Heritage Collections: 1990 Chevy Suburban
To the delight of historians and geeky car types like your author, many of the world’s automakers have curated a collection of vehicles considered to be important to the brand heritage. Some of these assemblies sprang into existence not because of a company’s desire to preserve and document its history but in spite of it while others saw the value of hanging on to key company touchstones early in the game.
These thoughts were at the fore last week while browsing the incredible collection amassed by the curators of Ford’s heritage fleet in a relatively short time; this effort was thanks in no small part to Jim Farley who is said to have put the word out a couple of years ago that the brand’s American arm should have collections like its divisions in places like the UK and Oz.
[Images: GM]
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What do other automakers have in their cupboard? Most of this week’s galleries of this ilk are going to focus on a neat vehicle currently on the books and in the care of a car company as part of its heritage collection. We’ll use that term generically since most brands seem to have enjoyed creating distinct names for their own collection, not unlike when Detroit was busy trying to beat each other over the head back in the day by creating a ‘moonroof’ to compete with a ‘sunroof’. Marketing - amirite?
For all the flack it tends to get, and some of it is definitely earned, GM is no slouch in preserving important vehicles from its past. Witness the entire Corvette museum as a great example, sinkholes not withstanding. The company also has a top notch fleet of historic rigs, some of which it trots out at auto shows or the scattered first drive event for car journos. The truck shown in this post was present at the launch of the latest Suburban and Tahoe, for example.
The Suburban was available in two trim levels and either two-wheel or four-wheel drive. This is a Silverado, nine- passenger, four-wheel drive model. Standard equipment included EFI 5.7 liter V8, four-speed automatic transmission, power front disc/rear drum brakes, Anti-lock rear braking system (ABS), power steering, manual locking front hubs, SBR radial tires, intermittent wipers, color-keyed carpeting, tinted glass, power door locks and full instrument panel gage package.
Tremendously, historians at GM also take care to list a machine’s key stats from its year of assembly. This ‘90 Suburban had a base price of $17,405 when new, a sum equal to about $43,000 today according to the latest inflation numbers. It is worth pointing out the least expensive 2026 Suburban starts at $66,495 for a rear-drive LS trim. That said, this squarebody eked out 210 horsepower from its 350 CID V8 engine while the base 5.3L V8 makes 355 horses today, not mentioning the yaffle of extra safety and tech gear in a modern ‘burb.
But the squarebody era truck just looks right, and indeed was in production for nearly 20 years, with this model not getting the ‘88 C/K redesign until 1992. Imagine buying a 1973 Suburban for family duty when yer twins were born, then walking into a Chevy dealer after their high school graduation 18 years later and finding yourself looking at the same dashboard. Fortunately, the new-for-’92s were just as handsome.
