#2020ChevroletSilveradoHD

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.

Earlier this year, we asked if the current automotive styling trend of ever larger grilles had reached a peak of excess. Had automakers carried it too far? The vehicle that sparked the question was the new-for-2019 Toyota Avalon, a vehicle that saw fit to appropriate about 90 percent of its front-end real estate for the placement of a grille, some of it functional.

The trend shows no sign of abating. Lexus is still hard at it, as my current ES 350 tester aptly demonstrates. (Quite a spindle snout on the thing, which continues to remind your author of the controversial 1961 Plymouth.) Elsewhere in autodom, expansive maws proliferate like rabbits, some of them far subtler than others — though beauty always remains in the eye of the beholder.

However, slapping a daring face on a relatively low volume car isn’t the same thing as making over your company’s bread and butter. That brings us to a tale of two trucks.

Getting quite a jump on next year’s reveal, General Motors released a teaser of the upcoming 2020 Chevrolet Silverado HD on Tuesday. The heavy duty pickup slots between the revamped 1500 model unveiled in Detroit in January and the new medium-duty 4500/5500/6500HD trucks shown at March’s Work Truck Show in Indianapolis.

Those latter heavy haulers now share the Silverado name, bringing all of Chevrolet’s full-size-and-up trucks into the Silverado fold.

With the 2020 Silverado HD, the family will be complete. Prototypes hit the road soon, GM claims, but it’ll be a while before we get a full view of these new HD trucks.