With 2019 Sierra, GMC puts brand differentiation behind it-literally

That the all-new 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup uses GM's same T1 fullsize-truck architecture as the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado was of course preordained. The new platform comes with a raft of design and engineering tricks that mostly targeted weight reduction and increased structural integrity and refinement via sophisticated mixed-metals applications (https://www.sae.org/news/2018/04/truck-tech-war).

Mostly employing the same mechanicals as the Chevrolet Silverado, the job for the GMC brand typically is delivering an appropriate degree of differentiation from its high-volume Chevy counterpart. That's been executed with any number of strategies over the long pickup-truck history of both marques, but the 2019 Sierra does so with maybe the most interesting ammunition yet-and almost all of it located at the back: a carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) cargo box and a clever reconfigurable tailgate.