Commuting in a Colorado Z71
venture off the seal or carry anything in their trays.
Anyway, a Colorado Z71 is a great thing to impress the neighbours with. Schoolkids are stoked to see a handsome ute covered in stickers and there’s a real urban-warrior aura about the whole thing.
And there is something to be luxurious place to be: the upgraded interior on the new Colorado is pretty swish overall, but this flagship model gets leather upholstery as well. The new touch-screen has Apple CarPlay and Android Audio phone projection, so you can play music and voice-text away to your heart’s content.
A significant improvement to the Colorado last year was the ride, which benefits the city folk as much as anybody. The Z71 does have some motorway friendly techy stuff like forward collision alert and lane departure warning, although it still can’t match the Ford Ranger Wildtrak’s adaptive cruise and steering-assistance.
The biggest drawback for any townie truck is sheer size. Modern one-tonners are massive: Colorado is nearly 5.4 metres long and as tall as a tall bloke. The Z71 has stuff to help you with that, too: parking radar front and rear, plus the obligatory reversing camera. That won’t help you find a suitably-sized parking space.
Being a really cool commuter does not come cheap. The Z71 automatic is $66,990 in automatic form. Accessories are a must-have for any urban ute, so by the time you’ve added our test vehicle’s fender flares (which do look great), hard tonneau with adapter plates and tray liner, mats and clever moveable cupholder, you’ve hit $73,540.
For that money you could be commuting to work in a fully electric BMW i3. Just saying. Although I’ll admit that’s quite a different thing.