. All of its systems were controlled by simple electrical switches, easily and inexpensively fixed when that becomes necessary. The throttle is controlled by a cable rather than signals sent to an ECU. It has metal bumpers that can bump into things without shearing off the entire front “clip.” 
Do you think a 2026 Suburban will still be running 40 years from now? How about 20? Probably, it will be junked before it reaches 20 years old – because the ratio of its value by then vs. the cost to keep it running will become very unfavorable. You can – even today – put a new THM400 transmission (which is what they came with) in an ’80s Suburban for about $2,500 – which is about a fourth the cost of a new/replacement GM ten speed automatic (which is what the ’26 Suburban comes with).
You could rebuild/restore the ’80s Suburban’s entire drivetrain what it would cost you to replace a ’26 Suburban’s transmission, today.
Imagine what it will cost in ten years.
Is this better? Or just more expensive – and less durable?
There is another facet of this commercial that’s inadvertently revealing. It is that the old Suburban is the star of the commercial. It is what draws eyes – and tears – as much as the story. The same was true of an earlier (2021) GM Christmas commercial that featured an old widower who kept a ’66 Impala SS convertible out in the barn. It was the car he’d courted his wife in. His daughter has the old Chevy restored and surprises her dad with it for Christmas. It’s a real tear-jerker, but not entirely because of the story. We’re sad because we know that Chevy doesn’t make cars like that old Impala anymore.
Nor Suburbans like they used to be, either.
This isn’t a Luddite wail about the “good ol’ days.” It’s an observation that they were just that. New cars used to be an improvement over old cars. The new cars looked better, performed better – were better. It accounted for people being excited to go visit their local dealer to see the new cars and maybe buy one, too.
Something changed along the way and not for the better. For about the past 20 years, cars have gotten more expensive – which would be ok if they were better. But they’re not. Compare a 2000 model year Suburban vs. the new one. Is the 26-year-old one inferior? Arguably, it is superior – and it was much less expensive. 
It has a four speed automatic – with just one overdrive – and it provided every meaningful advantage of a “modern” automatic, such as low RPM highway cruising – without the over-teched expense of a new automatic transmission with 10 speeds and multiple overdrives (which are there to eke out fractional mileage gains for compliance reasons).
It had bumpers that bumped rather than easily torn-off plastic fascias embedded with cameras. Glass sealed-beam headlights that amply illuminated the road ahead and never yellowed and cost a fraction to replace vs. the cost pf replacing a new/plastic LED “assembly.” It had reasonably sized wheels and tires rather than 22-inch-tall “rims” and tires with inch-high sidewalls that burst when you hit a bad pothole.
One could go on. 
It is hard to point to any meaningful improvement since circa 2000 that is comparable to, say, the advent of the modern overhead valve engine or the overdrive transmission or fuel injection and electronic ignition. Such improvements – which date back almost 40 yeas now – greatly improved driveability and reliability and reduced maintenance costs, too.
The catalytic converter – along with fuel injection – eliminated most of the meaningfully harmful combustion byproducts that once caused air pollution. Air pollution hasn’t been a problem since the late ’90s, which is probably why a new problem – “climate change” – had to be trotted out to replace it.
Four wheel disc brakes – an exotic high performance technology as recently as the ’80s – is now a commonplace standard; indeed, there are only a small handful of new/late model vehicles that still have drum (rear) brakes. There has been very little real-world improvement in everyday stopping power for about 20 years now.
Cars, in other words, reached a kind or functional apogee of near-perfection about that long ago. Since then, there have been lots of changes but very little in the way of improvement – unless you think a gaudy glowing LCD touchscreen is an improvement over dials and needles and knobs and buttons.
. . .
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In my opinion, the Square body was peak GM truck for farmers, miners, loggers, and other tradespeople. The GMT 400 was the same but more city oriented, and the GMT800 was peak for the average person wanting a big vehicle with some luxury while still trying to keep the older groups happy. Everything seems to have gone down hill after the GMT800.
This piss-ant weak-ass (((Edward Bernaise))) propaganda puff-piece simply got me madder than a murder hornet in a hurricane!!!
