The vast majority of patents I sift through every week are incredibly uninteresting, but every so often, there’s one that has the opportunity to upend a company’s entire product planning cycle. Automakers plan out vehicle launches and reveals months ahead of time, making sure the timing is just right to make the biggest splash and attract the most eyeballs. Then, a patent drawing will spoil it all, revealing designs, products, or new features to the world before the manufacturer can.
That’s exactly what seems to be happening here. A patent filed on December 9th and uncovered by Car and Driver seems to show the upcoming 2027 Chevrolet Silverado’s design totally undisguised. While there are no actual pictures, drawings of the truck show the fascias, the proportions, and the rest of the body.
The nice thing about this specific patent is that it has a drawing looking at every angle of the truck. So even though the car hasn’t technically been leaked, everyone now pretty much knows what it’ll look like.
How Legit Is This?
The patent was filed by General Motors, which confirms this is at least an official Chevy design. The patent describes the drawings as “a vehicle, toy replica, and/or other replica” showing a “new design,” but doesn’t name the year, make, or model.
I reached out to Chevy to see if it would confirm whether this is, in fact, the new Silverado or not, and a representative sent me the following statement:
GM regularly files with the US Patent Office to protect our IP, trademark, and technologies. Filings are not always indicative of future product. We cannot comment on speculation on future product.
Obviously, Chevy was never going to outright confirm this is the new, yet-to-be-revealed version of its most important truck. But designs that are this production-intent usually don’t make it into patents unless they’re going to be marketed and sold, so if I had to guess, this is very likely next year’s Silverado before you’re supposed to see it.
You Want Lights? You Got ‘Em
Huge headlights on American pickup trucks seem to be all the rage right now, with the current Ford F-150 sporting headlight assemblies that each look as big as my entire torso. Chevy’s gotten in on the fun, too, with its current Silverado HD’s headlights, which are literally over two feet all. You don’t realize how big these things are until they’re off the car, because proportionally, they make sense with the massive grille and bumper.
Going by these drawings, it looks like Chevy is leaning into the big headlight style for its standard Silverado 1500 as well for 2027. Like many new cars from Chevrolet right now, there are thin light strips at the top of the bumper area on either side of the grille, with a bigger cluster below, presumably for the main lamps. Though it’s tough to tell for sure, it looks like there’s also a central light strip running between the assemblies, bisected by a gigantic Chevy logo.
The rest of the front end carries its general shape from the outgoing Silverado, albeit with a few more design elements in the lower section to break apart the massive frontal area. There’s space for all the active safety tech, and what might even be a set of fog lights. The hood, meanwhile, features a more prominent version of the two-hump shape found on the current truck.
As for the rest of the design, it’s shaped very much like every other pickup truck in this segment. That’s to be expected—Chevy isn’t going to take a huge risk by pulling a massive departure from what its customers know and love. The bed and four doors make up a classic pickup shape that should be familiar to everyone.
The biggest question mark that remains is with the cabin. Spy shots published by Car and Driver earlier this year show an absolutely massive screen occupying most of the dashboard, which is a pretty big departure from the current truck’s setup. Big screens are a mainstay of every vehicle in this segment these days, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
So When Will This Thing Actually Come Out?
The current Silverado has been around since 2019, which means it’s very much due for a big update. Combined with the fact that prototypes have been driving around throughout the year and the timing of this patent submission, I suspect Chevy will unveil the truck by the springtime.
There shouldn’t be any big news in the powertrain department, according to Car and Driver. Currently, you can choose between two gas-powered V8s, an entry-level four-cylinder, and a Duramax turbo-diesel straight-six.
As for price, the current Silverado starts at $38,145 for the most basic, stripped-out, four-cylinder Work Truck trim. As with any model year changeover where there’s been a heavy update or when a totally new vehicle arrives, expect the price to jump by at least a couple of thousand dollars.
Top graphic images: General Motors / USPTO
I think that’s a patent for headlights that have a motor, cab, and bed.
Get that corn out of my face!
Is that a truck bed or a truck futon?
I like big headlights and I can not lie.
Meh. Looks like an evolution of the HD design. Disappointed in the tiny side in the rear window though.
