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Before you read farther, grab coat, hat, checkbook and this section, of course, and head down to your local GMC dealer.

Yes, we know that dealerships are closed on Sunday, but you may want to camp out anyway to be first in line Monday morning to order a new 2001 GMC Sierra C3 pickups arriving late this December.

The C3 is a limited-edition pickup with a split personality, a vehicle that looks like one of your ordinary, run-of-the-mill extended cab pickup trucks until you slip inside and its true character comes to life.

The C3 is mild-mannered Clark Kent until you kick the pedal. Then, just like the super hero who whips off his glasses and rips open his shirt to expose the big “S” on his undies, the C3 springs into action to take on its mission–to look like a truck but act like a sports sedan.

The C3 is the industry’s first full-size, all-wheel-drive pickup truck designed to haul lumbar or haul … well, to haul your body very quickly, yet comfortably. The claimed zero to 30 m.p.h. time is 3.4 seconds and the zero to 60 m.p.h. claim is 8.3 seconds.

But, insists Jim Kornas, Sierra brand manager for GMC, the C3 is not a high-performance Lightning from rival Ford.

“You may think there’s a big `S’ inscribed on the block, but the C3 isn’t a street dragster and isn’t just a straight-line fast, hot-rod truck like the Lightning. This is a driving machine, not just a fast machine, a truck that is quick, yet corners and handles like it’s glued to the road, Kornas said.

“We’ve had fast trucks at GMC in the early ’90s, the Cyclone [derivative of the S-15 pickup] and Typhoon [derivative of the two-door Jimmy SUV]. But to get high performance we gave up their truckness, their ability to haul payload and tow. They could only tow 1,000 pounds,” Kornas said.

“Most half-ton pickups will tow up to 8,000 pounds. The C3 will tow 8,700 pounds without sacrificing ride and handling. Many trucks when driven unloaded have vertical motion in back and tend to hop up and down when empty. Not the C3,” he said.

For decades when an automaker has developed a suspension designed for sure-footed performance handling without body lean or sway, it has sacrificed smooth ride. One or the other, but not both. You get a vehicle that sits flat at speed into and out of a turn but tends to bounce you up and down on the straight-aways in exchange.

Not the C3. Ride and handling are in harmony with one another. It handles like fixed to a rail, with the nuisance up-and-down movement kept to a minimum. You feel like you have your hands wrapped around the wheel of a spirited sedan, not a pick’em up. You sit high, but don’t feel wobble from a raised center of gravity.

“And it has all-wheel-drive like Porsche does for performance, not all-wheel-drive like a mini-van would simply to get through t snow,” Kornas said.

The C3 is also further evidence of a recent trend in the auto industry, to build more than one vehicle off the same p latform as a means of producing a wide variety of machines more economically, but at the same time giving each a different character and personality through the separate engine, transmission and especially suspension systems.

The rap against Detroit in the ’70s and ’80s was badge engineering in which General Motors or Ford or Chrysler cars looked and acted alike, with only different grilles, interior trim and prices separating an Oldsmobile from a Cadillac or Ford from a Mercury or Chrysler from a Dodge.

GMC plans to produce only 10,000 to 15,000 copies of its Sierra C3 extended-cab short-bed pickup for 2001.

And while only a limited number, Kornas is still pleased because only GMC, not Chevrolet, will market a C3.

“It means GMC dealers get something unique without having to share it with another division,” Kornas boasts.

Perhaps it also means that now that GMC has a full-size C3 performance Sierra, it might come up with a midsize C3 performanc e Sonoma pi ckup truck, something a little smaller and a little more affordable than a $38,000 Sierra.

“If we’re successful with a C3 Sierra, we’ll look for other ways to make GMC different [from Chevrolet] and more different expressions from GMC vehicles. Is Sonoma next? Stay tuned, more to come,” Kornas said.

“I once worked at Cadillac and watched as the luxury-car segment went international and the Americans had to struggle to catch up with the Europeans. With the C3, we have a chance to be different than all the other trucks in the market and to be ahead of what’s coming from Japan and Europe.

“Toyota already has a full-size truck while Honda, VW and Nissan all plan full-size trucks for the U.S. market in the next three to four years and the time to capture customers is now before those trucks come by taking our GMC trucks to a new level,” Kornas said.

In addition to being an AWD full-size truck with a performance sedan-like suspension, the C3 stands out in the crowd with its new 6-liter, 325-horsepower V-8 with 4-speed automatic transmission.

Kick the pedal and you are absorbed into the standard leather-covered seat cushions. Maybe not Lightning fast, but very quick nonetheless. One drawback: the fuel economy rating is 11 m.p.g. city/14 m.p.g. highway.

While on drawbacks, the other is that the C3 is a short bed extended cab with two rear access doors, those swing-back-type units that can be opened only when the front doors are opened.

A Crew Cab C3 with four swing-open doors would be welcome so the family can get in or out or you can load or unload the rear cabin without fooling with the front doors. Be patient. Kornas said a special customized C3 Crew Cab with those four doors will be displayed at the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association convention in Las Vegas next month , a venue the automakers have been using the last few years to preview vehicles for the trade and media before putting them out for public inspection on the auto-show circuit.

By the way, the back seat will comfortably hold two adults or three kids with good head, leg and arm room, though the seat back is positioned rather upright and may prove annoying for adults on long trips. If you need to haul more cargo than the 6 1/2-foot-long short box in back (that comes with a body-colored vinyl cover as standard) can hold, the rear seat bottom lifts up, folds back and rests against the seat back to open up the cabin for hauling.

Noteworthy features on the C3 we tested include more power plugs (instrument panel, center console, rear console) than cupholders (center console); a driver’s information system that includes readings of miles driven by calendar year, plus a breakdown of pleasure and/or business mileage; an air bag cutoff switch for the front passenger seat with a warning light visible in daylight or nighttime; Michelin 17-inch all-season radial tires designed for optimum handling with AWD; coin and CD holders in the ce nter console storage compartment; soft but not slippery leather seats; radio controls in the steering column as well as rear-seat radio controls with jacks for earphones; and large foldaway heated outside mirrors as well as heated rear window.

The C3 starts at $38,305. It comes loaded, the only options being a flat running board for $490 (tubular running board is standard and we’ll take the less slippery flat running board over a tubular one any day) and an engine block heater for $35.

Standard equipment includes OnStar emergency communication system, air conditioning, programmable automatic locking doors, temperature/compass reading in the rearview mirror, power seats/windows, heavy-duty four-wheel disc brakes (taken from the three-quarter-ton Sierra) with anti-lock brakes, tilt wheel, remote keyless entry, swing-out rear quarter windows, trailer wiring harness and tow/haul mode on the transmission.