Lee Iacocca must have loved getting the jump on the competition. Back in 1964, Mr. I took some components from a big selling but slightly homely looking compact, the Falcon, and rearranged the package into the 1964 Mustang. The rest of Detroit was playing catch up for nearly three years. Since those fateful days of course, Iacocca had jumped ship at Ford and joined forces with Chrysler, but no ones forgotten his tricks. So few were surprised when Chairman Lido took some components from ChryCo’s big selling K-car, and whipped up the first domestic small bus, the T-115. However, unlike Iacocca‘s pony car ploy, this time the competition wasn’t completely asleep. Toyota was ready fight from the start, Ford was waiting in the wings, and GM released its own small van, in either Chevrolet Astro or GMC Safari forms.
Measuring 173 in bumper to bumper, the Astro was almost 2.5 inches shorter than ChryCo’s T-115. but parked next to the Chrysler, the Chevy’s 71.1 overall height was readily apparent, as the Astro was more than a half foot taller than the T-115. The result of this sizing yields a small van proportioned just like the standard one.
The Astro’s conventional vanesque profile was more the result of basic product philosophy rather than any lack of imagination on GM’s part. While the T-115 was developed from a passenger platform, primarily as a people hauler, the Astro was conceived as a substitution for the king size Chevy Van. And the Astro was always considered first and foremost a truck. This was apparent even at production level, where the first Astro s off the line were all configured as panel vans.
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