I think it looks way better than the current one, but that’s not saying much. I have a GMT900, and I think pretty much all Silverados since then have been uglier.
It looks like they are either lowering or rounding off the front corners, which is my biggest gripe about the current truck. It’s easy to lose a car in that blind spot.
I second that, owning an 800 myself, it was kinda funny how for a second if you didnt like the Chevrolet, then the gmc was the other choice. Now theyre both fugly and have been for a good while.
Maybe the gmc will look better this time around.
I hope this implies that they’re lowering the height of the headlights.
no chance, be prepared to be blinded constantly
Just make the whole front end lights already, I dont care anymore, nothing matters.
The front end is a civil war between the all-grille and all-lights factions of the design team.
As drivers, we are all on the losing side.
A yawn inducing mediocre snooze fest, the only excitement will be from getting a ride in the tow truck from all of the inevitable break downs.
Will they need special tow trucks to tow these huge beasts? Between size and weight I bet some tow trucks will not be able to tow them
Thanks, I hate it!
I mean it still has all the design issues that plague modern trucks. I’m going to try to be polite here and not dive into TRUCK GUY stereotypes but the hood is still way too high, the entire thing is still 20%+ bigger than it needs to be, it looks unnecessarily angry for no reason at all, etc.
GM has it in them to design a decent looking truck too! They’ve done it many times and I agree with RAMbunctious that their mid sizers (which really are full sizers in practice due to how bloated these damn things are now) are some of the best looking modern trucks. I would daily a GMC Canyon or Colorado without so much as a hint of irony.
I just don’t see the point to over-designing trucks and making every angle as harsh and angry as possible but people with office jobs literally line up around the block to finance these things at ludicrous terms to have a daily driver that’s objectively worse in every way other than towing than a run of the mill crossover blob, so what do I know?
If someone basically made a hybrid or PHEV Maverick with 10% more rear seat space I’d buy one tomorrow. Or even a hybrid Ridgeline. But then the American manufacturers might not be able to upsell me into a MOAB capable, $65,000, 15 MPG-getting luxury truck on an 84 month loan at 12% APR and we can’t have that now can we?
Well written, and having driven a lot of the trails around Moab I may say that Most of these new trucks are far to big and heavy for trail rides.
Bullshit! I got the TRAIL BOSS trim!
Ever seen a Safari trim vehicle on Safari?
Ah, you see, the Trail Boss merely oversees the trail, having grown far too portly to actually go on the trail anymore.
The mid sizer is a great truck, I miss my last gen Canyons. The new ones look good, but man did they creep the prices up. Its also the right amount of truck for most people, even though they won’t admit it because once a year they need MOAR TRUCK (and a trailer rental could cover that need).
Aren’t the Canyon and Colorado rated to tow almost 8,000 pounds? What percentage of buyers legitimately need more than that? Like 1%? If that? Like I said I’m going to try to be nice and not just throw a bunch of Truck Guy stereotypes around….but COME ON lol.
Yup, exactly. One of the ones I had was the diesel (man I miss that truck), 32MPG on the highway and could tow my XJ on a trailer. Loaned it to a buddy to tow his 944 race car once and he said he got more questions about my truck than his race car since people were surprised to see a mid-sizer towing it.
I’ll agree that most don’t need to tow more than the mid size trucks can do. But I towed our boat (7,000ish with trailer) a few times with my Colorado, and while it was within it’s ratings, my Silverado does it significantly better.
Yes they can technically tow 8,000lbs. However, can they stop 8,000lbs adequately? Can they confidently keep going straight with a moderate sidewind hauling a 30′ camper? Can they haul a load that heavy up a mountain pass, then keep it under control going down the other side? I personally would never tow 8,000lbs with a mid-sizer. I hauled a 32′ bumper pull camper weighing 8300 lbs with my 1/2 ton and it was nearly at the limit of my confidence for that truck. I hit one really bad double dip in a rural stretch of road and needed both lanes to get it back under control. I suspect a mid-sizer would have jack knifed in that same situation.
