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Earlier this week, General Motors revealed the 2027 Chevrolet Silverado. The half-ton pickup is thoroughly updated with sharper styling and next-generation small-block V8s, but whether all that’s new also counts as an upgrade depends on your perspective. 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 in the heads-up display and digital rearview camera, and you have 60 inches of techy displays. But is that something a rugged truck like the Silverado ZR2 needs?
Front-passenger screens are admittedly having a moment—you can get them in everything from a Jeep Grand Cherokee to a Lamborghini Revuelto—even if their utility is dubious. With so many new cars and trucks boasting large central touchscreens and digital instrument clusters that show the driver plenty of information regardless of what the main screen is being used for at the moment, the need for a dedicated passenger screen seems marginal at best—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 counter Stellantis, which offers one in higher trim levels of the Ram 1500. And the 16.3-inch center screen tops Ram’s 14.5-inch screen. At press time, though, there was no mention of a passenger screen for the 2027 Ram 1500 TRX SRT. Ram also didn’t offer the third screen on the RHO for 2026 (it was available on the Rebel, though), and that’s likely to be the case for 2027 as well. The Ford F-150 Raptor doesn’t have a passenger screen and gets along with a more reasonably sized 12-inch center screen.
The ZR2 nonetheless looks like an impressive off-roader. It has Multimatic DSSV dampers, 35-inch tires, and front and rear lockers. The cabin features real carbon-fiber trim—a first in a Chevy truck—and neat-looking Torch Red accents, making for quite a contrast to the chintzy GM truck cabins of old. The Silverado ZR2 Bison Edition also returns for 2027, with stronger bumpers, rocker rails, and skid plates courtesy of AEV.
There’s plenty to get excited about throughout the rest of the 2027 Silverado lineup as well, including new V8s with familiar displacements and the availability of the Duramax diesel inline-six in the basic Work Truck (finally). That’s the kind of stuff a truck maker should focus on, not cramming in more screens.
Stephen has always been passionate about cars, and managed to turn that passion into a career as a freelance automotive journalist. When he’s not handling weekend coverage for The Drive, you can find him looking for a new book to read.
