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OK, in September, I lambasted the 2002 Buick Rendezvous, saying that the cross between a sport-utility and a minivan was not as good as either a sport-utility or a minivan.

And, for most of the past 10 years, I’ve had some pretty rude things to say about how Pontiac puts those ugly plastic body panels on the sides of its Grand Am and Grand Prix models in an attempt to give them something of a sporty attitude. Tacky might have been one of my kinder descriptions.

So, I’m here today to tell you that another General Motors’ product, the 2002 Chevy Avalanche, is one of my favorite new vehicles in a long time.

Yes, the Avalanche is one of those odd hybrids, this one a cross between a sport-utility and a full-size pickup. And, yes, the designers relied on lots and lots of plastic panels — around the entire bottom of the truck and right behind the cabin — to make a statement.

Still, it all works — for me at least.

In my week with the Avalanche, I carried a mattress home from a warehouse store. It fit easily and didn’t need to be tied down or roped in.

A day later, I put my boys in the back seat, took down the rear window, and we enjoyed a trip to the ice cream shop with a pleasant breeze blowing in.

The rest of the time, I drove around feeling like I was in a fancy sport-utility with a small truck bed behind it.

The secret to the Avalanche’s success gets two names from GM: Convert-a-Cab and Midgate. Both are used to describe what amounts to a fifth door that’s behind the back seats. When it’s closed with the glass window in place, the Avalanche feels much like a basic GM full-size pickup. But that piece of glass comes out by simply tugging two levers. It stows easily, and allows for circulating air without creating a noisy wind storm that drowns out conversation.

Best yet, you can fold up the rear seats and fold down the entire Midgate and you’ve extended the cargo bed from 5-foot-3 to 8-foot-1 — easily long enough for a mattress or a 4×8 sheet of plywood.

The whole Convert-a-Cab design is intuitive, can be done easily by one person and takes about a minute or two at most.

The cargo box of the Avalanche is full of neat touches, too. Only a very, very heavy tailgate detracts from the total package. The box itself is made from a lightweight, yet durable, composite material called Pro-Tec. It removes the need for installing a bedliner.

On each side of the box, there are lock-able storage bins. They’re huge and deep, and even come with drain holes, so you can fill them with ice and use them for coolers. The tailgate locks, too.

Atop the box is a three-piece tonneau cover. It’s strong enough to hold 250 pounds, which means most folks can stand on it, if needed. Again, it’s easy to install, easy to remove and gives you a secure place to stow your stuff. There’s a storage bag for the tonneau top for when you want to drive around with an open cargo bed. And even the rear bumper includes integrated steps for getting into the cargo bed.

The Avalanche borrows a lot of its mechanical parts from GM’s Suburban sport-utility. The 285-horsepower, 5.3-liter V-8 is stout, though it drinks gas at an alarming rate. The 4L60-E four-speed automatic transmission is proven. (The 2500 Series Avalanches come with a 340-horsepower, 8.1-liter V-8 that’s even stronger and thirstier. It gets a different transmission, and a 37.5-gallon gas tank that’s 6.5 gallons bigger than the one in the 1500 Series Avalanche.)

GM engineers have improved the ride of its big trucks in recent years, and while the Avalanche will never be confused for a sports car, it handles comfortably in city driving and does a good job off the pavement, too.

The Avalanche, which comes in two- and four-wheel-drive models, is priced from $30,245 to $35,145. That compares to $17,518 to $37,507 for a Silverado, and $35,223 to $42,682 for a Suburban. With e Avalanche, you can’t seat eight, like you can in a Suburban, and you can’t do the really dirty hauling like you can with a rugged Silverado. But neither of those vehicles has the panache of the Avalanche, and it’s functional enough for almost every person almost all the time.

That trendiness is exemplified with the North Face Edition Avalanche. That vehicle, the model that we drove, is painted olive green and comes with a plethora of North Face logos, white-face gauges and neat seats that are trimmed in green leather and trimmed in red and black.

The package, which adds an off-road suspension and tires, skid plates and a locking rear differential, also comes with four North Face bags, two of which attach to the seat backs.