CarBrandLogos archive · GMC · 1987

GMCSierra

Chevrolet's pickup with a squarer face and a leather-lined reason to cost more.

Photo: Elise240SX · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in GMC history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the GMC Sierra, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

The Sierra is the GMC half of General Motors' full-size pickup, sharing its platform, powertrains and most of its structure with the Chevrolet Silverado while wearing different sheet metal from the windscreen forward. The name had been a C/K trim level since 1987 before becoming the truck itself at the end of the 1990s.

'03-'05 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 · Bull-Doser · Public domain

Design and engineering

The point of the division is price. GMC exists to sell substantially the same vehicle to buyers who want it to look and feel more expensive, and the Sierra is where that argument is made most profitably. The Denali trim, introduced in the late 1990s, effectively created the premium American pickup and has been copied by every rival since; later Denali Ultimate and AT4 off-road versions extended the idea in both directions.

'15 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab · Bull-Doser · Public domain

2015 Chevrolet Silverado double standard rally 1 observe

In production

Range and construction mirror the Silverado exactly: regular, extended and crew cabs, rear- or four-wheel drive, half-ton through heavy-duty models and medium-duty chassis cabs, built in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Canada and Mexico.

2015 Chevrolet Silverado double standard rally 1 observe · Rjluna2 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Technical specification