Chevrolet Silverado price - How much is a Silverado in Australia?

Chevrolet Silverado price - How much is a Silverado in Australia?
Following the introduction of the Ram 2500 pick-up in 2016 — converted locally by the Walkinshaw Automotive Group — Holden Special Vehicles has turned its expertise to the Chevrolet Silverado, now sold through selected Holden dealers.

These rival US pick-ups are distributed by separate companies but both are converted alongside each other at the same plant in Melbourne. Unlike other conversions, they’re modified to factory standards, come with a factory warranty and have been crash-tested locally.A basic Silverado 2500HD WT trade pack costs $114,990 plus on-roads, while 2500HD LTZ is $134,990. The most popular variants are the LTZ Midnight Edition (aimed at the “tough truck” off-road market) and LTZ Custom Sport (aimed at the “bling” on-road market), both $139,990 plus on-roads. For now, you can have any color you want as long as the Midnight Edition is black and the Custom Sport is white.

All models run a 6.6-liter turbodiesel V8, heavy-duty Allison 1000 transmission and dual-range 4x4 drivetrain.LTZ Custom Sport gets heated and cooled leather seats, Bose audio, wireless phone charging, and 20-inch polished alloys. The conversion is the best I’ve seen to date, as close to factory as you’re going to get. The steering system (long been an Achilles heel of converted vehicles) is made by the same company that engineers, manufactures and supplies the left-hand-drive units for Chevrolet, so it operates as the maker intended. How big are these trucks? You peer down on HiLux utes in adjacent lanes. Even the Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series looks small by comparison.

It’s more than six-meters long, as wide as a Kenworth and has a 15.7-meter turning circle. You also need to be careful not to scrape the roof on car park ceilings: it sneaks in just shy of two meters tall at 1.985 meters. The suspension is live axle/multi-leaf rear and torsion bar independent front, with heavy-duty gas-charged Rancho dampers all round. Brakes are discs and the steering is a recirculating ball. So this is very much a truck. With 332kW of power and a mind-boggling 1234Nm of torque, the 6.6-liter Duramax turbodiesel V8 makes light work of this 3.5-tonne beast — that’s roughly 1.5 tonnes heavier than a HiLux.Unladen, it flattens hills and the transmission kicks down a gear with no effort at all. More than able to keep flow with traffic, it actually accelerates up hills. Silverado 2500 can carry an 875kg payload and GVM is 4491kg. The maximum towing capacity is 3500kg with a 50mm ball, 4500kg with a 70mm ball and up to 5890kg with a heavy-duty pintle hitch.

Silverado 3500 LTZ, with the same drivetrain, costs $147,900. It’s a bigger vehicle with a GVM of 5900kg, so you need a truck license to drive it. The payoff is a maximum towing capacity of 9000kg. By comparison, the Ram 1500, with a 5.7-liter petrol V8, has a GVM of 3450kg and can tow up to 4500kg. Priced from $79,950, it’s the cheapest of the American trucks, but the money you save on purchase will probably go towards feeding the petrol V8 oceans of juice. RAM 2500, with a GVM of 4490kg, can tow up to 6942kg with a pintle, even though its inline six-cylinder turbo -diesel Cummins has less power and torque (276kW/1084Nm) than the Chevy. If you want to tow a heavy load and still have unlimited, effortless grunt left in reserve, the Chevy Silverado Australia will certainly do the trick.
By Joshua Dowling

THINGS WE LIKE
Impressive fit-out in the cabin
Awesome grunt from the V8
Big towing
Holden dealer service and warranty support
Acres of space inside and in the tub

THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT LIKE
It’s a truck, so it steers, brakes, rides and handles like a truck The fuel bills won’t be pretty
Driver’s side mirror is not convex
You need to allow plenty of room for braking and U-turns

SPEX (Custom Sport) 
- Made in the USA, converted in Australia 
- 6.6-litre V8 turbodiesel/six-speed automatic/dual-range 4x4  - 332kW of power at 2800rpm/1234Nm of torque at 1600rpm  - 0-100km/h  N/A
- 14.7L/100km highway; 21.0L/100km city (converted from US EPA official figures); CO2 emissions N/A; the fuel tank is 136 liters
- Max towing weight: 5890kg
- Warranty: Five years/unlimited km
- Standard: Six airbags, stability control, trailer sway control, forward collision assist, lane departure warning, parking sensors, camera, Bose audio, eight-inch touchscreen, Bluetooth, voice control, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, remote locking tailgate, heated and cooled front seats, leather, dual-zone air, remote starting, 20-inch polished alloys
- Redbook future values: 3yr: 58%; 5yr: 44%
AUSTRALIAN 4WD, SUV & Ute BUYER’S GUIDE