Is the American public ready to accept a full-size pickup truck equipped with a four-cylinder engine under its squared-off hood? GM sure hopes so, as a turbocharged 2.7-liter is set to be the base motor in two of its Silverado trims: the LT and RST.
The EPA has now rated the thirstiness of the new mill, which is set to be one of six (count ‘em) available across all eight trims of the 2019 Silverado.
These twelve calendar months of 2018 could be called the Year of the Truck, given the number of new models we’ve seen from major players. Even those that aren’t majorly reworked have gotten some measure of refreshment either in the form of a newly rated top engine (Ford) or snazzy color-keyed trim (Toyota).
We visited the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Work Truck much earlier this year but, at the time, there were few details in terms of powertrain or price. Those areas have since been addressed by The General, leading me to the question: does the least-expensive Chevy full-size retain its spot on our Ace of Base list?
More than a million, actually. A recall of 1,015,918 Silverado and Sierra pickups, plus their full-size SUV cousins, was issued yesterday by folks at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
This recall affects machines from the 2015 model year. They are being summoned to repair centers thanks to electrical and software issues that could play havoc with the power steering system.
One of the most recent “truisms” kicked around regarding the automotive industry is that there are very few “bad” cars and trucks.
In other words, no matter what vehicle you buy, it’s likely to perform its intended purpose well, offer decent reliability, and not be too punishing to drive.
The flip side is that if almost every vehicle is “good,” then for one to stand out from its competitors, it needs to be even better.
That’s the problem Chevrolet faces with its redesigned 2019 Silverado. Being good won’t be enough, not in a segment in which the Ram 1500 garners accolades from keyboard warriors like myself for its interior design and the F-150 remains wildly popular (and just offered customers a diesel variant).
Full-size truck buyers looking for the latest thing are spoiled for choice this year. Besides an all-new Ram 1500 (currently unavailable with a V6) and the usual offerings from Ford, there’s a next-generation Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra arriving this fall.
Unlike those other models, the GM twins went somewhere full-size truck builders fear to tread: the land of four-cylinders. Looking at GM’s newly released price list for the 2019 Silverado, it’s clear the new 2.7-liter turbocharged inline-four stands to save buyers money in more ways than one. (Read More…)
It seems we stood and talked like this, before. We looked at each other in the same way then. But I can’t remember where or when… no wait, I remember it perfectly well. It was eight months ago when I asked you to help me pick a perfect pickup. I ended up with a 2017 Silverado LTZ Crew Cab 6.5′ bed with Max Tow package and the 6.2-liter engine. Not all of you approved.
The Silvy ain’t going nowhere, but there might be space in the driveway for a second truck starting in the spring. Just like last time, I’m going to set some loosely-defined rules — but this time the rules will be very different.
I left Detroit at 4:51AM on Tuesday morning, pointed south for a three-hour drive that would terminate with the beginning of my workday. I could have taken the morning off, but I like to surround my auto shows with a little bit of deliberate misery, lest I inadvertently become too comfortable in the entirely artificial universe of public relations and journalist-pampering that seems to gain steam every year even as the rest of the event comes to resemble the petal-dropping Enchanted Rose in the spare wing of the Beast’s castle. Thus the 4 AM wakeup and the trudge out to the frozen parking lot, hunchbacked with suit bags and audibly creaking from every joint, Danger Girl trailing behind me with the wide-eyed stare common to prisoners of war and victims of spousal abuse, even if it’s mostly musical in nature.
We were not the only people starting our morning, and our truck, before dawn. Long-time TTAC readers may remember that General Motors and a few other automakers pay the travel expenses of quite a few autojournos in exchange for obtaining control of their narratives. Most of them arrive a few days before the actual show, all the better to maximize the free meals and curated experiences. On Saturday, while my son and I were driving up to a skatepark in Cleveland for an evening’s worth of BMX riding, I’d seen a former colleague of mine whining on Instagram about the less-than-five-star nature of his complimentary accommodations at the GM Renaissance Marriott. The only way I could think of to register my disappointment was to change my own hotel reservation to the absolute cheapest room available on Hotels.com: $47 a night for the Allen Park Motor Lodge.
The motel, and the room, turned out to be kinda-sorta okay, although the bed didn’t really make the grade for two people with a hardware store’s worth of screws and bolts in their bones. Here’s the interesting part: I’d expected that most of my fellow motel-dwellers would be engaged in some form of recreational depravity, but in actuality the bulk of them were construction and service-industry workers taking advantage of the weekly rates. They were early to bed and early to rise. Our work-truck white Silverado, parked in a line of pickups that stretched all the way across the motel’s road frontage, was notable only for being slightly newer than the rest. As we backed out of our spot, I saw a few Carhartt-clad fellows trudging out to the Colorados and F-150s and Rams, tool belts slung over their shoulders, rubbing their eyes and exhaling cloudy yawns of crystallized steam towards the moon.
Back to life, back to reality. But there was a bit of irony in it for me, because this Detroit show was the first one in a long time to acknowledge the connection between the polished artifice of the press-event turntable and the early-morning trudge to one’s truck.
This week in Detroit was, in a pleasant reversal of years past, all about pickups. Sure, there have been plenty of truck displays at past shows, but I’m struggling to recall the last time two of the Detroit Three unveiled a significant revamp while the other trumpeted a noteworthy new engine.
The one that made me sit bolt upright in my chair was not a top rung Limited from Ford, Laramie from Ram, or High Country from Chevy, although those are tasty trims indeed. No, the version which captured my attention is the one shown above: the poverty-spec Work Truck.
It’s NAIAS week in Detroit, signaling a parade of press conferences and more shrimp than what’s found in all the North Atlantic. While buzzwords this year are “mobility” and “disruption,” the Detroit Three still found time to show us new versions of machines in my favorite segment, the full-sized pickup truck market.
Chevy showed off a new Silverado with an octet of trims, Ram dropped its new non-Freightliner pickup, and Ford promised an oil burner for the F-150.
Now we’ve seen them all, here’s my question to you: if forced to choose one, what would you select?
There’s something about truck marketing.
Any time an automaker has a redesigned, refreshed, or updated truck to sell, out come the shots at the competition.
Tonight it was Chevy’s turn — the automaker wouldn’t divulge specs related to the 3.0-liter diesel inline-six that will be available in its all-new 2019 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, but GM product boss Mark Reuss made sure to imply that the diesel would make more power than that of the diesel Ford just unveiled for the F-150.
This weekend, Chevy surprised all hands by unveiling its 2019 Silverado by way of Sikorsky helicopter at Texas Motor Speedway. Rising over Big Hoss, the world’s largest HD television screen, a red Trail Boss Silverado made its way into view, was gently set down on the ground, and then driven on stage by a Chevy rep. The amount of moving parts in this display was enormous.
There’ve been thousands upon thousands of vehicle reveals over the years, ranging from a manufacturer simply pulling a silk sheet off the thing on stage at an auto show all the way up to the level of insanity put into motion by Chrysler in the early ’90s.
Chevy threw itself a birthday party today at the Texas Motor Speedway, celebrating 100 years of making trucks. It had a surprise gift for the audience in the form of the new 2019 Chevrolet Silverado … delivered by way of Sikorsky helicopter, naturally.
People have been predicting it for years, we foreshadowed it a few months ago, and on Thursday it finally happened: one can now waltz into a dealership and spoil the better part of a hundred grand on a pickup truck.
See that 2018 Silverado 3500 Crew Cab Dually up top, though? It doesn’t cost $100,000. It doesn’t even cost $50,000. It is, in fact, only $340 more expensive than a top-rung Honda Ridgeline.
Wait. What?
Chevrolet has gone to great pains to remind everyone that the 2018 model year marks the 100th anniversary of Chevy Trucks. A hundred candles is a big deal, so Chevy reached into its lengthy history for a few design and detail cues to mark the occasion.
I’d wager a hefty amount of money that most people reading this either had or has a Chevy truck in their family or know someone who did. They’ve produced over 85 million of the things, after all. (Read More…)
Ford’s F-Series is the undisputed king of the domestic pickup market. It’s high atop the mountain, looking down upon its rivals as they savagely bludgeon each other with gnarled branches. For years, the majority of that abuse fell on Ram. Then, all of a sudden, 2017 came and Chevrolet ended up with a broken nose. In the primeval battle of truck sales superiority, Chevy’s Silverado no longer occupies the second place position for full-size pickups. Ram does.
Alright, it isn’t quite that dramatic. General Motors’ truck offerings aren’t exclusive to the Silverado and the automaker still outsold Fiat Chrysler when factoring in pickup deliveries from its GMC division. However, we’re counting this as a victory for Ram because FCA needs one — and overtaking Chevy sales isn’t exactly small potatoes. This is a major leap forward for a brand that seemed perpetually in last place. (Read More…)
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