GM Pondering Silverado/Sierra Variants, Including Raptor Fighter (Plus Design and Diesel News)

As General Motors preps for the market launches of the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, the brands are pondering whether to offer variants to compete with the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor. Such a model could focus on off-road capability—thereby directly fighting SVT's bruiser—or it may be a more performance-oriented model similar in philosophy to the Chevrolet 454 SS and the GMC Syclone of the early 1990s. No decision has yet been made, but the enthusiast pickup niche is one that will increasingly be difficult for GM to ignore. The boulder-basher appears to be the most likely of the two options, and it therefore would have standard four-wheel drive. Power would come from the 6.2-liter V-8 that will be offered in the Sierra Denali and Silverado High Country trucks. More Truck Bits If you think the new Silverado and the Sierra look fairly conservative, that's not by accident. (Here are the reasons why.) Things may have turned out differently, however. Shown here are three renderings from different stages of the design process. The reddish truck wears a grille design that reminds us slightly of the seventh-generation Ford F-series, but also of the Malibu. The brown truck features a pronounced V-shape and futuristic headlights extending from the front wheel arches. The gray truck serves up yet another grille arrangement that strikes us as slightly Ford-like, but is undeniably brutish. Yet all of them ooze more character than the simplistic design eventually chosen, which GM then jazzes up with lots of gewgaws and chrome. If there was ever any doubt, there won't be a follow-up to the two-mode hybrid Silverado and Sierra. GM is now looking at different means of hybridization, says chief engineer Jeff Luke, hinting at brake-energy recuperation systems. While GM is cautiously optimistic about a revival of the diesel in passenger cars—witness the launch of the Cruze diesel (first drive here), it won't take the plunge in the half-ton-truck segment. Only the upcoming redesigned heavy-duty trucks will be offered with the 6.6-liter Duramax turbo-diesel engine, which continues to be coupled to an Allison six-speed automatic transmission, but no such powertrain will be made available in the Silverado and Sierra 1500—or the new GMT SUVs, for that matter. To do so would require extensive (and expensive) accommodations, and GM suspects few half-ton customers would be willing to dole out the hefty premium for the big Duramax. Instrumented Test: 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 5.3L Crew Cab First Drive: 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel Photos and Info: 2014 GMC Sierra Denali A better choice would have been the 4.5-liter Duramax V-8 diesel, development of which was halted in 2009 just ahead of GM's bankruptcy. The project has yet to be revived. Theoretically, GM could also drop its Asia-Pacific–destined 2.8-liter Duramax four-cylinder diesel into the full-size pickup trucks. Easily tuned to 190 horsepower and around 370 lb-ft of torque, it would be sufficient for day-to-day duty but not likely to generate much excitement behind the wheel. We understand that offering this engine has been discussed internally, but GM has thus far decided against it. from Car and Driver Blog http://blog.caranddriver.com

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