In this day and age of monster V8s and mountain-moving diesels, the Silverado LTZ's 315-horsepower 5.3-liter V8 may seem a bit timid. That is, until you stomp on the go pedal and roughly 5,400 pounds move out with surprising ease. As one might guess, that overall equation doesn't add up to neck-snapping speed, but the truck most certainly feels quick, and 338 lb.-ft. of torque leads to some flustered faces when lights turn green. The flipside is that we only averaged 13.9 mpg during a week that included equal parts off-road climbing, highway cruising, and city crawling. The four-speed automatic transmission, with sometimes abrupt shifts, was fine around town but consistently took too long to downshift as we climbed California's Tejon Pass.
