Earlier this week, General Motors unveiled the 2027 Chevrolet Silverado. The half-ton pickup has been thoroughly updated with sharper styling and next-generation small-block V8s, but whether all this new even counts as an upgrade depends on your point of view. For example, I’m puzzled by the decision to give the most off-road-capable Silverado – the rugged ZR2 – an array of three screens.
For starters, every 2027 Silverado (even the work truck) comes with a 16.3-inch center screen and a 12.2-inch digital instrument cluster. The ZR2 and High Country also get an 11.5-inch front-passenger screen. Add a head-up display and a digital rearview camera, and you have a 60-inch tech display. But does a truck as strong as the Silverado ZR2 need it?
Front-passenger screens are admittedly having a moment — you can find them in everything from a Jeep Grand Cherokee to a Lamborghini Revuelto — even if their usefulness is questionable. So many new cars and trucks have large central touchscreens and digital instrument clusters that show the driver lots of information regardless of what the main screen is being used for at the moment, the need for a dedicated passenger screen seems trivial – especially in the Silverado ZR2.
The truck market is all about one-upmanship, so it admittedly makes sense that GM gave the Silverado High Country a passenger screen to combat the Stellantis, which offers one of the higher trim levels of the Ram 1500. And the 16.3-inch center screen sits above the Ram’s 14.5-inch screen. However, at press time, there was no mention of a passenger screen for the 2027 Ram 1500 TRX SRT. Ram also did not offer a third screen on RHO for 2026 (although, it was available on Rebel), and this is likely to be the case for 2027. The Ford F-150 Raptor omits the passenger screen and gets a more reasonably sized 12-inch center screen.
Still, the ZR2 looks like an impressive off-roader. It has Multimatic DSSV dampers, 35-inch tires and front and rear lockers. The cabin features genuine carbon-fiber trim – a first in a Chevy truck – and clean-looking Torch Red accents, a stark contrast to the chintzy GM truck cabins of old. The Silverado ZR2 Bison Edition will also return in 2027 with stronger bumpers, rocker rails and skid plates, courtesy of AEV.
There’s a lot to be excited about in the rest of the 2027 Silverado lineup, too, including a new V8 with a familiar displacement and the availability of a Duramax diesel inline-six in the basic work truck (finally). A truck manufacturer should focus on things like this, not more screens.
