QOTD: The New Silverado - Matinee Idol or Bride of Frankenstein?

You can’t quantify beauty. The emotional appeal of a particular vehicle’s styling is no different than that of a Florentine mural or Greek statue, save for, perhaps, the 1958 Edsel. But even that homely dog has its fans.

This past weekend we got our first glimpse of a vehicle destined to ply the roadways in great numbers for years to come: the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado, this one a jacked-up, blacked-out Trail Boss variant. Like it or not, it’ll be everywhere.

Beauty remains forever in the eye of the beholder, there’s nothing wrong with stirring up a debate on the merits of a makeover. A little game of vehicular Dud or Stud, if you will.

I’ll bite. The 2019 Silverado’s face haunts my dreams.

It’s hard to describe exactly why I find it so repellant. My own tastes gravitate towards the simple, the flowing, the cohesive. Give me a current-edition Ram 1500 and I’ll stare at it all day. I think the pre-refresh Ford F-150 got it right, too. The right lines mixed with the right proportions.

And then there’s this. It’s a face so tall, it seems the narrow headlights risk violating protected airspace. (It’ll be interesting to see how the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety rates these peepers, as they seem capable of projecting a beam over the roof of a Chevy Colorado.) Viewed from a glancing angle, the Silverado’s sharp fender crease and bulging wheel arches makes the upper face look pinched. Or maybe it just has a case of the mumps.

It’s a jowly, Nixon-esque visage. Not helping matters is a front bumper that’s extremely flush, even though it’s actually no more flush than a 2018 F-150’s. This only accentuates the impression of grille height.

Having said all of this, I don’t think the next-gen Silverado is a hopeless case. There’s little to get upset about once you move past the face (squint and it suddenly becomes much more pleasing), and I applaud the move towards boxy, truck-like styling, complete with well-defined, straight horizontal lines. It wasn’t long ago that cars and trucks were as angular as a marshmallow. Pity the featureless Oval Era.

What say you, Best and Brightest? It isn’t every day we can gaze upon a wholly new domestic pickup and let fly with our opinions (though as luck would have it, we’ll be doing this again very soon with the 2019 Ram 1500).

Do your worst. Is the 2019 Silverado just another pretty face, or is its countenance something only a mother could love?

[Images: General Motors]