We Picked up a 2023 Chevy Colorado Z71

We haven't owned any midsize GM pickups until now, and we're greatly looking forward to living with this thing, testing it and seeing how we can improve upon its usefulness and storage capabilities. Traditionally we’ve had some pretty strong opinions about the other midsize/small pickups we’ve owned and developed parts for - so we really want to like this one. Exterior fit and finish is decent for the price point, although there is a lot of scratchable ‘piano black’ everywhere. The inside styling is straight out of a luxury SUV, there’s just as much space in the cab and bed as other midsize trucks, and the engine definitely feels like a peppy turbo four cylinder pulling a small truck… For some folks this thing checks all the boxes, for others they can't get past the price point coming in around base model full size trucks. We can’t wait to see how it stacks up!

Matt is already thinking up new product opportunities for this platform and we’re currently working on initial designs for this truck’s dash mount. We will be developing our patented Seat Back MOLLE Kit for this vehicle (also fitting the new Canyon of course), our classic Bedside MOLLE Panels and a Cab Wall MOLLE solution. GM kept a number of design cues from the Silverado/Sierra platform on these midsize trucks, and that will help us a ton when it comes to things like determining the size of the mounting blocks we’ll be using to secure our panels. The bed shape and ribbing around our mounting locations also looks relatively familiar, so hopefully designing our modular storage solutions will be a quick and painless process for the Colorado/Canyon platform. 

A product opportunity we’ve already identified for this platform is creating a part to better utilize the space underneath the rear seats. There is a lot of plastic bulk taking up valuable gear space, and with the bottom of the rear seats being carved out for that plastic support, there is decent real estate for securing gear that can’t be used from the factory. We had a similar situation with our Raptor and developed a Seat Bottom Divider Panel to maximize usefulness of that storage space. We always try to own the engineering vehicles we’re developing parts for - we want to identify the pain points of living with a vehicle, and then figure out how to solve them. We obviously try to pump out our usual core product line for new vehicles (dash mounts, seat back MOLLE kits, stubby antennas and bedside MOLLE racks are our bread and butter), but discovering the product opportunities that most vehicle owners truly need means actually spending time using the vehicle. 

To make this truck's introduction official, Matt cut out some new ‘BuiltRight Engineering Test Vehicle’ branding on the vinyl plotter and expertly applied it to both sides of the Colorado. This is engineering test vehicle number 13... or so we thought. We discussed skipping the number and jumping right to 14, but we’re not that superstitious and I doubt anyone would've noticed. To be honest we didn't even realize until now that the Rivian R1T this Colorado replaced was vehicle number 12, and just never received its vinyl, so the 2023 Raptor is actually vehicle number 13. That being said, we did cut out 3 sets of BuiltRight vinyl, one for the Colorado, one for Matt’s Raptor, and one for Jerid’s F-150 - he and Matt will be taking it out to attend King of the Hammers in California! On that note, if you are planning on being in the Johnson Valley area/Hammertown between Thursday 2/1 and Saturday 2/3, come say hey at the Overland Experience! When the guys aren’t out spectating the races, they’ll be around there with our friends over at COBB Tuning.

But back to the Colorado... What would you like to see us do with this truck? We're significantly basing this shop build/project on feedback from you guys, so drop us a couple ideas below and start the discussion! Whether you've been loving a specific set of wheels or tires on your own Colorado/Canyon, or you want us to test out a suspension setup before you take the leap and get it for yourself, we're all ears. That being said, we do want to keep this truck very dailyable and reliable of course, so we appreciate you guys keeping the 6”+ Rough Country lifts and mud bogging tires off the table. We've heard it all by now. Drop us a line with any suggestions! 

Watch the full introduction video below: