Chevy revived its “ZR2” off-road spec for the Colorado pickup a few years back and is applying it to the larger Silverado soon. The Silverado ZR2 is supposed to be a desert beast built for ripping over big swaths of rocky, sandy, wasteland like we’ve got out west. It will compete with two other vehicles the internet loves to chat about: the Ford Raptor and Ram TRX. Is this going to be high-noon standoff situation, or does one of these rigs clearly leave its rivals in the dust?
- Car: Chevy Silverado ZR2
- Location: Laughlin, NV
- Photog: Unknown (image owned by Chevrolet, used with permission)
- Camera ?
We won’t really know the Silverado’s sweetness level until some of us civilians drive it. But having done a few miles in Colorado ZR2s myself, I have to say, those Multimatic spool-valve shocks are seriously smooth and fun to ride on. You can read more about those and the Silverado ZR2’s tech on The Drive.
This truck’s really got stiff competition in the space of “desert-optimized pickup truck” right now, though. So in the hopes of getting some conversation stoked in the comments, I ask, what kind of edge would you like to see the Silverado take over the previously mentioned Ford and Ram?
Now that Chevrolet’s distributed this album of the truck in Best In The Desert racing livery, I find myself thinking, Chevy set up a spec racing series for customers. Like, buy a new silver’doe, buy a specific list of parts, and enter it either as a class in a big desert race or just as small independent events out in the scrubland. Eh? Anybody into that? Could be cool, just saying.
Chevy just dropped a press release about the race variant you see in these pictures, which included the stack of pictures below and a quote from Roger McCormack, Accessories and Performance Parts Marketing Director at GM:
“Performance and personalization upgrades are increasingly popular with customers and Chevrolet has what they need to take their off-road vehicles to the next level… Better yet, these factory-engineered parts are tuned and validated over thousands of combined off-road development miles, including unforgiving Best In The Desert race courses.”
If you’re wondering what the consumer version looks like, we’ve got a gallery of that too!
The Silverado ZR2 is supposed to go on sale in the Spring of 2022, but you can already buy a whole bunch of Silverado upgrades straight from GM if you’re so inclined.
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