The garbage that Government Morons continue to crap out and foist upon the unsuspecting and unthinking public is pathetically preposterous. The overpriced “new stuff” costs twice as much as the old stuff and lasts half as long….
Yup, sounds like (((government rules & regulations))) are running rampant….again!!!
Back in the 1980’s a friends mom had a Suburban like that one. Even those colors! She loved that truck. She was barely 4 feet tall, and probably didn’t weight more than 80 pounds (both her and my friend were little people, back then they were called dwarfs). She had to have the truck modified so she could reach the controls. She always got quite the look when she climbed out of it. Now Suburbans are even bigger!!
I doubt she would be driving one today. Doubt they would be able to afford today’s version.
It’s telling that car companies have to use their old vehicles in their ads.
And on the subject of longevity of today’s model. Many won’t even get to their 5th year if it has the 6.2 engine that grenades itself.
WHAT?? A car ad without an interracial couple?
I can’t believe my own eyes…
Flippin’ idiot. …Are you 12 yrs. old?
The whole notion of what Eric wrote just went, “Whoosh!” right over your single-minded, one-track, adolescent head and you didn’t even notice?
LOL another swallower of the corporate/government propaganda…
Not once – but Twice – it went over your head. Whoosh!
…There ain’t no fixing willful blindness.
X, I don’t see many car ads (got rid of our TV 40 years ago), but with the white daughter’s black companion featured so prominently in GM’s 2021 commercial, I too expected more of the same this year. From their 2021 commercial, I gathered that General Motors, like most major corporations, supports the culture war being waged against western civilization generally, and the white race in particular.
The Starbucks ad this year, two reasonably normal looking whites people as well. Fun lead in cartoon characters with whites music then the end shot a man and woman commiserating over coffees. No Merry Christmas yet but this beats the usual freak show “holiday” ads.
Nice – I saw this article on theburningplatform – I go there for the comments on their Friday Fails.. 😉
Yes, I agree fully that somewhere between about 1997 and 2003 positive innovation slowed considerably for most vehicles. The 2004 F-150 I drove a bit was much better than it’s 1981 counter-part, while the 2022 wasn’t better than the 2004 on any criterion I care about. What happened was regulation: Johnson et al killed design, Carter killed performance, Clinton first and then Obama hurt reliability and service-ability. So today’s SUVs are boring, expensive, and “adequate” at best and junky at worst.
However.. there has been progress. From a personal perspective the International Travelall was the best truck ever, but in reality I don’t drive across swamps or fields anymore and today’s Explorer beats it on every criterion except service-ability.
Cost is a difficult issue. Here’s what Perplexity.ai “said” about comparing the cost of the base Ford Bronco in 1981 to one today (In Big macs and Canabucks):
“The current Bronco base model costs 15% less in Big Mac-adjusted terms than the 1981 version ($38,995 vs. $46,000 equivalent). This suggests improved relative affordability today, as fewer burgers (about 4,943) buy a Bronco now compared to 5,838 in 1981.”
Further, and again on a personal basis, I did E&E training in west germany in the early 70s. We had several different vehicles, but the Volvo 142GT was such a standout that I’ve been a Volvo fanatic ever since. So yesterday, driving home from Calgary to Lethbridge in -20C with light snow and high (40kmh++) winds, I put my V60 in cruise at 120kmh/hr (about 70) and left it there for 200+ clicks. I loved the Travelall, but would have done that at 40MPH in it and sweated the whole way; maybe 50MPH in a 1980s F-150, 65 in a new one with new winter tires – but limited to 120 by law, not weather, in the Volvo. So, no I’ve no idea where the oil filter is on it, and yes it takes a computer to service it, but it’s an astounding machine and much much better than the 72, better than my 81 GLT, and even better than my 99R.
Thanks for the kind words, Paul – and glad you found your way here!
Hmm, “Johnson et al killed design, Carter killed performance, Clinton first and then Obama hurt reliability and service-ability.”
Lotsa people see things that way.
One man did this, another man did that.
… As The Daily Bell used to say, “It’s a process, not an event”.
