Truck the flagship of GMC’s luxury line
The hyper-accelerated growth of luxury trucks aimed at wellheeled utility-focused buyers and status seekers looking to live large has been properly exploited by almost every automaker with a finger in the pickup pie.
For GMC, however, the stakes are somewhat higher: its Denali premium brand represents a full 30 per cent of its total sales, with a higher average transaction price than several European luxury stalwarts and volume that dwarfs most of the next-inline badges.
This makes the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali, its flagship full-size truck, the most important jewel in the company’s crown. Not only is it the one area where GMC has a legitimate chance to give its Silverado-cloning Sierra a chance to rise about its shared Bowtie platform, but it’s also the strongest seller in the entire Denali family. As goes Sierra, so goes the rest of GMC’s fortunes.
Surprisingly, after a day spent traversing the coastal roads of Newfoundland, Canada’s newest and least-accessible province, I discovered that the latest Denali is a much more incremental step than one would otherwise expect — especially after having sampled the rest of the best in the pickup truck world.
Bigger and better First, the basics. As with all things truck, the 2019 edition of the Sierra Denali is larger in almost every respect compared to the model that preceded it. In four-door crew cab body styles, this becomes most obvious when sitting in the rear seat, which benefits from a massive three extra inches of legroom, catching up to peers from Ram and Ford and embiggening an already generous cabin.
Other benefits for the redesigned Sierra include a frame that is both stronger and lighter (providing a quarter of the near-163 kgs of weight savings that have been sliced from the Denali’s girth), a longer wheelbase, and a wider cargo box (whose 17.78 centimetres boost comes when ordering its 5-foot, 8-inch version).
Style-wise, the new Sierra Denali follows the trend of massive grilles, extensive chrome brightwork, and chiseled, muscular sheet metal all around. It’s less clean than older versions of the truck, but still handsome enough in its own right, and certainly in keeping with the overbearing designs of its peers.
Old meets new Most of what’s fresh in the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali is balanced out by carry-over features and equipment — although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The vehicle is offered with the choice of either a 355 horsepower, 5.3litre V8 or a 420 horsepower, 6.2-litre V8, with the latter also generating 460 lb-ft of torque. Each of these engines will be familiar to anyone looking to upgrade from last year’s Denali, although the larger of the two benefits from a new 10-speed automatic gearbox (and a turbodiesel V6 will eventually be added to the mix later in the production run).
I was only able to drive a 6.2litre edition of the Sierra Denali during my time on the Rock, but it proved to be as quick and smooth a power plant as it was in the previous-generation truck. The 10-speed was just as content working behind the scenes as the original 8-speed, which is a definite win for GMC, despite no fuel savings coming with it.
Not far enough Having recently spent time in the 2018 Denali and been critical of what I perceived as its behind-the-times interior trappings and feature availability, I expected the 2019 redesign to present a dazzling counterpart to my previous complaints. Instead, what I encountered was a frustrating ‘more of the same’ mentality inside the passenger compartment.
Yes, the newest Sierra Denali does introduce much-needed equipment such as keyless entry and a push-button ignition, but in terms of materials, it’s quite difficult to grade the truck higher than its predecessor. The cabin remains a sea of grey and black plastics and leather, with only a splash of wood grain trim on the door pulls to break things up. This is a far cry from the comparably sumptuous details available in the upper-tier Ram 1500 and even Ford F-150 models.
One area of innovation that does come across as particularly useful with the 2019 Denali, however, is its extensive suite of trailering features, which include not just assistance while backing up and aligning the hitch, but also the ability to individually test each trailer light as well as access a need-to-do checklist before towing (by way of an app or on the infotainment screen).
The verdict That the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali trucks when it needs to truck is never in question. With a tow rating of 9,600 lbs and a payload of just over 2,000 lbs, the Sierra doesn’t scrape up against the class leaders but does offer realworld practicality for the vast majority of pickup buyers. It’s also backed by a truly excellent powertrain when opting for the 6.2-litre V8.
Where the Denali falls flat is in the execution of its luxury mission. For a vehicle whose MSRP can easily crest the $70,000 mark, the return on investment just isn’t there as compared to more compelling efforts from its immediate Detroit-based rivals. Simply put, it’s not as fullyfeatured nor as plush as it needs to be. The latest Sierra feel more like a missed opportunity than a triumph.