2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD High Country: Okay, Now We're Getting Somewhere

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Unless you took the past couple of days off to ruminate about our collective existence in a Scandinavian steam hut, you probably noticed there’s a new heavy duty General Motors pickup on the way. We’ve thus far seen only the Silverado LT with the butch Z71 package.

“Polarizing” best describes the vehicle’s looks, but Z71s are traditionally meant to be the most visually striking versions of Chevy’s full-sizers, if only by the smallest of degrees. Well, what happens when the new Silverado HD dresses up for the country club? You have this — a Silverado HD that tones things down and might change a few minds.

GM is parsing out details about its HD lineup over several days, meaning you’ll be sick of seeing this thing before long, if you aren’t already.

What you see here is the Silverado HD in high-zoot High Country trim, positioned atop a content ladder that includes Work Truck, Custom, LT, and LTZ offerings. While the High Country doesn’t vastly diverge from the truck GM flaunted two days ago, there are certain tweaks that take the edge off a much talked-about face.

First off, the Chevy bowtie returns to the center of the grille (well, the crossbar, anyway), replacing the obnoxious lettering seen on the Z71. Chevy says each trim comes with a unique grille treatment; the crossbar here is a mix of two metallic trims, others will see theirs finished in black, chrome, or body color. Helping reduce the apparent height of the towering face is horizontal chrome slats that fill the grille space. A body-color bumper with metallic lower lip in the center cutout helps the overall effect, while lower driving lights, clearly LEDs, now total three per side.

With those lower lights no longer surrounded by body-color fascia, the impression is that of a traditional front end. Here, body-color fascia underscores the entire grille area instead, just above the bumper. (See Z71 version at bottom of page for comparison).

Elsewhere, the truck is the same 1500-inspired vehicle you saw the other day, minus the chrome bumper and with different wheels. It’s interesting to see how small changes can alter one’s perception of an otherwise unchanged product.

If GMC’s new Sierra pickup tells us anything, it’s that the HD version should adopt somewhat more traditional styling cues than its Chevy sibling once GM sees fit to debut the model. Alas, there’s no new word on that upcoming gas engine GM teased Tuesday.

[Images: General Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • HotPotato HotPotato on Dec 08, 2018

    This remains literally the ugliest truck ever built.

    • Geo Geo on Dec 08, 2018

      There are far uglier trucks from every decade. Just the last decade there was the 2005 Dakota, GM's own plasticky Avalanche (and XUV), Ford's Sport Trac. This looks like a truck and shows GM taking some chances for a change. It echoes the '60 to '65 Chevrolet pickup with the upper level of lights, and does it pretty well.

  • Jfb43 Jfb43 on Dec 08, 2018

    It would be an understatement to call this a hideous monstrosity.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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