Americans love trucks, but we’re not honest with ourselves about them.
The major full-size trucks for sale in the U.S. today — the Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, and Toyota Tundra — have starting prices in the mid-$40,000 range. But the average truck buyer last month paid $67,446 for one.
We buy mainstream cars under one set of brands and luxury cars under another. The Toyota Camry and Lexus ES share more parts than Lexus dealers would like you to know. But the company that builds both sells its luxury cars under luxury badges.
Truck buyers have, by and large, rejected the idea of luxury trucks. Remember the Lincoln Blackwood? The Cadillac Escalade EXT? Odds are good that you don’t. When automakers have put luxury badges on trucks, Americans have not bought them.
But oh, do we love our luxury trucks. Every truckmaker these days offers a luxury trim level that rivals any Mercedes or Cadillac for sumptuous surfaces and high-tech features. They wear the same badges as work trucks on their grilles. Inside, though, they are clearly executive pickups.
The ultimate example? That would literally be the GMC Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate. I spent a week driving General Motors’ most luxurious truck around Washington, D.C., and its suburbs in late summer.
I treated it like a truck, hauling fall plantings and the disassembled remains of a 400-plus-pound elliptical machine.
I treated it like a luxury car, enjoying massaging seats while the Super Cruise advanced driver assistance system handled most of the highway driving.
And I found that it functions equally well as both. A truck with a luxury badge may be a hard sell in America. But a truck with luxury features and a luxury price tag is an easy thing to like.
Which Trim Level
The GMC catalog is as thick as a phone book. You can buy Sierra models in three different cab configurations, with three bed lengths, in rear-wheel (RWD) or 4-wheel drive (4WD), in up to eight trim levels. Not every combination is possible, but there are options for every budget, from the low $40,000 range to more than double the base price. Only one combination, however, comes in the top trim. My tester was that — a crew cab, short-bed Denali Ultimate in Glacier White Tricoat with an interior in a rich combination of browns GMC calls Alpine Umber. It had the 3.0-liter Duramax Turbo Diesel engine, one of two choices on the Denali Ultimate.
Favorite Feature
I’m pushing 50 — old enough to have learned to drive before touchscreens; young enough to feel natural using them. Driving dozens of cars per year, I’ve come to believe that the best solution is a blend of both. GMC lets you control most infotainment and climate functions through the screen if you want, but also gives you a separate physical button for each function. Whatever method you find least distracting, it’s here in the Sierra.
What It’s Like to Drive
The turbodiesel in the Denali Ultimate is torquey and built for towing. Without a trailer to pull, it’s plenty powerful at 305 horsepower. But it has the familiar, slightly loose, unhurried feel that diesel owners love.
If you want your luxury truck to feel quick, opt for the 6.2-liter V8 available on this trim.
The Denali Ultimate comes with an adaptive suspension that, GMC says, scans road conditions and adjusts damping every 2 milliseconds. On luxury cars and SUVs, such systems can produce a stunningly smooth ride.
Trucks are harder. Even adjusting every 2 milliseconds, it’s hard to produce a smooth ride with an empty bed and still enable a truck to carry a load. GMC has done about as well as anybody could, and the resulting ride is very smooth for a truck. You’re not going to fool yourself into thinking you’re in anything else.
The suspension is remarkably good, however, at balancing out a load. The Denali Ultimate rides about the same with an empty bed and one loaded with weight.
Interior Comfort and Technology
GMC offers just one color scheme with its highest-end pickup. That’s not a complaint. The Alpine Umber cabin feels curated, with leather in a baseball-glove brown with a hint of oxblood, open-pore wood trim, and topographic maps of North America’s highest mountain cut into the surfaces for character.
Americans might not want their trucks to look differentiated as luxury vehicles from the outside. Step into the Sierra Denali Ultimate, however, and you know you’re in for an upscale experience.
Buttons, dials, and knobs proliferate, emphasizing how many features are at your disposal. The front seats, heated and ventilated, include a massage feature.
GM’s excellent Super Cruise hands-free driving system can take over much of the driving on the highway as long as you stay ready to correct it. I find it a little too eager to change lanes, sometimes pointlessly maneuvering back and forth in traffic without really gaining much ground. But, on a road trip, it’s a fatigue saver.
It all feels luxurious, though a 12-speaker Bose Premium Series sound system isn’t quite up to the depth and polish of GM’s best sound systems. If they aim to create the most luxurious pickup on the market, GMC designers should demand access to the AKG systems that power high-end Cadillacs.
Dimensions are generous in every direction, and GMC has paid attention to accessibility. Power running boards are wide enough for booted feet, and a grab handle at every position means those of us under 6 feet tall can pull ourselves in easily. Even the driver gets one, which saves you from tugging on an unstable steering wheel to get in.
GMC’s MultiPro Tailgate has a useful bag of tricks. It hides a fold-out work surface. Lowered, it has a drop panel that lets you get closer to material in the bed. That drop panel also becomes a bed step, making access easier for those of us under 6 feet. At this price point, it also hides a Bluetooth speaker useful for tailgating.
Limitations
The biggest problem with the Sierra? The Silverado. The highest-end version of Chevrolet’s truck isn’t quite as well equipped, but it isn’t far off. You can get largely the same truck mechanically, with the same infotainment system, Super Cruise, and a similar Bose Premium system, for thousands less.
Key Considerations
There’s new competition in the luxury truck world. Ram has introduced a high-end trim, Tungsten, to take on the Denali Ultimate. It addresses my criticism of the sound system with a 23-speaker Klipsch Reference Premiere setup that easily outperforms the GMC’s entertainment system.