It brings up a conversation I once had concerning the Heavy Duty’s being rated to tow 36,000lbs. I called a construction friend to ask if he had any equipment that heavy. He said, “My largest trackhoe is around 19,000lbs with trailer, but I would never tow it with a 1-ton pickup. I’d use my dump truck because I want to stop that load quickly in an emergency situation.”
Truckdor lives!
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomestarRunner/comments/a3dy4n/truckdor/
You just made my month. Trogdor was always hilarious. Truckdor is perfect with its consummate V8s.
I just wish Chevy, and all trucks in general, would go back to more simple designs. I get it, there is a lot more bulk on modern trucks so I’m assuming designers don’t just want massive blank slabs, but sheesh why are there so many lines that change direction so many times, creases, seams, bumps, protrusions, folds, trim pieces, material changes, etc? Tail lights shaped like a kart track, hoods with the topography of skate park, and enough materials choices to match the dozen different facade choices on the latest 5over1 apartment building in the *insert latest gentrifying neighborhood here* is a bit much, isn’t it?
I feel like lots of things have replaced good design with a lot of design when it shouldn’t be a quantity over quality thing.
“Envision the next step on your Life Journey by making The Sierra AT4 your new home.”
Actually, they’re pretty big inside and why not live in the same place that drives you to work? This is pretty close to economic reality for Gen Z, anyway…
Fully agree. However, the new Colorado and the Tacoma (4Runner?) have more folds and creases than an origami sculpture. Those two aren’t crazy oversized trucks so I agree that there is too much happening that could be simplified and make for more beautiful trucks in every segment.
That being said, after seeing some renderings of this design in color, I feel this design fixes a lot of the disjointed design choices of the current model. It’s a definite improvement. My only gripe is the massive L shaped filler between the grille and the headlights. It’s especially egregious when it’s shown as chrome in the renders.
Whoever is in charge of finalizing the exterior modeling shouldn’t just be fired. They need taken to the town square for a good old-fashioned drawing and quartering.
To really rub salt in the wound, instead of using horses for this practice, they will use four Honda Ridgelines instead.
I struggle to see much different between this and Dad’s ’23. Is this just a mid-cycle refresh?
I do hope the clearance lights are strictly to cover the design of the 3/4- and 1-ton models and isn’t a sign that “every half ton and up model is big enough to require them now.” Makes me nervous enough to drive the 3/4 ton GMC at work with how big it is.
Unrelated: my favorite truck-adjacent patent is the one for Bigfoot 8. So fast it was banned!
Techhhhhnically it’s an all new program, but let’s be honest, it’s a mid-cycle refresh. Same platform, same powertrain options, probably some shared sheet metal, and tons of carry-over components.
I really hope these renderings are just showing the Trailboss/ZR2 and the other trims will be more refined, however the fact there’s a lower front fascia/air deflector points to that not being the case.
Almost carryover powertrain options, the v8s will be the new gen 6 5.3/6.2 engines. Although the vette may have it first briefly as it kinda has been that way since the ls1 debut.
So intimidating! It should rightly shiver the timbers of all the other truck bros at Home Depot when they toss a bag of mulch in the bed.
More like a throw pillow from Bed, Bath, & Beyond.
GM hasn’t made an appealing looking truck since the GMT800 and they know it.
I go back to the GMT400. Never liked the 800s.
The GMT820 is an eyesore’s eyesore, but I do like the 800s.
I’d still take a GMT400 with a 6.2L diesel and an NV4500 over anything.
Na, the GMT900 and pre-refreshed K2XX stuff looked great.
Eww, no.
Absolutely not.
No.
Nope.
No.
I respect your opinion, even if it’s wrong. /s
I didn’t remember to do the appropriate /s postscript on my prior comment, but I’m glad that the interwebs didn’t distort my intent.
GMT900 GMC was great. The Chevy was… ok. My rankings starting with the C10:
My first truck was a ’65 C10 and it was that generation that was so ugly, it was kinda astonishingly gorgeous.
I’ve got a ’65 Suburban, so I’m a bit biased. I do think ’63 was the high water mark for the 2nd gen C10 though. The “good” hood paired with the knee knocker doors/windshield is just… <chefs kiss>
The GMC was better proportioned than the Chevy in the GMT900. This is where in my opinion, GMC surpassed Chevy in design choices and never looked back. The 2019-2021 Chevy was cool in certain trims. The refreshed Chevy’s 2022-2026 are just odd and wrong.
