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GM trademarks 'GearOn,' possibly for pickups

On May 27, a week before General Motors applied for a trademark for the word "Zora," GM filed a trademark application at the US Patent and Trademark Office for "GearOn," characterized as a "truck bed cargo system comprised of tiered storage cross rails, utility rack stanchions, cargo dividers and cargo tie down rings."
We have no idea what it will be or if we'll see it used on anything, but GM Authority reckons it could be GM's name for a pickup truck feature to rival the BoxLink system Ford introduced on the 2015 F-150. BoxLink has been described as having "dozens of configurations of stowable cargo ramps and lockable die-cast aluminum tie-down cleats," giving owners the ability to arrange the bed in they way they need and load unwieldy items like motorcycles without needing extra equipment.
Getting purely speculative, a month ago GM pickup truck engineers said there would be more and more regular updates for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra starting next year. Beyond the suspected capability and fuel economy changes GearOn could be one of the "neat things coming in a whole host of areas."

GM takes 2020 full-size pickup sales crown

It's no secret that 2020 was an unconventional year for auto sales. Extenuating circumstances or not, it was a year of upheaval even for ever-resilient (and ever-profitable) pickups, with General Motors taking the crown from Ford in the full-size segment.  The Ford F-Series still outsold every other full-size pickup nameplate in the country by a significant margin. It's only when you combine GM's Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra variants that you get a number that exceeds Ford's. This isn't really a new phenomenon, either. In fact, it was only somewhat recently that Ford took the overall full-size crown away from GM, and not only did Ford widen the gap in recent years, but Ram has once again become a legitimate challenger, even managing to outsell the Silverado by a healthy margin in 2019, but never coming close to the F-Series in terms of total volume.  But, 2020 being 2020, things got weird yet again. Ram remains relevant, of course, but Ford got caught with its pants down thanks to the one-two punch of COVID and the generational changeover of the core F-150 model, which resulted in a production interruption as the company's assembly facilities transitioned from building the old 2020 model to the new-for-2021. This perfect storm, as it turns out, was sufficient for GM to walk away with the full-size crown. See for yourself: Full-size 2020 pickup sales: GM total: 847,110 F-Series: 787,422 Silverado: 594,094 Ram: 563,676 Sierra: 253,016 Tundra: 109,203 Titan: 26,439 As you can see, Ram slipped back behind Silverado, slotting comfortably into third place. The Silverado 1500 had a flat year, but the heavy- and medium-duty variants bucked the trend and contributed to a slight uptick in sales for the nameplate, while F-Series tumbled more than 12% (nearly 110,000 units), opening the door for GM to steam ahead.  There were similarly significant shakeups in the midsize truck segment. First, 2020 was the first full year of retail sales for the Gladiator pickup, which surged to fourth place behind the stalwart Tacoma, Ranger and Colorado. GM's combined sales of the Colorado and Canyon are good enough for second place by manufacturer, but nowhere close to what it would take to dethrone Toyota.

Overland Expo's GMC Sierra AT4X is an Aussie-style ultimate overlander

Overland Expo is a caravan of companies producing everything one could need or want for overlanding. So what better what to showcase the kind of hardcore overlander possible by dipping into that parts caravan than to build just such an overlander? That's what the Expo did in creating its second Ultimate Build, based on a 2022 GMC Sierra AT4X. Overland Expo said it chose the Sierra for the 6.2-liter V8 with 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque because it wanted to "go bigger and more extreme" than its first build last year, which was based on a Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road. This Sierra trim was chosen over its AT4 sibling due to the extra dose of rugged, like the Multimatic spool dampers that provide about an inch more suspension travel front and rear, and the front and rear locking differentials. The Denali-like luxury isn't a bad thing to have, either. The only performance mods are a MagnaFlow cat-back exhaust, Firestone Ride-Rite air springs at the bag and 17-inch Icon Dynamics wheels on 33-inch 33 Firestone Destination Mud Terrains replacing the stock 18-inchers on Goodyear Wranglers.   Rig builder Mule Expedition Outfitters tapped more than 21 exhibitors for components, and spent "hundreds of hours" putting them all together seamlessly. The most eye-catching swap comes from the MITS Alloy three-foot canopy and tray that replaces the pickup bed. MITS is an Australian company, hailing from the land that also gives us overlanding powerhouses like ARB and Old Man Emu, and this is a popular outback-style rig. In addition to the storage areas on the sides and underneath, the canopy holds a Dometic refrigerator, Green Goat Outdoors camp kitchen and an eight-gallon water can that feeds a Geyser Systems shower. A solar panel on the roof routes power to a pair of lithium-ion batteries in the canopy as well, their output controlled by a Redarc RedVision Manager30.  There are plenty of Rigid lights for avoiding trouble, and a Forrest Tool Max Tool Kit plus GoTreads for when trouble inevitably appears anyway. The crew cab should hold plenty of gear, but anything else that needs to be stored outside will go in a set of 3D dry bags.