Since we have had recent entries from a South American series, that seems to feature a lot of GM Brazilian trucks, it got me looking into the design and origins of the international 2011+ Chevy Colorado and 2012+ Chevy Trailblazer, both based on the GMT31XX (GMT700) platform.

We have a whole mixed bag of origins for these models, which were also sold as Holdens and Isuzus. I've seen US, Thailand, Japan, Australia and Brazil origins. I've also seen them listed as GMT700 and GMT31XX. I'm thinking that we probably need a standard way to list these.

According to GM, the design was "the product of a five-year, $2 billion vehicle program developed across five continents for customers in more than 60 markets around the world"

The pickup trucks made their debut in Bangkok. "In March 2011, Chevrolet revealed the prototype version of the all-new Colorado at Bangkok International Motor Show. It was shown as an extended cab with a rear access system, and some of the high-tech equipment. In June 2011, Chevrolet revealed its crew cab in adventure concept at Buenos Aires, Argentina (this car also shown at Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2011), and in July 2011, a Holden version of crew-cab version concept got its premiere at Australian International Motor Show."

"The Trailblazer was unveiled as a concept at the 2011 Dubai Motor Show, and as a production model at the Bangkok Motor Show on March 21, 2012."

It seems that the primary design of the truck was done in Brazil, by Roberto Rempel.

From GM "The Colorado’s presence was created by the GM South America Design Center
in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and takes many cues from the three Colorado concept vehicles revealed at global auto shows in Thailand, Argentina, Australia and Germany throughout the year." Also, "The development of the all-new Colorado was led by a highly skilled team of GM engineers in Brazil who used their expertise to tailor the vehicle for a number of global markets, including those in Southeast Asia."

And from a bio of Roberto Rempel, "Rempel kicked off his career at GM Brazil in 1982, where he began racking up increasingly senior management roles in product management and vehicle engineering across GM markets worldwide, including Germany, Italy and Japan – where he serves as chief executive for Midsize Trucks & SUVs in a GM and Isuzu Motors joint venture."

But also they say, "Team members lived in Thailand during the Colorado’s development, immersing themselves in the highly competitive truck market and observing how Thais use their vehicles and the driving conditions they experience."

In addition, this was a collaboration with Isuzu, so there was Japanese input as well, and affects several Isuzu models that are based on the same trucks.

The trucks were initially made in Thailand and Brazil, then eventually the US. The SUVs also were made in India and Russia. The Isuzu versions were made in even more countries. There are Chinese versions as well.

So the model affected include:

Chevrolet Colorado (Southeast Asia, Middle East and 2015+ North America)
Chevrolet S10 (South America)
Holden Colorado (Australia)
GMC Canyon (2015+ North America)
Chevrolet Trailblazer
Holden Colorado 7
Holden Trailblazer
2011+ Isuzu D-Max/KB [RT]
Chevrolet D-Max
Chevrolet T-Series
Isuzu MU-X [RF]

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So what we probably need to decide is what to make as the Country of Origin. Is it Brazil for leading the design team? Is it Thailand for being the place of the debut? Is it the US for organizing the team in the first place? Is it Japan for Isuzu's involvement?

We also need to pick a platform/chassis code. It looks like they were initially GMT700, then GM changed to GMT31XX.

And do we include the Isuzu models with the decisions? They do not seem that far off from the Chevy versions.

And then what about the Chinese versions made from these? I didn't even go there.

My opinion is that they would be "Origin: Brazil", "Built in: (whichever country fits)", "Chassis code - GMT31XX".

But am open to hearing what others think? If we can agree on something than we can get antp to mass change them to be uniform.

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Reference links:

From GM:
https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/u- s/en/2011/Oct/1005_colorado_thailand.html

https://media.cadillacarabia.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/home.detail.html/content/- Pages/news/us/en/2011/Oct/1006_colorado_thailand.html

https://gmauthority.com/blog/gm/gm-platforms/31xx/
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Business Chief bio on Roberto Rempel:
https://businesschief.asia/leadership-and-strategy/meet-the-ceo-engineer-roberto-rempel-is-new-gm-korea-chief
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Wikipedia pages for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Colorado
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_TrailBlazer_(SUV)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_D-Max#RT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isuzu_MU-X#RF

Vehicles sharing a platform is not a simple rebadging. The Chevrolet and Holden are indeed more or less the same vehicle, but the Isuzu MU-X is not so much related it seems... or is it?

I suppose it is rather like the Saab 9-3 based on the same platform as the Opel Vectra or Chevrolet Malibu, though that the car was still conceived by Saab in Sweden and not really related to these other cars.

The differences look cosmetic, front end, taillights and bumpers. The bodies looks the same.

Very interesting and great research work! From what I understand, I agree too with Brazil being the most fitting origin, even if it's one of those cases where it's particularly difficult to determine, but I (personally) think that the main design team being brazilian "wins" on the other involvements.
About the code, maybe [GMT31XX] is a "retroactive" way of referring to the whole platform project, whereas [GMT700] was the code for the single product (in this case the Colorado)?

I suspect the Isuzu side of things would be as likely Thailand as Japan (I don't think these vehicles are sold in Japan). Part of me thinks BR origin for the GM ones, Thailand for the Isuzu.

Agree with Brazil origin. Maybe more research into the chassis codes. I did this re-search a few years ago when I was interested in the Brazilian market and pulled a lot of license plates for that country but I was never able to get concrete details as to which code pertain to which platform and vice a versa.

I did not heavily dive into this but it can’t hurt to do a little bit more research to see if any artickes can be pulled via wayback machine?