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Chevy Express 1500, GMC Savana 1500 get the axe

Fans of truck-based, light-duty vans can officially pour one out for the Chevrolet Express 1500 and GMC Savana 1500, as General Motors has officially put its long-serving big/little rigs out to pasture. Things aren't quite as sad as they sound, though. The heavier-duty 2500 and 3500 vans will soldier on, in order to duke it out with the largest members of Ram ProMaster, Ford Transit and Mercedes-Benz Sprinter families.
The move does seem to make a lot of sense. According to GM, customers only purchase the 1500-spec Chevrolet 23 percent of the time, while the GMC captures a mere 7 percent of the Savana family's sales. With numbers like that, it's no shock that GM thinks it can shift some of its buyers into its van family's more capable variants. "We knew we could move a lot of our 1500 customers into 2500-series territory," said GM's Joe Langhauser, the product manager for the company's full-size vans.
It's not just simple sales figures dictating the move, though. The 1500 line is taking up some valuable factory space that will be better spent on an eagerly anticipated new product.

GM dealers have ordered 30k Colorado and Canyon pickups, 3rd shift added

General Motors has an early success on its hands in the form of the initial rollout of the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon midsize pickup trucks. According to the automaker, dealers have ordered nearly 30,000 of the trucks thus far, a number that far exceeded GM's early expectations.
This high demand for the Colorado and Canyon twins has prompted GM to add a third shift to its Wentzville Assembly plant where the trucks are built, starting early next year. An extra shift will add an additional 750 jobs at the location to the 1,315 that were already employed there, according to the press release that you're welcome to read down below.
Such positive sales projections for the Canyon and Colorado may portend good things for the midsize pickup segment, which was once hugely popular but has more recently contracted, with the Nissan Frontier and Toyota Tacoma standing firm as the market leaders. Now that GM's entries are the most up-to-date, and with the segment's first diesel engine on the way, it will be interesting to see how the trucks continue to sell and if their hopeful success leads more automakers back onto the playing field.

Submit your questions for Autoblog Podcast #313 LIVE!

We record Autoblog Podcast #313 tonight, and you can drop us your questions and comments regarding the rest of the week's news via our Q&A module below. Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes if you haven't already done so, and if you want to take it all in live, tune in to our UStream (audio only) channel at 10:00 PM Eastern tonight.
Discussion Topics for Autoblog Podcast Episode #313
2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra introduced