0-60 in 6.3 for a full size crew cab Pickup is pretty respectable!! It's not a Lightning, but I don't think they're the same animals.

Alas, the 40,000 price tag is not nearly as impressive.

 

I do not know too much about truck pricing but taken as a whole, is the Silverado SS price tag about right for that vehicle?

 

Justify this statement with sales figures.

 

1. Chevrolet expects to sell 15,000 Silverado SSs this year.
SVT bumped up their production capability of Lightnings to 7,500.
http://www.pickuptruck.com/html/2001...rst_drive.html
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/wheels/133947_road08.html

I don't see any logic in using Silverado SS sales numbers in an attempt to take away from the Lightning. A solid 70% of all Camaros made in 2002 were Automatics. By this logic, Automatics are the way to go. Besides, the Lightning is a good $8,000 CHEAPER than the Silveraso SS.
http://www.camarohighway.com/News/20...ionNumbers.htm

2. Clarification of what SS will mean from Chevrolet direct from the source:
"Kurt Ritter, Chevrolet general manager, said while the SS badge stood for brute horsepower in the muscle car era, today's SS models will offer more balanced, contemporary performance."
http://www.auto.com/industry/gm5_20021105.htm

Silverado definately qualifies.

3. The Standard cab Silverado 2500 starts at $25,500 & comes with a 6.0 engine and a 5 speed transmission & either 3.73 or 4.10 rear end. The 20 lbs/ft of torque you give up over the X-cab SS, is way more than made up by the lighter weight of the shorter chassis, the lack of AWD, and the lack of snap of the SS' standard automatic transmission. Order 40/20/40 or bucket seats, guage package, and your own set of rims.

Just because Chevrolet won't make the SS we want, doesn't mean we can't if we want to.

BTW, early indications are that the Silverado SS is selling well below projections.

Also......BTW, my wife wants the Lightning over the Silv SS.

 

Seems like everyone agrees that the Silverado is underpowered for it's price. For $40,000 I think the Silverado SS should have had a
395HP 6.0L V8 that the concept had

 

Exactly! NO ONE has been able to explain what Silverado SS offers that is so unique from any other Chevy truck. It's got the same 6.0 that I can get in any 2500 truck (oh I'm sorry, it has the kind of horsepower advantage I can make up with a K&N air filter ) and is only available in the bulkier extended cab with no manual option. Tell me how this is sporty, unique, or a "must have" product? I don't get it!!!!

 

My point is you act like it is absolutly imperitive that GM match Ford with a 400 HP truck because the Lightning is so popular...

7500 in sales in nothing in the pickup market and GM isn't loosing crap by offering the Silverado SS that will easily match it in sales.

Again if Lightnings were so great than you would see people complaining they couldn;t get one...

 

I can buy the argument that getting into a fight with Lightning over 7500 units a year is kind of silly. Ok fine. But if you aren't going to do that, why bother with a Silverado SS at all? They aren't exactly doing us a favor by releasing a truck like this at a $42,000 premium. This model isn't exactly boosting the image of the Silverado line as a whole either. Quite frankly, it isn't even on the radar in enthusiast circles.

If they thought they'd sell 15,000 of them a year at that price for what you get...well....good luck Chevy.

 

I think the thing that has everyone's goat here is that the truck is AWD and costs within peeing distance of a Corvette!

A few words on Lightning. One of SVT's mantras is keeping production as limited as possible and profitable to keep their vehicles resale value up. Used Cobras cost more than used Camaro SS of the same year, even though both cost the same new.

SVT is a VERY profitable organization within Ford. Anyone who doubts it should actually take time to look into it themselves. There's a reason why Ford leaves SVT pretty much alone (ie: Team Corvette at GM). BTW, it's SVT that's limiting production, NOT the marketplace.

Why would anyone buy a Lightning when there's a perfectly good SS Silverado???

Consider this:

1. Lightning costs less, at $32,000. Yet it's entirely different than any other Ford Pickup, with it's own engine, & suspension as well as cosmetics. It is built in fairly limited numbers, and sold only through top notch Ford dealers, the only ones that allowed an SVT franchise.

If something goes wrong with your SVT vehicle, you won't have to put up with the BS other Ford buyers have to. You are given top treatment at the dealers, and your issues are answered directly by an SVT represenative, NOT the normal Ford customer relations people. Years down the road, your SVT keeps much of it's initial price because of it's unique equptment & it's limited numbers.

2. Silverado SS costs at least $8,000 more than Ford's hotrod truck. Yet, beyond the nosepiece and labels, it's just like any other Silverado 2500 extended cab pickup AWD truck, only lower. It's built for volume, and any Chevy dealer can sell them.

If something goes wrong, you go to your Chevy dealer & wait your turn with everyone else. You have a question or issue, it goes through the same channels as the guy who just bought a Cavalier. When it's time to sell your SS 4-6 years down the road, you find it's worth slightly more than a standard Silverado with the same options, but it's still worth less than the Lightning that's sold as soon as it hits the Autotrader, even though your Silverado SS cost more when it was new.


