2024 GMC Canyon AT4X AEV PVOTY Review: Limited Use Case?
If you’re a serious rock-crawling off-roader, this might be the truck for you.
Pros
- Serious off-road hardware
- There’s little that gets in its way
- Easy, intuitive controls
Cons
- Expensive
- Not especially engaging at paved-road speeds
- Poor fuel economy
The new 2024 GMC Canyon AT4X's off-road chops have been clear to us since the first time we drove it last fall. Obstacle in your way? No problem when your Canyon armory includes a front-view underbody camera, skidplates, trick Multimatic DSSV suspension dampers, front and rear locking differentials, a 3.0-inch factory-installed lift kit, 33-inch Goodyear Wrangler MT rubber, and 10.7 inches of ground clearance.
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But wait, there can be even more. Longtime aftermarket supplier American Expedition Vehicles (AEV) and GMC (and Chevrolet with the Colorado Bison ZR2) teamed up to create the Canyon AT4X AEV model tested here. Compared to the standard Canyon AT4X, it includes an additional 1.5-inch lift (for an extra 4.5 inches compared to the base Canyon, and a total of 12.2 inches of ground clearance), 35-inch tires, larger fender flares, upgraded electrical hardware for accessories, a winch-capable stamped-steel front bumper and a similar rear bumper with recovery points, five boron-steel skidplates, beadlock-capable Salta wheels, and greater angles for approach, departure, and breakover. Looking at the spec sheet, this all makes for arguably the most capable midsize off-road factory pickup we’ve ever seen.
It also makes a vehicle more in line with what we expected out of something like the Ranger Raptor, yet some PVOTY judges found it a bit sportier on pavement than the Ford. Still, you wouldn’t choose any of these trucks if you’re looking to have fun on a canyon road. Somewhat surprisingly, when it came time to hit the dirt course—which wasn’t designed as a rock-crawling trial but more as a faster-paced off-road handling circuit—some trepidations entered the fray.
“It’s certainly a lot of sideways fun in its Baja mode with two-wheel drive selected,” features editor Scott Evans said. “But in this environment, it feels more like an all-arounder. It would probably like to be going a bit slower than our course calls for.”
To his point, the Canyon AT4X AEV is built with slow-speed, technical rock crawling in mind, not flat-out desert racing. In the context of our Performance Vehicle of the Year award, failing to do the latter won’t get it done. “It just has too broad a performance envelope—its a jack of all trades—to be a finalist in this competition,” Evans said. “We’re looking for something more about outright speed in more situations, and this truck gives up some of that to do other things well. Fair trade for many, but it misses the mark for this award, where we want a master of speed in the conditions it’s built for.” To wit, the GMC’s Colorado sibling and its similar ZR2 variant won our 2024 Truck of the Year award, so it’s not as though the skills aren’t being recognized.
The off-road settings and features are appreciably easy to understand and set up, and we’re happy that so many of the controls are still hard buttons instead of touchscreen-based irritants. Judges also liked the power delivery from the AT4X AEV’s turbo I-4, which feels about as gutsy as the Raptor’s six-cylinder engine while being smoother and more linear. The ride is extremely well-damped in most scenarios, and the nicely composed suspension (even over faster stuff, though it’s not specifically a desert runner) delivers solid on-road manners for something so off-road-capable.
Pluses and minuses considered fully, one other matter gave our evaluators particular pause against our judging criteria. As deputy editor Alexander Stoklosa said: “The price is almost ludicrous for a midsize pickup. I get it, the AEV stuff is cool and useful, but sheesh. A Colorado ZR2 starts at less than fifty grand and is, essentially, the same thing.” (Worth noting, though, the Colorado ZR2 Bison starts north of $60,000.) Features editor Christian Seabaugh concurred despite being a big fan of this truck: “I was fully aboard putting it on the finalist train until I saw the price. The Canyon is just such a poor value compared to the otherwise identical Colorado version.”
I’m not sure if this is bizarre, amusing, interesting, or none of those, but I remember picking up the inaugural issue of Automobile from the magazine rack at a Meijer grocery store in metro Detroit. At 9 years old in 1986, I was already a devoted consumer of car magazines, and this new one with the funky font on the cover caught my eye immediately. Longtime Automobile editor and present-day contributor Michael Jordan despises this story, but I once used his original review of Ferrari’s F40 as source material for a fifth-grade research project. I still have the handwritten report on a shelf at home. Sometimes I text MJ pictures of it — just to brighten his day. I’ve always been a car fan, but I never had any grand dreams, schemes, or plans of making it onto this publication’s masthead. I did earn a journalism degree from Michigan State University but at the time never planned to use it for its intended purpose. Law school made more sense to me for some reason. And then, thankfully, it didn’t. I blame two dates for this: May 1 and May 29, 1994. The former was the day Formula 1 star Ayrton Senna died. As a kid, I’d seen him race years earlier on the streets of Detroit, and though I didn’t follow F1 especially closely, the news of his demise shocked me. It’s the only story I remember following in the ensuing weeks, which just happened to lead right into the latter date. By pure chance, I had earlier accepted a friend’s invitation to accompany him and his father to the Indy 500. You’ve probably heard people say nothing prepares you for the sight of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, especially in real life on race day, with more than 250,000 spectators on the ground. It sounds like clichéd hyperbole, but it’s true. And along with my renewed interest in F1 in the wake of Senna’s death, that first encounter with Indy ignited a passion for motorsports I never expected to find. Without charting the entire course here, the upshot is that it led me to a brief stint working at a racing school, and then to Autoweek, where I worked as a full-time staffer for 13 years, the majority of them as motorsports editor. I was also a tester and reviewer of road cars, a fleet manager, and just about everything in between that is commonplace at automotive enthusiast outlets. Eventually, my work there led me to Automobile in early 2015 — almost 29 years to the day that I first picked up that funky new car mag as my mom checked-off her grocery list. What else do you probably not want to know? I — along with three other people, I’m told frequently — am an avid NBA fan, evidenced by a disturbingly large number of Nikes taking up almost all of my closet space. I enjoy racing/driving video games and simulators, though for me they’ll never replace the real thing. Road cars are cool, race cars are better. I’ve seen the original “Point Break” at least 147 times start to finish. I’ve seen “Top Gun” even more. The millennials on our staff think my favorite decade is the ’80s. They’re wrong. It’s the ’90s. I always have too many books to read and no time to do so. Despite the present histrionics, I do not believe fully autonomous cars will dominate our roads any time soon, probably not for decades. I used to think anyone who didn’t drive a manual transmission wasn’t a real driver, but I was wrong. I wish I could disinvent social media, or at least somehow ensure it is used only for good. And I appreciate being part of Automobile’s proud history, enjoying the ride alongside all of you.
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