The same day the 2024 Range Rover Sport SV takes its first bow on the public stage, Chevrolet will debut its version of off-road performance, albeit one with more focus on, and chance of, going off-road. May 31 sees the debut of the 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison. Chevy posted two angles of a prototype on Facebook showing a mid-sizer that’s gotten a whole lot chunkier in its few years on sale. The 2019 Colorado ZR2 Bison looked like a regular Colorado that had been given a few minutes to pick out a few small parts from the Chevy Performance and American Expeditionary Vehicle (AEV) catalogs. It even wore the same 31-inch tires as on the ZR2 trim, causing us to write in our First Drive after taking a beating on a rocky trail, “What the Bison really needs is another inch or two of ground clearance. It’s a bit confounding that Chevy and AEV went through all the effort to add the extra armor but couldn’t see fit to add taller rubber.”
The 2024 Colorado ZR2 Bison boosts the ground clearance and tire stats. The ZR2’s Multimatic DSSV dampers put that truck three inches above the height of a lesser Colorado, the ZR2 Bison is expected to add another two inches and get protected by Chevrolet Performance hydraulic bump stops. Instead of the 33-inch Goodyear Territory Mud-Terrains on the ZR2, the coming ZR2 Bison gets shod in 35-inch Goodyear DuraTrac All-Terrains on beadlock-capable wheels. Previous sightings have showed a spare can be mounted behind the cab, but we don’t make that out in these photos.
After that, it appears the ZR2’s double-bulge hood holds steady over a very similar front fascia. The lower bumper’s different, with redrawn spotlights, built-in space for a winch, and an integrated skid plate. The menu of AEV upgrades is anticipated to include the usual additional boron steel underbody skid plating, and a new steel rear bumper.
Back to that hood, panels on the camo suggest the potential for extra venting. Consensus says that the same engine as in the rest of the range will go to work here, that being the turbocharged 2.7-liter four-cylinder putting out 310 horsepower and 430 pound-feet of torque.
