Two More Extreme Chevrolet Colorado ZR2s Debut at SEMA

For more than a week we’ve been Chinese-water-torturing you with Chevy SEMA concepts, and today we’re finally allowed to reveal the last two. We started this barrage off with a pair of factory-orderable ZR2 packages (Midnight and Dusk), and today we finish off with a pair of wilder riffs on the off-road optimized Colorado ZR2 pickup.

Colorado ZR2 AEV Concept

Overland adventuring is becoming a thing. The concept involves hardening and outfitting a vehicle so that it can climb or winch itself over or around any obstacle, then equipping it with everything the adventurers need to survive for perhaps weeks in the bush. Chevy teamed with American Expedition Vehicles on this concept, which features a custom rack system in the bed that is designed to hold all the spare fuel cans, tires, a water source, supplies, and a generator. It’s also festooned with camp lights and an access panel on the rear of the outer driver-side quarter panel there’s a panel for distributing power, water, and compressed air. Naturally there’s a full complement of skid plates, rock rails, steel-tube bumpers with a winch, an elevated intake snorkel for deep fording, and 35-inch bead-lock wheels.

Colorado ZR2 Development Truck

Sure, the new ZR2 can go almost anywhere as it is, but might it be configured for even more extreme off-roading? This truck aims to answer that question while assessing the commercial viability of selling such extreme off-roading gear. To endow the truck with 20 percent more wheel travel, there are new high-articulation tie rod and suspension links, new ball joints and front half-shafts. The suspension is lifted by 0.8 inch in front, 0.4 inch in the rear, and the body is elevated 1.5 inch off the frame. The rear suspension gets a new third link to prevent axle-wrap and axle-hop under full power. Most of these parts have been developed on Chad Hall’s racing truck, so if they ever make it to production you can rest assured they’re race-hardened.

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