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2019 Chevy Silverado 4500 & 5500 Medium Duty Truck Spied Ahed Of Unveiling
03-01-18
by Alex Luft
We’ve managed to get our hands on some new spy shots of the upcoming 2019 Chevrolet Silverado Medium Duty truck less than a week from its unveiling.
These pictures are similar to the ones GM Authority exclusively showed back in December as the Navistar version of the truck was caught roaming the streets of Chicago. The same is the case here: the camouflaged truck is wearing a front end destined for the Navistar variant, with whom GM has partnered to co-develop the trucks back in 2015.
Curiously, the Navistar model appears to be slated to wear the same headlamps as Chevy’s offering. The design of the headlamps is very much reminiscent to that used on the K2 platform Chevrolet Silverado from the 2014-2015 model years.
About The 2019 Silverado 4500HD and 5500HD
Chevrolet first announced plans to introduce a “flagship” conventional medium duty truck in March 2017. In the announcement, the brand stated that the upcoming Medium Duty truck will not be related to the Chevrolet Low Cab Forward medium duty trucks sourced from Isuzu. Instead, they will be co-developed with Navistar, powered by a Duramax turbo-diesel engine mated to an Allison transmission, and go on sale in calendar year 2018.
Chevy did not provide a name for the vehicle at the time of the announcement but did explain that GM would supply commercial components and engines while Navistar would provide its “expertise in rolling chassis configurations and manufacturing capabilities”.
In September 2017, Chevy made a second announcements regarding the upcoming GM Medium Duty Truck. It clarified that its Medium Duty truck plans will entail bringing two trucks to market: one in Class 4 medium duty segment called Silverado 4500 and the other in Class 5 medium duty segment called Silverado 5500. The Bow tie brand also stated that the vehicles will:
- Be “powerful, highly maneuverable, and among the easiest trucks on the market to up-fit with specialized bodies, such as dump bodies, rollbacks, freight boxes and more”
- Be available in Regular Cab and Crew Cab models with 4×2 and 4×4 capability
- Be available in a wide range of GVWRs and wheelbases
- Offer optional OnStar with 4G LTE connectivity that is being embraced by fleet management companies to help improve safety and productivity thanks to tools like OnStar Commercial Link
- “Stand out because [Chevrolet has] designed the trucks around how customers work”
In the months that followed, the automaker clarified that the name for the vehicles will actually be Silverado 4500HD for the Class 4 truck and Silverado 5500HD for the Class 5 truck. In January 2018, Chevy released a teaser image (above) of the truck showing its front end, which GM Authority optimized (below) for greater detail. Chevy also announced that the truck will be unveiled on at the 2018 Work Truck Show in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 6th.
The 2019 Silverado 4500 and 5500 medium duty trucks will team up with the all-new 2019 Silverado 1500 to make a banner year for the Silverado family. Meanwhile, GM’s GMC brand has yet to confirm or deny plans for a GMC version of the GM Medium Dutys, though we wouldn’t hold our breath on Big Red getting a variant for itself.
