Happy 75th birthday, Chevy Suburban!The Suburban began life as the Suburban Carryall in 1935, a two-door utility vehicle with a wooden roof that cast a footprint no larger than a modern Chevrolet Malibu sedan. It was outfitted with a 60-horsepower, six-cylinder engine and cost just under $700 -- a pricetag that would barely fetch an Aveo in converted 2010 dollars. It had seating for eight, but GM Heritage Center manager Greg Wallace pointed out that "people were smaller back then."
Although the body style and wheelbase eventually grew larger, respectively, the six-cylinder engine continued to power the Suburban Carryall until 1955, when a V-8 became optional for the first time. And it was only in the mid-1960s that the Suburban became available with four doors, and the "Carryall" moniker was dropped.
After that, as they say, the rest was history: the four-door V-8-powered Suburban set the pulse for the Heartbeat of America virtually unchanged from 1973 until 1991. By the time the current GMT-900 Suburban was introduced in 2007, the Suburban's overall length had ballooned by 39.1 inches, and its basic level of kit would shame even the most luxurious of the '30s Suburban's competitors.
With so much invested in the Suburban nameplate, Chevrolet marketing manager Mark Clawson stands firm that it will stick around for years to come.
"There's no sign of the Suburban name going away," Clawson said. "The Suburban name will definitely outlive me, as well."
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