Matthew DeBord/BI
- Both the Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport and the Chevy Colorado ZR2 are aimed at owners who want to go off-road in their pickups.
- We sampled these mid-size off-road warriors back-to-back.
- The Chevy Colorado ZR2 is a nicer truck. The Toyota TRD Sport is very capable, though, less refined.
Chevy is credited with single-handedly reviving the compact pickup-truck segment in the US, but the truth is that Toyota has long ruled the segment with its Tacoma. It was just that the "Taco" stood more or less alone, with just the Nissan Frontier to challenge it in the entry-level pickup space.
The Chevy Colorado arrived in 2014 to crash the party. By rights, this segment isn't the same as it was back in the day, when the Chevy S-10 and the Ford Ranger were in the game. These new small pickups are mid-size, sitting a notch below the big stuff: Chevy's Silverado and Toyota's Tundra, for example.
I recently had a chance to check out the off-road, high-performance version of the Chevy Colorado, the ZR2. Soon after, I borrowed Tacoma TRD Sport, the competition from Toyota.
OK, I didn't go rock busting or explore a desert. But I did tool around in both trucks on the daunting winter roadways of suburban New Jersey.
Here's what I thought.