Companion to two Outsider Reviews videos — the first-drive walkaround and the full review with off-road testing. Both are embedded at the bottom of this article.
I said it in the first five minutes of the first video, before I'd driven a single kilometre: this might be my favourite midsize pickup truck. Then I spent a week with the 2026 GMC Canyon AT4 — highway, city, cottage roads, sand, rock, and one steep hill climb — and I'm not walking it back. This is the best-looking midsize truck on the market, and by the end of the week it was still my favourite in the segment. But the way this particular truck was optioned taught me something about how to buy one — because spec'd the way mine was, you are about one thousand dollars away from the AT4X, and at that point you're buying the wrong truck.
What the Canyon AT4 is
The Canyon is GMC's midsize pickup — crew cab, five-foot bed, one engine across the whole lineup. The AT4 is the off-road trim: standard four-wheel drive, an automatic locking rear differential, a two-speed transfer case, and Goodyear Wrangler Territory all-terrains on 18-inch wheels. One correction to what a lot of people assume — including me in my first video: the two-inch factory lift is not an AT4 feature. Every Canyon in this generation (Elevation, AT4, Denali) sits on that same lift with the same 9.6 inches of ground clearance, measured against the old Canyon. The AT4 does not ride any higher than the base truck. Only the AT4X goes further, with a three-inch lift and 10.7 inches of clearance. Mine wore a dune-coloured premium paint that hides dirt-road dust better than any colour I've tested — you don't see how dirty it is until you wash it and look at the ground.
The stance is the story. The wide track, the two-inch lift, the red GMC letters in the grille — it looks aggressive in a way the Tacoma and Ranger just don't. That's not a small thing in a segment where most trucks look like smaller versions of their full-size brothers.
SPECS
Engine: 2.7L TurboMax turbocharged four-cylinder
Power: 310 hp
Torque: 430 lb-ft
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Four-wheel drive: Autotrac two-speed transfer case — 2H, 4H, 4L, and 4 Auto
Rear differential: automatic locking (front and rear electronic lockers are AT4X only)
Ground clearance: 9.6 in (2-in factory lift, standard on every Canyon this generation; AT4X gets a 3-in lift and 10.7 in)
Tires: 265/65R18 Goodyear Wrangler Territory all-terrains
Length: 213.2 in — about 18 in shorter than a Silverado 1500 crew cab, so it fits in a normal garage and a normal parking spot
Bed: 61.7 in (5 ft), with damped tailgate and MultiStow tailgate storage
Max towing: 7,700 lb — best in the midsize class
Payload: 1,435 lb on this tester as optioned; up to about 1,670 lb in the lineup
Fuel economy: 12.3 L/100 km combined (NRCan, 19 mpg)
0–60 mph: about 7 seconds
Price (Canada): AT4 starts around $58,000–$59,000; this tester about $71,000; AT4X starts around $72,000
On the road
The number that matters here is 430 lb-ft of torque — more than the Ranger or the Tacoma offer without a hybrid, and it arrives like it means it. Holy torque is what I said on the first drive, and the full review didn't change my mind. The eight-speed is smooth, there's decent sound for a turbo four, and on the highway it's quiet. The off-road-tuned suspension is plush — it soaks up rough Quebec roads and cottage roads better than the stiffer Rancho setup in the Sierra Pro Graphite I tested. Yes, there's body roll if you hustle it around a corner. It's not a street racer, and I don't want it to be. Comfort and suspension travel are what I buy a truck like this for.
Around town it's nimble and genuinely fun — light steering, easy to see over the hood, and enough power to break the all-terrains loose if you're careless with your right foot. Adaptive cruise and real lane-keeping assist (it steers, it doesn't just beep at you) make it an easy long-drive truck. One note on fuel: the 12.3 L/100 km combined rating is achievable — the truck's own history showed 12.2 L/100 km over the previous 2,761 km. My week averaged around 17, and that's on me: off-road driving in Terrain mode and a lot of idling while filming will do that.
Off-road
This is where the AT4 had something to prove, because on paper there's a gap in the spec sheet: no selectable lockers. The AT4's rear differential locks automatically, and everything is handled through the drive modes — Off-Road, Terrain, Tow/Haul, Normal — plus an air-down mode and off-road pages in the cluster that show pitch, roll, and your coordinates.
On the ground, the automatic locker just worked. Steep hill, sand, rocks, water — it dug in and climbed without drama, and the suspension did the rest. With 9.6 inches of clearance you're within about an inch and a half of what the big desert trucks run, and the power is more than enough for anything I pointed it at. Do you need a front locker? For the kind of off-roading most owners will actually do, my week says no.
