2027 Silverado 1500 Gets Chevy's Latest V8 Engines But The Tech Might Divide Owners

After several years without a major update, the latest generation of Chevrolet Silverados has just been announced. As you would expect from a truck line that's been around since roughly the Cambrian era, there's a lot that has stayed the same. Namely, the trim levels will have some familiar names: in order, there's Work Truck, Custom, and High Country, along with the beefier off-road lifted ZR2, Trail Boss, and Custom Trail Boss. LT, long a mainstay of Chevy products, has been replaced with a trim simply called "Silverado." This is likely a call back to GMT400 and square-body Chevy C/K 10s and C/K 1500s where "Silverado" was a trim level instead of the name of the truck itself. 

Trim names aside, the change that's going to get the most Chevy fans excited is the inclusion of the next generation Chevy Small Block. The 2027 Silverado will have the 2.7-liter and 3.0-liter Duramax from the previous generation, but it will now also feature a new 5.7-liter and 6.6-liter V8. These engines are based on what was recently announced as the new powerplant for the Corvette.

Interestingly, Chevy has not released power figures for the new line of V8s or given a price structure for the mostly the same trim lineup. The V8s in the Silverado won't have Corvette power numbers, but landing in the high-300 horsepower to mid-400 horsepower range would probably be somewhere in the ballpark, judging by current power numbers. General Motors could always surprise us with more grunt, but either way, we likely won't know more until later this year.

One of the more potentially polarizing changes for this upcoming generation is the inclusion of a lot of screens, akin to what you might see in the current Colorado and Chevy's SUVs. For the 2027 Silverado 1500, a large number of the physical buttons and controls are now gone. All Silverado trims get a 12.2-inch instrument cluster and a 16.3-inch infotainment display. The High Country and ZR2 get an additional display in front of the passenger.

While there will definitely be a subset of new Silverado buyers who will like the new screens and subsequent new tech, there will almost certainly be a vocal set of Chevy fans who will not like the changes. The 2026 Silverado didn't have any physical gauges for the driver either, but now the entire cockpit looks a little more like a fighter jet or a racing simulator than the previous line of trucks. 

Now, whether or not that will matter much as to the actual operation of the vehicle will have to wait until someone actually gets behind the wheel and drives one. All the bemoaning of new tech might be for nothing. But as Chevy has seen for roughly a century of selling trucks, truck buyers like things to be a certain way and can be fickle. Chevy is, after all, just going with the trend that every other automaker (and truck maker) has already adopted. We wouldn't be having this same conversation if more tech-forward truck makers like Rivian or Toyota announced the same thing (both brands have had all-digital cockpits for years). 

Still, there's a lot to be excited about, fully digital future aside. The new line of Chevy Small Blocks will almost certainly attract a lot of interest. For old-school Chevy fans, the brand even brought back the 5.7-liter displacement that Chevy used for decades prior to phasing it out in favor of the 5.3-liter displacement. So, Chevy definitely knows its customer base. My dad, for instance, has driven 5.7-liter powered Chevys for about 25 years. 

There's a lot we don't know, like power and price, and those factors will likely be the decision makers for a lot of potential buyers. Bigger, more powerful engines and more tech certainly isn't going to make the truck any cheaper. 

However, just the mere fact it says "SILVERADO" on the truck and it's a Chevy means that General Motors won't have any considerable hurdles selling a lot of trucks. It just has to make the latest and greatest line of Silverados a more attractive option than the eternal enemies at Ford and Ram.