“One man” didn’t do Jack. The System, the control from down on the local level with the rich powerful family names controllu…
Ah, nevermind. Either yah ‘get it’ or ya don’t.
Happy New Year to you.
Bumpers that served another purpose, beyond bumping or being bumped. My Dad ran a one-man mobile car repair service, with his ’59 Chevy 6 cyl., 3 speed pickup truck. One New Year’s eve (’61 or ’62), Ramapo Police called (Dad was on-call for emergencies) and said someone was stranded and needed a tow (Suffern to Poughkeepsie – about 60 miles on opposite side of the Hudson). Dad hooked-up a tow bar to the front bumper of a ’59 Pontiac Wagon and another to the Chevy’s rear bumper, and hauled it home. That truck took the winding, uphill road on the east side of the Bear Mountain Bridge, a bit slow, in second gear, but got the job done.
“Perhaps because it wasn’t made with elaborate, interdependent systems and electronics that do not last 40 years.”
And why is that? I bet you could put batteries in an old transistor radio or a speak n spell and it would work. Why? Lead.
RoHS compliance. Green electronics do not last.
Partly true. But more importantly putting hundreds of connections with electronic level signals in a car which endures vibration, corrosion, moisture, and 200 degree temperature swings is very poor engineering practice.
I have noticed in tv commercials most the time a vintage car is used not a new one can’t beat a classic.
Actually, I kept getting a Chevy and GMC truck commercial this Christmas that IS Woke, and Even Included the new Chevy EV Truck.
I’ll take those rotary HVAC knobs, real gauges, and adult size seats in that 2000 version. They actually went back to knobs, my 91 Chev has the HVAC press and hold buttons and bar, with a lit screen to see where you’re at, zero tactile feedback. No one liked that, back to knobs for the eyes free “muscle memory” adjustments.
Ah, yet another BS holiday “tear-jerker”, courtesy of Government Motors! Funny how they didn’t start showing these, until 2020. This is GM’s way of telling us “Sure, we COULD build you the vehicles you want. But we’re NOT GOING TO, so suck it plebs!”. Ditto for EVERY automaker that sells cars here in America.
Great article, Eric! Watched the videos – really brought me back to what life was decades ago. People, cars and life in general had more ‘soul’ – harder to find those qualities nowadays..
First family car I remember was a 1950 Studebaker sedan. Then a 1955 Ford Fairlane. Built like tanks – with lots of character. You reminded me about the metal bumpers – that lived up to their name and really could take a bump!
In 2000, got a 1998 Buick Park Avenue sedan – it lasted for 20 years and over 250.000 miles. Then a 2000 Buick LeSabre – that car lasted also 20 years after I got it. Now have 2002 Caddy DeVille – awesome car!
Sometimes as I drive, I note the ‘cars’ I see along the way. BORING!! All SUV (Stupid Useless Vehicles?) that look about the same. Rarely even any interesting colors!
A few years ago, a friend got a new ‘car.’ She told me first time she parked it and walked away, she heard a woman shrieking in the most annoying way. – – It was her new SUV, nannying her about something-or-other. Took a drive in it once with her – like driving a computer – pretty creepy.
I’ll stick with real cars and real people!
Those early 2000 Buicks got decent mileage for their size. Neighbor got a new Park Ave back then, she was pleasantly shocked at the 20 to 24 MPG. Comfortable, quiet, solid cars.
That’s what makes GM so darned frustrating. They are capable of making some really, really, really good stuff when they want to (or when management doesn’t get in the way), but most of what hits the market is just kind of mediocre. And if something good does manage to get past the censors, it seems to get axed after only a couple of model years.
Thanks, DeVille Gal!
I feel the same way. After I finish this cup of coffee, I’m going out to the garage to commune with my Trans-Am… .
Success: One fortunate enough to own a perfectly running pair of identical model 2000 manual transmission vehicles.
Eric – “According to the government’s BLS inflation calculator, that $10k works out to about $34k today”
Often called the government’s BS inflation indicator. The government has a big incentive to lie about that number, Social Security and all government retirement checks are increased yearly, called the COLA increase, based on the official inflation stats from the previous 12 months (Oct.).