Two off-road complaints. First, the running boards: they sit low, and at the breakover point they will interfere — rock rails belong on a truck like this, not steps. Second, and this is the big one: underneath, an AT4 does not come standard with steel skid plates. It comes with composite cladding. The heavy-duty steel plates are a $1,595 option. On a truck GMC sells as its off-road trim, that should not be an option at all.
The bed and that tailgate
The five-foot bed has a spray-in liner — also an option, also something that should be standard — plus a 120-volt outlet, several tie-downs, and a proper damped tailgate. The bumper step earns its keep: even at five-foot-nine with a two-inch lift, I can get up and reach in.
The tailgate has a trick: a lockable storage compartment (GMC calls it MultiStow) with measurements moulded into the lid. On my tester it was filled by the optional Kicker Bluetooth speaker system — $1,350. The speaker is fixed in place, not removable, which is a miss: a detachable speaker would be genuinely useful, and I wouldn't store straps with metal buckles in there next to it. I wouldn't order it. Without the speaker, it's handy lockable storage.
Inside
The cabin is a strong point. Savannah brown stitching, AT4 badging, a camouflage pattern in the console my son approves of, and seats I find more comfortable than the Ford Ranger's — the Ranger's bolstering is narrow for a big guy, and these aren't. The screens are excellent — crisp digital cluster, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a head-up display, and proper physical toggles for the climate. There's a button that drops all four windows at once (raising them again is manual, one at a time, because of course it is).
The back seat is honest midsize: 34.7 inches of legroom, and at five-foot-nine I had almost two inches of headroom to spare even with the panoramic sunroof. The rear headrests fold down flat, which fixes the rear visibility when nobody's back there. The rear sliding window is manual, though — at this price, a power one wouldn't be too much to ask. In the front, there's a slot for your phone but no wireless charger; you plug in a cable like it's 2019.
One daily-life gripe: the rear seats fold up to reveal a storage compartment, but the floor isn't flat. I'd trade that compartment for a flat floor in a second, so a hockey bag can ride inside the cab instead of in the box — because after hockey comes Costco, and I'm not leaving my bag out in the open bed for that stop.
Pricing: the options trap
Here's where this truck gets complicated. The AT4 itself starts around $58,000 to $59,000 Canadian — fair money. My tester carried about $12,225 in options: the AT4 Premium package (perforated leather, ventilated front seats, six-way power passenger seat, heated steering wheel), the Technology Plus package (adaptive cruise, 360-degree HD camera, rear pedestrian alert), the Bose stereo, the steel skid plates at $1,595, an off-road lighting package around $1,500, the Kicker tailgate audio at $1,350, black wheels and lug nuts at $550, the premium paint, and a $195 engine block heater that should be included in Canada, full stop. Total: about $71,000.
The AT4X starts at about $72,000. For that roughly one thousand dollars more you get Multimatic DSSV dampers, a three-inch lift instead of two, electronic locking differentials front AND rear, a Baja drive mode, underbody cameras, rocker protection, and the Obsidian Rush interior with red seat belts. The only things you'd give up from my tester are the off-road lights and the tailgate speaker — and lights are an easy aftermarket add. So an AT4 optioned to $71,000 is a truck you should not buy. The AT4X is right there.
The smart AT4 buy is further down: add the skid plates and the technology package to a base AT4 and you're around $62,000 Canadian, with everything you actually need. That's the sweet spot — and at that price, nothing in the segment touches the package.
The Outsider’s Take
Cons first, because the list is short and specific: steel skid plates should be standard on an AT4, not a $1,595 option. The spray-in bedliner and the engine block heater should be standard too. No wireless charger, a manual rear window, and low running boards that hurt your breakover angle. And if you option one up to $71,000, you've made a mistake — the AT4X exists.
The pros are why it's still my favourite midsize truck. It looks better than anything else in the segment. It tows more than anything else in the segment — 7,700 pounds. Its 430 lb-ft of torque beats the Ranger and the Tacoma without needing a hybrid. The automatic rear locker handled everything I threw at it, the seats beat the Ranger's, and it rides like a truck should: plush, quiet, and ready to work. It doesn't compete with the Raptor, and it's not supposed to. Against the Ranger FX4 and the Tacoma TRD Off-Road — its actual competition — this is the one I'd buy. Just buy it at $62,000, not $71,000.
