Hey everybody, it's Zane from GM-Trucks.com. I just got back from driving the all-new 2020
Silverado HD and 3.0L Duramax. We went to the beautiful state of Oregon, as you can
see here, and as part of my trip I had a chance to talk with Brian Izard, who is the lead
exterior vehicle designer for the all-new Silverado HD. Well, first I'm going to talk about how the fact that we really worked to separate the
light duty and heavy duty from each other. Our heavy duty customers said they want the
heavy duty truck to look unique. And that's not just our customers, all heavy duty customers
said they want to make sure their truck is unique compared to the light duty offering. As you can see between this heavy duty here and behind you, we've got a light duty, that
we really pushed to make them more unique. And in fact, this heavy duty truck only shares
the roof. It's the only sheet metal shared with the light duty
With a heavy duty truck, too, you really start with the powertrain and with the engine. And
this front end is four inches longer and it's taller than the light duty. What that
does is really accommodates the large powertrain, whether it's the 6.6 gas or the 6.6 diesel
And the other thing we wanted to do is make sure the design language is different between
the two. So you'll see why there's some similarities. I like that it's similar on both vehicles
But on the light duty, where it comes in as very expressive and dynamic, it's more purposeful
and chiseled on the heavy duty. So when we start with a vehicle, a heavy duty truck
we always start with the grill. Because you have to make sure you can cool this power
plant to get all 35,500 pounds of towing out of the engine and make sure it cools every
time you want to use it. So every square millimeter of that open area is there to cool the engine
And what it does is it really, it's a lot larger than a former truck and it pushes lamps
all the way to the corners. And the truck is now stacked to make sure that it illuminates
the road and also allows for all the engine cooling. You go down to the bumper. What you'll
find as we continue to make, as this truck is bigger and more powerful, that every square
millimeter is designed for the customer to make it more usable. So this lower skid plate
is actually removable. What we did is we actually worked with several manufacturers to get a
lot of data on snowplows. So for our cold climate customers, we're going to bolt this
and actually the screws are here forward facing so you can see them. And what that means is
we can pull off the skid plate, pull off this air dam, and for most of our customers, they
can attach the snowplow without having to cut any sheet metal or any of the class A plastic and it bolts right on. That design engineering, design philosophies comes around
to the side where we have our, we have our, excuse me, we have our heater plug cord for
the diesel and you can also get it for the gas motor. And it's right here on the sides
It's easy to use. You don't have to open up your hood and have a cord dangling out anymore
It's right here on the sides. You'll get a snowplow up front. You can still easily access
it. That's a big deal for these customers. Does that come standard? If you get the plug
does it have a cord that you can plug into it? Yes, there is a cord that comes with it
It's a spring loaded cap, so it's sealed off nicely. And that ties in nicely also to these
wheel mounts, which are new for 2020. That's something that my customers asked for. That's
something that's just delineates this thing being rugged and tough. It even comes around to the back
of the wheel and you'll see there's a jog in here. It almost looks like a superfluous, but it's not
What they've done is we re-engineered these mud flaps so they're actually pulled from the top
So you see they're sealed in the front. You're not going to have to clean out your mud flaps when you go off road or if you're on a work site. And that's something that where every line on
this truck's purposeful. Next, let's move up to the side of the truck. So this belt line
or the bottom of the window, is about an inch lower than the light duty. And what that means
is the truck got taller and bigger. It's easier to see out of. And the mirrors are completely
different from any other heavy-duty truck. And what we did is we mounted them to the body side
and you no longer have pokes coming from the forward part of the window into the mirror
So not only has the mirrors got bigger, and it's better for rearward visibility
you also have much better forward visibility. As you drive this truck, if you're pulling a trailer
you can also know where the front of the vehicle is, whether you have a plow in the front, you're navigating a campsite, you're navigating a work site. We want to make sure that the truck's
so much easier to use. The body sides, a very clean body side so that if you're a municipality
or if you have a landscaping company, you've got a spot on the side that you can add your graphic
And also what that does is that there's no lines in the body side, so you have this dark
and deep chamfer underneath. And it really helps the vehicle get taller off the ground
and more capable. It ties right into the bed step. And this bed step is on every truck
every trim, every box configuration. And that extends from where we had the corner
step on the bumper for years. And our customers love it. And several customers tell us they only
buy our trucks because if you've got a box full of mulch or a box full of a big load
it's the only vehicle that with the tailgate down that you can get in and out easily
We extended that to the side with a box step or the bed step so that you can get in and out
whether you have a fifth row trailer or a gooseneck in the back. Burglars come right out of the cabin, you can easily get in and out of the box
So we made sure that as this truck got bigger, it was a lot easier to use
Can you put the tailgate down? We even designed drain holes here so that every little piece
sits into everything else. They all go together