While celebrating 100 years of Chevrolet pickup trucks at the , Chevy executives confirmed there will be Class 4 and 5 medium-duty chassis trucks called the Silverado 4500 and 5500 for the commercial market for model-year 2019.
"We are earning new business because we have more solutions to help businesses grow," said John Schwegman, Chevy's U.S. director of commercial product, in a statement. "The Silverado 4500 and 5500 will stand out because we've designed the trucks around how customers work. They will be powerful, maneuverable and among the easiest trucks on the market to upfit with specialized bodies, such as dump bodies, rollbacks, freight boxes and more."
According to Schwegman, the 4500 and 5500 models will be offered in both 4×4 and 4×2 configurations with a choice of regular and crew cabs. And for fleet-management purposes 4G LTE connectivity will be an option. All Chevy 4500/5500 trucks will be powered by the 6.6-liter Duramax diesel and Allison 1000 transmission.
Earlier this summer we first saw of the new Chevy commercial trucks, but Chevy did not make an announcement until Thursday at 2017 State Fair of Texas.
We'll likely see more spy photos of the test rigs as they get closer to production, and we hope to get a chance to drive the vehicles in late 2018. The Silverado 4500/5500 marks a long-awaited return of GM to the medium-duty class after the truckmaker abandoned the small-volume market by stopping production of the Chevy Kodiak and GMC Topkick in 2009.
Cars.com photos by Mark Williams, Manufacturer images of Silverado 3500, SpiedBilde spy photos