See Shadow Stats inflation charts comparison:
https://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
COLA is understated yearly, over a 20 year period COLA is about half of real inflation, a magical way to decrease everyone’s real income.
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
― George W. Bush
Yukon,
I love Shaowstats, but John hasn’t updated it since 2023. I can’t find out what, if anything, happened to him.
Everyday I drive by a local Chevy dealership, along the front row of vehicles for sale are big huge trucks that dwarf my eco-sedan. They have a big billboard that says “LIFETIME POWERTRAIN WARRANTY” – which obviously means Chevy sold a bunch of trucks or cars that had big time powertrain issues which scared away their customers – and they are trying to lure them back.
The last Chevy truck I owned was a 1967? C20 2wd with a 283. It was utter simplicity and rugged, I found the original invoice stuck in the back of the front bench seat. The MSRP was $800. Can you believe that? That truck sold new for less than a thousand dollars, and 30 years later when I owned it, it was still operating like new. Chevy did not offer a lifetime powertrain warranty back then, they didn’t have to, their trucks didn’t need it. BTW that truck came with split rims, which means a farmer could change the tires himself.
An old C20 is a SWEET truck!
HA! RE: ” BTW that truck came with split rims, which means a farmer could change the tires himself.”
Had a flat back in the ’80’s, down a dark hyway along the Rio Grande, nary a car going by. My best friend and I did all we could to get that tire off… to no avail.
..We weren’t farmers.
‘bumpers that bumped’
I remember those! Minor bumps in parking lots and such were no big deal — my high school drivers’ ed teacher even told us it’s OK to bump the vehicle in front and behind when parallel parking (the girls loved that)! And I remember when push-starting a dead-battery vehicle with another vehicle was common practice.
I have fond memories of the many times my Dad would push one dead-battery car with another of our cars to start it. This practice lasted through the time I got my driver’s license. I got pretty good at being the pusher or the pushee. There were times when that skill served well – in subsequent years, I helped or was helped by others in same manner. Thanks for reminding me of that 🙂
I cannot believe that one can spec out a New Suburban and the sticker be over $100k. That makes my jaw drop. I’m a city boy who now lives out in the country. Farmers/Ranchers need a heavy duty truck. And they get used. Used hard. Because that’s the way it is. They aren’t buying new ones. Cheaper to fix the older ones. And the older ones are more durable. Personally I can’t imagine spending $70k+ on a work truck and then using it hard. It would make me cry.
BTW I have a ’92 F250 flat bed. Had it for 8 years now. Hauled many cords of wood in it. Love it. Easy to work on. When I was younger with a young family, bought a ’94 Suburban in ’97. Still one of my favorite vehicles, in fact the whole family liked the thing. Was forced to replace it due to circumstances out of my control. Was genuinely sad when I sold it.
RE: “BTW I have a ’92 F250 flat bed. Had it for 8 years now.”
Man, I often wished I didn’t live in road salt country. It’s been years since I saw a ’92.
…Maybe, puttin’ salt on roads, should be considered a crime? Idk.
The crabwalking Hummer featured in the GM commercials from this time last year will be done before the 10 year mark.
It’s a good commercial except for the whiny falsetto male vocalist. That makes it hard to take seriously. I like the dogs name tho.
First off, it’s a very good commercial because it shows how our cars become part of our families and how our memories tie in with them. You’ll cry if you haven’t watched it yet so have a Kleenex handy.
Unfortunately none of the new cars do anything for me emotionally. Sure I’d miss my old all season car when it goes off to the metal shredder and through dint of rust proofing along with regular service may that day be far in the future.
Maybe I’m going out on a limb here but a car without chrome bumpers is like a woman without lipstick, you might not notice it right away but you feel something is missing.
I just feel that the new cars are missing that “something” that makes them special that you would hold onto them for decades and pay dearly to keep them running well long after the point that logic says to send it to a metal shredder.
Hmmph, exactly: “it shows how our [older] cars become part of our families and how our memories tie in with them.”
“Unfortunately none of the new cars do anything for me emotionally.”
