Last year, while we were covering CES 2023 in Las Vegas, we heard a rumor that Chevrolet wanted to proudly kill the dinosaurs with a large project Silverado pickup called “Project Meteor”. Although the name is technically incorrect—meteors that burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, while those that reach the ground and may not cause extinction are called meteorites—the concept is very much ours. would like to see.
After all, Chevy hasn’t seen a direct “dinosaur” competitor like the Ford F-150 Raptor and Ram 1500 TRX (T-rex, get it?). Now, GM’s patent filing offers a tantalizing hint that the Silverado (Project Meteor) may have a real name: “ZRX.”
As seen by CarBuzz, the report doesn’t say much about what GM is planning. In fact, the drawings don’t even have a picture of what the badge will look like. They’re just letters in a serif font, but those letters represent more than just a badge, not least because they’re based on Chevy’s naming convention that applies to its cars and trucks.
Today’s top Silverado off-roader is called the ZR2 (one for the little Colorados), while the top Corvettes of the past were named the ZR1. So, back to the Project Meteor connection—the ZRX name would be perfect for a truck like that, a high-speed, explosive Raptor and TRX competitor.
A Silverado with that badge won’t be just another ZR2, it’ll also get a mid-height suspension, bigger tires and a bigger or more powerful V-8 under its hood. We think that the 6.2-liter supercharged engine from the Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing will make a good partner for the remote Silverado, but we will also take the Escalade-V version of the same engine, which is 682 hp and 653. lbs. -ft of torque.
Someone else has linked the ZRX dossier which may be of interest, because of how GM came to its future vehicles. This is for the name \”ZH2\”, which we describe as a form of hydrogen … something. The Z in the name, following Chevy convention, suggests performance,
so whether that indicates the hydrogen-powered Silverado has some road bumps or something else is a mystery. However, we should point out that in 2018 GM Defense released the Silverado ZH2 concept, the Silverado ZR2 that uses Hydrotec hydrogen fuel and Jouletec lithium-ion batteries to go to a 10,153 psi tank.
It is intended for use in projects and in conjunction with the United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) as an off-road vehicle with a reduced heat signature and drivability.” compared to all electric cars at the time.
According to the first version, this truck will be able to travel “more than 400 kilometers” before charging or refueling the hydrogen tank, which would have been interesting in 2018.
Today, however, the upcoming 2023 Chevrolet Silverado EV has a range of 400 miles on battery power alone with its large battery. Could Chevrolet finally be ready to make this 2018 concept a reality in 2023 or 2024? Perhaps, but it must have more dramatic proportions than it does as a concept vehicle.
Of course, these profiles do not mean that products or names are coming in the near future, or at all. In many cases, these requests are used to prevent others from using similar tags and related terms used in the submission.
Maybe that’s why we don’t see the actual badge art and this works as a placeholder to enforce whatever policy GM wants to put in place to prevent anyone else from using it. Don’t get your hopes up, but don’t let them go down at the same time. Different things happened.