I think this pretty clearly frames the difference between the Lightning & the Silverado SS.

When the Ram SRT-10 comes out, it's going to be pretty indefendable, since it's going to cost almost $50,000, be about as fast as the $15,000 cheaper Lightning, be as rare as a dry winter in Seattle, and not likely to have the support network that measures up to SVT.

 

We'll put.

And the whole sales thing is a complete joke. GM already sells close to a million copies of the regular Silverado/Sierra. All this truck will do is steal some Sierra c3 sales and nothing else.

If it's all about increasing sales, why not offer a cheaper regular Cab rwd SS on the side? That would only bolster sales.

 

I don't think that Ford sells Lightnings to garner huge profits and sales numbers. They produce it to create excitement (something Chevy sorely lacks right now) and to please performance enthusiasts. Therefore, everyone in the Ford truck camp can remain happy. In other words, there is something (from mild to wild) for everyone.

It is absoluetly imperitive that GM match Ford and now Dodge's rumblings in the performance market. Even if folks don't buy the "hot" models, they create enough buzz to get people in the door to check out the rest of the line-up. And GM IS loosing something by offering the current Silverado SS, it's called performance credibility....


-Mike

 

Well put Mike. Unfortunately, I feel Chevy's thinking is at the opposite end of the universe.

 

I'm not exactly sure where you get your "facts", but they are very inaccurate.
First...SVT ramped up Lightning production to 7,500/year in '00 for the '01 MY. Ford SVT sells every Lightning it makes. I just read in MT or C&D that the Silverado SS is selling well below GM's initial expectations of 15,000 units/year. You can deny it all you want, but these pigs are languishing on dealer lots. Three other members in this thread alone attested to that fact. I've seen the same trucks sitting at the Chevy dealer up the street from my office (Future Chevy-Sayreville, N.J.) all summer.
The SS is not a "bruiser"...it's a pig. And an overpriced pig. C&D didn't run a 14.1 (I don't know where you got that), they ran a 14.8@90mph in the June '03 issue. That's nowhere near LT1 F-body performance. 90mph...my 3.0 DOHC Taurus would probably run close to 90mph. C&D suggested the SS moniker should be an acronym for "Simmer Sport". Motor Trend did worse. In the February '03 issue, in the TOTY feature, they ran a 15.2@89mph, nearly half a second slower than a the F150 Harley Davidson tested in the same feature, but still a few ticks faster than a Honda Civic SI (15.7@89mph). The F150 HD stickered almost $4k less than the tepid performing Silverado SS.
Unsubstantiated opinion. Find some sales figures to prove it.
I'm not sure if you realize it, but that article is from March 1st, 1999. See above. Ford has been building (and selling) 7,500 units/year for several years.
How do you know they aren't? I'm friends with the owner of Downs Ford. Earlier this year, I was shopping full sized SUV's (bought a Chevy Z71 'Burb), and had an Excursion for the evening. I was speaking with the owner of Downs about the SVT vehicles. He told me that with the exception of the SVT Focus, they sold them as fast as they could get them on the lot. At that point in time, there were no Lightnings on the lot, and 2 '03 Cobras. In New Jersey, I've yet to see one, single Silverado SS on the road. I saw 3 Lightnings today alone.


GM has another turd on its hands. They'll likely end up pulling the plug after the '04 MY. This will be another GN, Impala SS, SSR deal, except this vehicle offers no redeeming performance for it's high price and impracticality.
S.

 

Whatever...you all are right, GM should spend tens of millions of dollars (remember new powertrain and suspension) making a 400 HP pickup that can't do pick up things. That way it can compete in the performance pickup market now where currently only 7,500 trucks are sold. It's not like that money could be better used on anything else like RWD cars or a Camaro...that wouldn't make excitment.

And this is a dumb argument because GM is going to make a higher performance SS...I have said that in the past. One thing you guys seem to never learn is GM never shows it's full performance hand on a new launch.

That being said I would be fine with the current truck and the currrent truck if it had say 400ish HP...Wait isn't the C6 supposed to have a 400 HP 6.0L???

 

That puts the timeframe around when the Hot Rod Power Tour was... Why Would GM put that truck on the Power Tour knowing it wasn't going into production? Actaully, that's the same time that I overheard Jon Moss say that it should be available soon...

Where do you get this weight? Try GM's website and check out the curb weights of the Silverados. The Base reg cab RWD 1500 has a curb weight of 4147#. The RWD Ext cab weighs 4563# and teh 4x4 Ext cab weighs 4932. Add the 20" rims and the weight just goes up. That's an easy 5000# (which is nine HUNDRED pounds more than 4100#)


By the way, I live in Texas which probably has as many trucks, if not more, as any other state in the USA. Wanna guess how many Silverado SS's I've see? 3 or 4... Wanna guess how many Lightnings? Dozens. There are usually 3 or 4 of them at the track every weekend. In fact, the closest full SVT dealership is 60 miles away compared to a Chevy dealership in almost every city.