“the new cars are missing that “something” that makes them special that you would hold onto them for decades”
I imagine some people have exceptions, howevah; that is indeed, The Rule.
‘The Good News Is People Are Realizing We’re On Our Own’
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec25/on-our-own12-25.html
…The Crapification of America, might stop?
Yup. Peak car was likely about 1998 – 2004. They we just too reliable and fixable though. Can’t have that.
One day when the family station wagon was in the shop, the local Chevy dealer lent us a new 1963 Chevy Impala convertible. It had a 327 cubic-inch V8 and a 2-speed Powerglide transmission. We drove it to grandma’s house, attracting some envious stares in small towns along the way. It looked like this:
https://tinyurl.com/2spuu4na
America was a strong and confident country then. President John Kennedy was working to stop Israel’s nascent nuclear program at Dimona, and to force AIPAC’s predecessor — the American Zionist Council — to register as a foreign lobby. Then JFK was mysteriously assassinated in Dallas. I remember the dark, anguished faces of our teachers that day, as they sent us home from school early, refraining from comment.
Tomorrow the indicted war criminal Netanyahu arrives to harangue today’s president to join more middle eastern military adventures, which already have cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars. He represents a little apartheid colony which doesn’t share our language, our alphabet, our religion, or (most importantly) our values.
When will we finally fulfill JFK’s brutally interrupted dream, and cut ties with these conniving, murderous leeches?
Would love to see a SWAT team surround Satanyahoo’s plane after it lands and arrest the little maggot for his war crimes. Only happens in my dreams though.
“…When will we finally fulfill JFK’s brutally interrupted dream, and cut ties with these conniving, murderous leeches?”
That’ll only happen when America finally collapses.
I can’t believe GM approved this campaign. I guess it creates mindshare, but it opens the door to this sort of comparison. Maybe they figure this will impress upon people that they’ll get 40 years out of today’s compliance vehicles, even though we see no evidence of this being the case.
Most people will see the commercial and think “I remember those Suburbans”, and appreciate the nostalgia of the story and that will be it.
I am running into more people who are waking up to the decreasing value of the dollar, but never realize the car they had 25 years ago was just as good as the car they have today, let alone the price difference in real dollars.
We are Americans, which means we don’t have to think about things.
HA! “We are Americans, which means we don’t have to think about things.”
Condition White.
https://modernsurvivalblog.com/security/coopers-color-code-definition/
GM wants you to believe that a 2026 Suburban is going to still be a thing in 2070.
The commercial is comedy gold in that respect.
“I wanted it to be just like it was.” — Chevrolet ad video, 2:38
Why nostalgia works as an ad theme:
Emotional Connection: Taps into deep-seated feelings of comfort, belonging, and joy, triggering pleasure centers in the brain (dopamine).
Trust & Authenticity: Familiarity breeds trust, making consumers feel safer and more open to a brand.
Escapism: Offers a temporary escape to a perceived simpler, better time, providing psychological comfort.
Relatability: Makes ads feel more personal and less like traditional advertising.
Using Google Street View, you can tour the town where you graduated high school. The streets are still there, and many of the buildings. But the people you remember are mostly gone. And for sure, the cars — even more ephemeral than school classmates, having only a dog’s life expectancy — are long since departed.
GM, in its senescence, unwittingly shows us how it systematically destroyed the availability of basic, cheap, reliable vehicles. Thanks to its public-private partnership with Big Gov, those nostalgic cars of its past aren’t even legal to make anymore.
So it dangles them before us, as unattainable objects of desire. But its modern, ersatz substitute totally fails to satisfy. Like EeeVee Mary herself, it’s just a faded, luridly rouged simulacrum of what we actually were looking for.
Yep. Eventually, life will be reduced to putting on a VR headset, forever imagining what was, and what could’ve been.
I’d rather be dead.
Hmm, seems like self-defeating bullshit here, but it may be truth, IDK:
“So it dangles them before us, as unattainable objects of desire.”
More of the same is, “putting on a VR headset”.
It’s a horse race, so far, buncha-idiots is out in front. Practical-rural is closing fast on Rejection.
…Tune in next week/month/year/decade to see who wins.