The Chevrolet LUV and the later Chevrolet LUV D-Max are light

pickup truck A pickup truck or pickup is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering) ...

s designed and manufactured by Isuzu and marketed in the Americas since 1972 by

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ou ...

over four generations as rebadged variants of the Isuzu Faster and D-Max. ''LUV'' is an

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for "light utility vehicle".

History

Production of the first generation of Chevrolet LUVs, first sold in North America from 1972 as a

badge-engineered In the automotive industry, rebadging is a form of market segmentation used by automobile manufacturers around the world. To allow for product differentiation without designing or engineering a new model or brand (at high cost or risk), a ma ...

variant of the Japanese-market Isuzu Faster, ended in 1980. The second generation, launched in 1980 as a 1981

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

, was produced by Isuzu in Japan for North America and in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

for the South American market. North American sales ended with the release of the 1982 model year

Chevrolet S-10 The Chevrolet S-10 is a compact pickup truck that was produced by Chevrolet. It was the first domestically built compact pickup of the big three American automakers. When it was first introduced as a "quarter-ton pickup" in 1981 for the 1982 m ...

in 1981. The 1982 model year was the only year the 2.2 liter diesel engine was offered in the United States. Production of the second-generation LUV for South America continued until 1988 when the third iteration was released, once more based on the Japanese-market Faster/Rodeo pickups. This arrangement lasted until 2005 when the fourth series was introduced, now titled Chevrolet LUV D-Max and representing a rebadged version of the

Isuzu D-Max The Isuzu D-Max is a pickup truck manufactured since 2002 by Isuzu Motors. A successor of the Isuzu Faster/KB, the first and second-generation model shares its platform with the Chevrolet Colorado. The third-generation model shares its plat ...

. File:Chevrolet Luv 1600 1978 (14946596329).jpg, First generation (1972–1980) File:Chevy LUV second gen.jpg , Second generation (KB; 1980–1988) File:Chevrolet Luv 2.2 Work Crew Cab 2006 (11427242795).jpg , Third generation (TF; 1988–2005) File:Chevrolet D-Max 2008 3.5v6.jpg , Chevrolet LUV D-Max (RA; 2005–2012)

References

{{Chevrolet vehicles LUV Cars introduced in 1972 Pickup trucks