Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Z71 Redline Edition to the Rescue
Over the course of two weeks and 1,274 miles, Chevy’s burnout-spec half-ton pickup breathed life into an old Porsche.
As soon as I climb behind the wheel of the Chevrolet Silverado Z71 Redline Edition and fire it up, the potential energy of its 420-horsepower V8 provokes impure thoughts. The truck’s 6.2-liter L86 V8 makes me want to rip the traction control button out of its housing, and slam my foot through the firewall.
For those who never aced the General Motors engine code class, the L86 is, to put it simply, the Corvette LT1 engine, but tinkered with for truck duty. Even though the L86 is down 35 to 40 horsepower from the LT1, the fact that there’s Corvette DNA under the hood triggers my hooning instincts.
I begin to flash back to a Saturday evening three years ago when my friend Chris tossed me the keys to his new L86-powered Chevy Silverado. Within my first minute at the controls, my foot was to the floor, and I was doing burnouts that generated enough tire smoke to make Ken Block stand at attention.
You might say Chris made a bad call by leaving me to the helm of his brand-new LTZ-spec pickup. Actually, my cold-blooded rubber-killing was a birthday gift to him. First, Chris knows I get to test everything from the Nissan Sentra to the Bugatti Veyron, so he wanted my thoughts on his brand-new pickup. Second, he was also planning to upgrade his wheels and tires; therefore, he enlisted my lack of mechanical sympathy to entertain him with vaporized tire for his 30th birthday. That ended up being one of the more enjoyable evenings of my life.
Here I am at the controls of a spacious, comfortable, family-oriented
and off-road-ready pickup, but its dark heart beats loudly of muscle car.
Lost in my daydream of three-year-old memories, the Silverado’s 4G LTE Wi-Fi activation alert bongs me back into present-day awareness inside the Z71 Redline Edition’s leather-trimmed cabin. Here I am at the controls of a spacious, comfortable, family-oriented and off-road-ready pickup, but its dark heart beats loudly of muscle car — loud enough to make me forget this truck is practical. Will the L86’s deafening temptation coax me to relive that unforgettable evening three years earlier?
Having prior knowledge of this truck’s capacity for immaturity makes me want to throw any semblance of my own maturity out the window. With each stationary second in the driver’s seat, my right foot gets heavier because to this day, the L86-powered Silverado remains the most enthusiastic rubber-burner I’ve experienced … and yes, I’ve driven multiple Hellcats.
The problem with muscle cars, even ones with 707 horsepower, is that they tend to have wide, sticky tires that are no different from the tires you’d find on multi-hundred-thousand-dollar supercars. Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s and Pirelli P Zeros cry foul at the insult of having their space-age, painstakingly engineered treads burned away like they’re nothing but trash in a dumpster fire. Basic pickup truck tires, however, are engineered primarily for economy.
This truck proudly serves whether you’re coasting like granny to church on Sunday,
or doing burnouts through an alpine tunnel on Saturday night.
In other words, they’re humbler, and will offer service with a smile whether you’re coasting like granny to church on Sunday, linking apexes like the Drift King at Fuji Motor Speedway on Monday, or doing burnouts through an alpine tunnel on Saturday night.
So once that Wi-Fi bong says its peace, I commence with the burnouts, right? Wrong. While tire smoke off the Silverado Z71 Redline Edition’s tires would hearken back to three years ago, driving it gingerly would hearken back 33 years ago; right back to the first day I ever rode in a car — the day I was brought home from the hospital after I was born.