All Grown Up

The top-line 2001 GMC Jimmy Diamond Edition has grown up to become a mid-size gem of an SUV.

June 1, 2001

Once upon a time, back in the Pleistocene Era of SUVs, GMC's Jimmy deserved its diminutive name. It was the runt of the GMC truck litter, as they say, the kind of thing few self-respecting truck guys would admit to owning. Then came the paradigm shift of the 1990s, and suddenly the Jimmy was cooking with gas. The advent of the micro-SUVs meant the Jimmy got to move up in class and become a mid-size. Next thing you knew, it was 2001 and the Jimmy, at age 30, had gone respectable.

Respectable, at least in this case, can mean more than one thing. It can mean "acceptable," in that you can now pull your Jimmy up to the dealership to pick up a new Ski Nautique and the guys hooking up the trailer won't snicker behind your back. It can also mean "upscale," as in the case of the 30th Anniversary Diamond Edition, where you basically get a down-sized Cadillac Escalade, and all of a sudden everybody you know needs a ride somewhere.

In either case, respectable means "nice," or maybe even "nice as hell," which probably sounds like less of a compliment than it is. The fact of the matter is that the Jimmy Diamond is a wickedly sweet little tow vehicle.

At first sight, the Diamond reveals only a hint of what's going on inside. The truck's overall size is nothing but average for a middleweight, although the modular front bumper does give it a bit of an aggressive mien. The ground clearance, at least in our test truck (4-door, 2WD), is actually a little skimpy at 7.6 inches, not much more than you'd get with a Suburu Outback wagon, and not really the sort of thing that would encourage you to really go exploring. It's perfectly fine for trailering, though, and the 190-hp Vortec 4300 engine can get you and a 5,900-pound boat (a 400-pound increase in towing capacity from 1999) up and down just about any launch ramp you want. The 4-speed electronic automatic transmission in the test truck is virtually seamless under duress. The "tow/haul" mode, activated by a button on the center console, automatically adjusts the transmission's shift points to account for increased load, and is a hugely welcome standard feature.

The Diamond's Euro-Ride makes driving - especially highway driving - as enticing as spending a Sunday afternoon in a recliner, with independent coil-spring front suspension and "semi-elliptic, two-stage, multileaf spring" rear suspension. In town, speed bumps are reduced to minor inconveniences. On the open road it seems like nothing short of a sinkhole will cause the Diamond trouble. In non-trailering situations, the Diamond's suspension delivers solid handling, and while the lack of ground clearance might be problematic for serious off-roading, it keeps the truck's center of gravity low to reduce sway and potential tipping in serious evasive maneuvering.

Of course, you could get that with the standard Jimmy, or with several other SUVs. What you can only get with the Diamond is the interior.

Some SUVs try a little too hard to keep their "working truck" credibility complete with rock-hard seats and Spartan amenities, but the Diamond goes the other way, coddling you with luxuries and trying hard to convince you that you're driving a luxury-sports car. Unless you're a card-carrying masochist, you'll appreciate the effort. The leather upholstery is ridiculously comfortable. The windshield rakes down aggressively, furthering the illusion of sporty performance.

The JDE Luxury Decor option ($1,800) includes those cushy leather seats as well as an eight-way power passenger seat (to match the standard driver's seat), a Bose sound system with a subwoofer and dynamic equalization that's supposed to automatically adjust the system to match the listening volume. Stereo controls mounted in the steering wheel mean you don't have to take your hands off the wheel to see if you can crank the Bose all the way to 11.

That's not all there is to the Luxury Decor package, either. The front seats are heated, and the driver's seat has a two-position memory so you don't have to spend 15 minutes trying to get things "just right" every time you get behind the wheel. Extra-nice in the summer is the climate-control system that keeps the interior temperature between 66 and 84 degrees. During the week-long Boating World test, the outside temperatures ranged from 102 to 110 degrees (daily highs), but the Diamond interior stayed an almost-nippy 69 at all times.

Mali and Curtis, the official Boating World test dogs, give the Diamond two "paws-up" for its huge rear cargo area. Humans will appreciate the new-for-2001 addition of the OnStar system. The OnStar system is a security system that can do everything from give you directions to the nearest gas station, restaurant or hotel to call 911 for you if your Jimmy's airbags have deployed.

There's an old cowboy saying about how everything gets respectable if it just sticks around long enough, and the Jimmy Diamond Edition is proof. The runt's gone and grown up.