My opinion ahead. The GMT400 GMC was completely forgettable. The GMT800 was a slight improvement, but had that weird deer in the headlights look. I loved Chevy’s back then. To me that notion started to flip with the 2008’s. It only got better for GMC after that in my opinion. The 2016 and 2022 Chevy’s are particularly egregious designs. It’s like the mid-cycle refreshes are just bad for Chevy lately. The 2014 design is getting better with age. It’s a classic Chevy look. The 2019 is a modern take that is beautiful in certain trims. However, the 2016 looked like plastic fantastic. The 2022 is awkward filler panel haven. The GMCs turned into beautiful, restrained designs while the Chevy’s have become disjointed, mis-scaled, overwrought, origami madness; in my opinion.
I do like the more restrained look of the current GMC over the Chevy designs, but I just find the overall designs kind of disjointed: grilles stacked on top of grilles with extra grilles and lovers, lumps and bumps and humps all over, weird intersecting lines, those door mirrors that look like David Cronenberg rejected them from the props department of some monster flick. They’re a mess.
I know they probably won’t, but from those drawings the headlights look very Mitsubishi
Silly me, I was hoping for a lower hood so people would see pedestrians and children better.
How groundbreaking. It looks like every other truck they’ve ever produced. Oversized headlights? Good to see they’re being consistent in catering to the fragile overcompensation crowd.
The current gen has small headlights and they just look bad.
The drawing looks like they are migrated the big forehead’ed HD pickup front end to the half ton trucks. Those front ends were not universally loved, so I’m surprised GM decided to double down. Newer HD Chevy trucks appeared to have even moved from that styling, like GM knew it wasn’t all that pretty…
If anyone told me when the 2014 Cherokee leaked, with the eyebrow turn signals and all, that it was the direction of the future of styling I would have assumed they’d been drinking lead tainted water their entire life. Turns out they would have been right…
So, designed in Flint?
The Avalanche pre-dated that Cherokee with the eyebrow turn signals by 15 years. The Aztec even beat the Avalanche to that design choice. But I agree, I never thought that would catch on across every possible automobile size and shape. The Cherokee broke the mold by showing that the headlight didn’t need to be a focus of the front-end design. It treated the headlight like a fog light and changed automotive design for better and worse.
So…it looks like a truck. Huh.
The only concerning thing I see is the radar detector in the lower grille. How would one modify the bumper for offroad use or a winch?
So they slapped some F150 taillights on their current design and called it a day?
It’s hard for me to visualize from a line drawing, but if this looks like the current Colorado/Canyon, it’ll be a hit. I just bought a Ram, I think it’s the cleanest design in the class right now, but I may have strongly considered a GM if it looked like the midsizers, those are by far the best looking in their class.
Speaking of RAM, they actually went SMALLER with headlights for the 2025 refresh, and they weren’t huge to begin with. Reminds me of Clint Eastwood’s squinty stare.
Now… I know what you’re thinking. Did he knock back five Natty Lights before getting behind the wheel of his Ram or six? To tell you the truth, I forget myself in all this excitement. But given that this is a Ram TRX with a Hellcat motor, the most powerful pickup truck in the world, that’ll knock your ass from that crosswalk you’re about to legally enter all the way to the Chipotle downtown, you gotta’ ask yourself one question: do I feel lucky?
Well, do ya’, punk?!
LMAO!
10/10 COTD
These takes are factual. The RAM 1500 is the best looking half ton and the Colorado/Canyon are the best looking “mid” sized trucks. Obvious you can make a RAM look like it belongs on the Fury Road without much effort but I appreciate how clean and unassuming they look in their factory spec.
My buddy (jokingly) has been sending me links for punisher decals, train horns, and giant light bars ever since I got it, lol.
I like your buddy!
Oh he’s great lol. He says to me, all serious like, “Hey, I’m just messing with you, but if it gets to be too much, let me know”.
His follow up: “Then I’ll call you a wuss and go twice as hard”.
To me, the new RAM headlights look like an AI mistake.