Coming to a Holden showroom near you: a ‘full-size’ pickup in the form of the Chevrolet Silverado, converted to right-hand drive courtesy of HSV and their new tie-up with GM’s new Australasian plans.
Alongside the the joint announcement made tonight that outed the Colorado SportsCat, it was revealed the larger Silverado will soon be sold alongside the rest of the Holden portfolio at showrooms nationwide. Although, it will be keeping its Chevy bow-tie badge.
GM’s import job concerns five variants of the Silverado 4x4 Crew Cab, which will ostensibly go up against the RAM Laramie 2500 and Laramie 3500 at least until Ford decides to introduce their F-150 to the market Down Under. Then we’ll have a real fight on our hands.
All Silverados bounds for a local introduction in 2018 will be powered by a 6.6-litre Duramax turbodiesel V8 with 332kW and a whole torrent of torque - 1,234Nm, to be precise - and mated to a 6-speed Allison 1000.
They will arrive on our shores imported from the United States and will undergo RHD conversion at HSV’s new facility in Clayton, near Melbourne, alongside the Camaro. The range will kick off with the 2500HD WT, the more highly specified 2500 LTZ which will also come as special “Midnight” and “Custom Sport” editions, and finally the heftier 3500 LTZ.
For the most part, the levels of trim and equipment should be left identical to the North American spec because of how the variants are tiered. Because Holden and HSV have not confirmed this, we cannot make any concrete predictions about exactly what kit will be included as standard on each grade.
What they have said, though, is that each will an automatic locking rear differential and 4-wheel anti-lock disc brakes, while the towing capacity (3.5-6.1 tonnes) and payload capacity (1,140-1,848kg) is obviously dependent on which variant is chosen.
Upon the announcement, HSV’s Managing Director, Tim Jackson, said: “The availability of the Chevrolet Silverado range opens up some wonderful new opportunities for our business in a market segment whose potential is relatively un-tapped, and we believe has high growth potential”.
“Whether it be the farming or mining sectors, those who need to pull a large caravan or horse float or simply those who want awesome towing and load carrying capability, Silverado is the pinnacle of the GM range.”
Holden and HSV want to waste as little time as possible with getting these trucks into customer hands, wishing to commence conversion duties at scale starting in April 2018 for the 2500 series model Silverado; pricing will be released closer to that point. The 3500, meanwhile, will arrive in Q2 of next year.
For more on Holden and HSV, check out our Showroom.
