When you go to open your front door on Halloween night, don’t be surprised to find the iconic Chevy logo staring you in the face. The sleeper hit of this year’s spooky season is the 2022 Chevy Colorado, with kids across the country flocking to dealerships to recreate the midsize truck’s distinctive look.
Early sales reports indicate that the 2022 Colorado is on pace to outsell some of the season’s more traditional costume choices, with pirate, princess, and Paw Patrol outfits quickly losing ground to the former MotorTrend Truck of the Year. Experts say the Colorado’s popularity as a costume choice can be tied to its reputation as a go-anywhere workhorse that still provides the comfort and luxury of many of today’s leading SUVs. “That, and the fact that we accidentally bought $8 million worth of advertising on Nickelodeon,” says Jeff Sutter, marketing exec at Chevrolet.
The marketing mistake has turned into a real financial boon for the automaker, which has seen Colorado sales skyrocket since they started broadcasting the ads to the soft, impressionable minds of today’s youth. Still, there are some downsides. Statistics indicate that temper tantrums are up by 600 percent at Chevy dealerships across the country as children increasingly refuse to let their parents leave the lot in anything but a 2022 Colorado.
“Childhood is a lot different now. Kids are growing up fast and don’t want to play make believe in a silly costume. They’re more practical, and they want four-wheel drive and a maximum tow rating of 7700 pounds,” says Dan Issacson, automotive trend analyst. “In my day, we were content playing cops and robbers, but today if it doesn’t have spool-valve shocks and an electronic locking differential, they’re just not interested.”
One local mom discovered the hard way that not all Colorados are created equal. Wendy Muston says she was relieved to discover one of the hard-to-find Colorados at her local Chevy dealership, but that relief turned to disappointment when she arrived home.
“The one I found was just the base model Work Truck Colorado, which I guess is the 2021 equivalent of showing up to school in an old bedsheet with two eye holes cut in it,” says Muston. “My daughter burst into tears and told me that she was going to run away unless I could find one in the Z71 trim level or above.”
The higher trim levels are especially coveted for their candy-towing capacity, with the off-road-ready ZR2 representing the gold standard in the category. Featuring a 2.8-liter Duramax Turbo-Diesel and Multimatic shocks, any Colorado decked out in the penultimate trim level could theoretically haul a diabetes-inducing amount of sweets while producing a safe, comfortable ride. The midsize truck has some appeal for the rebellious tween crowd as well; with 186 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque, there are few better ways to outrun the residents of some recently egged houses than in the lively 2022 Colorado.
Never one to shy away from some free marketing, Chevy is now leaning into the trend and shipping Colorados with a number of Halloween-themed upgrades. The truck’s Chevy Infotainment 3 System already made streaming your favorite music easier than ever, but the ghouls over at Chevy have now preloaded it with a full album’s worth of spooky Halloween sounds. These include not only your traditional creepy noises––howls, chainsaws, ghosts, and the like––but also a number of sounds catering to adults, such as the sound of a blown head gasket or an auditory reminder that federal income taxes are due on April 15th.
