2005 GMC Yukon Preview

What's in a Name?

The difference between the GMC Yukon Denali and a Chevy Tahoe is the nameplate and about $20,000.

From The Driver's Seat

One of the things about old-school Detroit iron is that even if you are willing to open your wallet wider, the cars never seem to get more refined. In the case of the Denali, this crassness is made manifest as soon as you get behind the tilting -- not telescoping -- steering wheel. Why does this supposedly boss SUV get the same clunky mechanism as a $17,000 Olds Alero?

The interior styling of the Denali is also hardly up to its price tag. Plastic "smoke-colored" wood grain trim stretched around the cabin of our test vehicle, but exposed sharp edges were visible. And the stitched-on logos found on both front passenger doors reminded us not of, say, the cockpit of a Lexus, but of the upholstery in a theme restaurant.

If GMC only understood that people who spend $50,000 on a vehicle are used to a bit more sophistication, they might actually refine such details, including the knobs, switches, gauges and controls throughout the cabin of the Denali.

Things improve somewhat in the cargo arena. Like the Tahoe, the Yukon is huge, and its second row of seats can easily be flipped forward to create a cavernous and fully flat loading area -- although, unlike the Acura MDX we reviewed -- you have to physically remove the third row of seats since these don't fold into the floor.

As for motivation, the new V-8 has tremendous grunt, and it isn't at all boisterous at highway speeds. The ride quality is superior to that of the Tahoe, thanks to a computer-controlled Autoride suspension and self-leveling shock absorbers. But such aids cannot defeat the impression that you're in a truck and, just like in the Tahoe, the best way to eliminate bounce and roll is to haul around several hundred pounds of cargo.

All-wheel drive is standard on the Denali, but the truck doesn't get a second gearbox with extra-low ratios. GMC doesn't think you'll take its Denali mountain climbing (despite its McKinley-pretending name), and for this much dough, they're probably right. But the lack of a low range means that, even though the all-wheel drive system lets you easily knock about ranch country or ascend a rugged fire road, descending such terrain would excessively work the transmission and brakes.