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2020 Silverado HD Design Tour With Lead Designer Brian Izard
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Sep 4, 2024
The 2020 Chevrolet #SilveradoHD is draped with an all new design that is totally unique from its light-duty 1500 sibling. Take a walk through with us and 2020 Silverado Lead Exterior Designer Brian Izard to learn more about the 2020 Silverado HD's design and features. Check out our 2020+ HD Forum: https://www.gm-trucks.com/forums/forum/240-2020-silverado-hd-sierra-hd-25003500/
View Video Transcript
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Hey everybody, it's Zane from GM-Trucks.com. I just got back from driving the all-new 2020
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Silverado HD and 3.0L Duramax. We went to the beautiful state of Oregon, as you can
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see here, and as part of my trip I had a chance to talk with Brian Izard, who is the lead
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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
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light duty and heavy duty from each other. Our heavy duty customers said they want the
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heavy duty truck to look unique. And that's not just our customers, all heavy duty customers
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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
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we really pushed to make them more unique. And in fact, this heavy duty truck only shares
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the roof. It's the only sheet metal shared with the light duty
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With a heavy duty truck, too, you really start with the powertrain and with the engine. And
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this front end is four inches longer and it's taller than the light duty. What that
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does is really accommodates the large powertrain, whether it's the 6.6 gas or the 6.6 diesel
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And the other thing we wanted to do is make sure the design language is different between
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the two. So you'll see why there's some similarities. I like that it's similar on both vehicles
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But on the light duty, where it comes in as very expressive and dynamic, it's more purposeful
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and chiseled on the heavy duty. So when we start with a vehicle, a heavy duty truck
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we always start with the grill. Because you have to make sure you can cool this power
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plant to get all 35,500 pounds of towing out of the engine and make sure it cools every
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time you want to use it. So every square millimeter of that open area is there to cool the engine
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And what it does is it really, it's a lot larger than a former truck and it pushes lamps
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all the way to the corners. And the truck is now stacked to make sure that it illuminates
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the road and also allows for all the engine cooling. You go down to the bumper. What you'll
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find as we continue to make, as this truck is bigger and more powerful, that every square
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millimeter is designed for the customer to make it more usable. So this lower skid plate
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is actually removable. What we did is we actually worked with several manufacturers to get a
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lot of data on snowplows. So for our cold climate customers, we're going to bolt this
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and actually the screws are here forward facing so you can see them. And what that means is
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we can pull off the skid plate, pull off this air dam, and for most of our customers, they
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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
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to the side where we have our, we have our, excuse me, we have our heater plug cord for
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the diesel and you can also get it for the gas motor. And it's right here on the sides
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It's easy to use. You don't have to open up your hood and have a cord dangling out anymore
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It's right here on the sides. You'll get a snowplow up front. You can still easily access
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it. That's a big deal for these customers. Does that come standard? If you get the plug
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does it have a cord that you can plug into it? Yes, there is a cord that comes with it
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It's a spring loaded cap, so it's sealed off nicely. And that ties in nicely also to these
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wheel mounts, which are new for 2020. That's something that my customers asked for. That's
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something that's just delineates this thing being rugged and tough. It even comes around to the back
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of the wheel and you'll see there's a jog in here. It almost looks like a superfluous, but it's not
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What they've done is we re-engineered these mud flaps so they're actually pulled from the top
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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
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this truck's purposeful. Next, let's move up to the side of the truck. So this belt line
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or the bottom of the window, is about an inch lower than the light duty. And what that means
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is the truck got taller and bigger. It's easier to see out of. And the mirrors are completely
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different from any other heavy-duty truck. And what we did is we mounted them to the body side
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and you no longer have pokes coming from the forward part of the window into the mirror
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So not only has the mirrors got bigger, and it's better for rearward visibility
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you also have much better forward visibility. As you drive this truck, if you're pulling a trailer
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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
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so much easier to use. The body sides, a very clean body side so that if you're a municipality
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or if you have a landscaping company, you've got a spot on the side that you can add your graphic
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And also what that does is that there's no lines in the body side, so you have this dark
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and deep chamfer underneath. And it really helps the vehicle get taller off the ground
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and more capable. It ties right into the bed step. And this bed step is on every truck
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every trim, every box configuration. And that extends from where we had the corner
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step on the bumper for years. And our customers love it. And several customers tell us they only
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buy our trucks because if you've got a box full of mulch or a box full of a big load
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it's the only vehicle that with the tailgate down that you can get in and out easily
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We extended that to the side with a box step or the bed step so that you can get in and out
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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
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So we made sure that as this truck got bigger, it was a lot easier to use
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Can you put the tailgate down? We even designed drain holes here so that every little piece
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sits into everything else. They all go together
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