In four-wheel-drive form, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 stands 74 inches tall, but in the eyes of General Motors, this truck is nothing short of a giant. Saying trucks are the lynchpin of the General's fortunes in North America is no understatement. Full-size trucks -- especially pickups -- are essential to GM's bottom line. Chevrolet sold 418,312 Silverado pickups in the U.S. last year, making it the most popular model in the division's North American portfolio and the most popular GM nameplate.

Queens, New York, native Stephen J. Girsky grew up in the epicenter of American car culture, Los Angeles. Now vice chairman of General Motors, in the 1990s he worked at Morgan Stanley and was one of Wall Street's most outspoken automotive analysts. With a sharp and early eye on all that was wrong with Detroit as the business limped into the twenty-first century, he formed S. J. Girsky and advised the United Auto Workers. Girsky joined GM's board of directors and represented the UAW in the 2009 bankruptcy. Girsky is on most Detroit shortlists of potential candidates to replace CEO Dan Akerson when he retires.

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Corvette program engineering director Josh Holder oversees the integration of various subsystems to meet overall requirements. He had a hand in the two previous Corvettes (and owns five). He took contributor Marc Noordeloos through the choices that went into the C7's chassis.

We're looking out over the San Diego cityscape from a penthouse high above the street. It's dusk, and the lights wink on among the thicket of tall buildings silhouetted against the sky. It's one of those vertigo moments ... not because of the view but because of the 2014 Chevrolet Impala a few feet behind us. How did this car get up here?

It's been nearly eleven years since the Z/28 nameplate was last affixed to a Chevrolet Camaro, but it's been 45 since the moniker actually signified a Camaro purpose-built for track use. The all-new 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, which debuted at the 2013 New York Auto show, changes all that.

The new 2014 Corvette Stingray may share precious little with the previous sixth-generation Corvette, but there is one common thread. In 2004, Chevrolet rolled out the C6 Corvette coupe in Detroit and then waited several weeks to unveil the convertible variant at the Geneva Motor Show. Fast-forward nine years: weeks after the C7 coupe was unveiled in Detroit, the new Corvette convertible will make its first appearance in Switzerland.

Devotees of grand, powerful, rear-wheel-drive sedans from domestic manufacturers will be thrilled with this weekend's announcement of the 2014 Chevrolet SS, a four-door of bruising potency and presumably enough interior roominess for the Baltimore Ravens offensive line.

General Motors is painfully aware that if you have any knowledge of its passenger-car diesel history, it involves the name "Oldsmobile." Today's diesel reality is quite different, however, as GM competes with the highly regarded Duramax turbo-diesels in its heavy-duty pickup trucks, and its Opel, Vauxhall, and Chevrolet diesels manage to keep up with the competition in Western Europe.

Chevrolet's development of the 2013 Malibu was interrupted during the General Motors bankruptcy, North American president Mark Reuss conceded in an interview. The 2014 Impala's development came after the bailout.

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It's a bold man who wades into the impassioned war between Camaro and Mustang fans, but I'm feeling brave enough to take a stand. The 2013 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 convertible is much more fun than the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500 convertible I drove two weeks earlier. The difference is clear: the drop-top GT500 feels wild and untamed, whereas the ZL1 is a complete and well-sorted package.

Four years ago, the Corvette team first weighed the idea of reviving the historic Stingray moniker for the C7 Corvette. They made the decision only six months ago. It took that long to come to a verdict because neither design VP Ed Welburn nor chief engineer Tadge Juechter nor marketing manager Harlan Charles would make the call until they could confidently say their car delivered the looks, the performance, and the character to live up to the 1963-67 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about GM’s abundance of 2012 and 2013 Silverados and Sierras. That’s by design as GM intentionally increased the supply of older trucks to compensate for the time factories must shut down to tool up for production of the 2014 model year pickups. GM’s real problem is the lack of innovation in those new 2014 trucks.

Every Corvette fanatic's 2013 desk calendar has January 13 circled. That's when Chevrolet officially unveils its C7, a day ahead of the North American International Auto Shows' press conferences. General Motors' other big press conference at Detroit is more important, if you count volume and profits.

Chevrolet's top designer John Cafaro likes to say the Spark minicar has larger headlamps than wheels. When it comes to the cute but startling Spark EV, visual drama is supplemented by an engineering feat for the sake of efficiency.

The Chevrolet Traverse emerged from the darkness of General Motors's bankruptcy in 2009, shining forth the bright beams of a fresh, innovative product with seating for eight. Unlike its competitors, this crossover had never posed as a truck, although it boasted some impressive and very trucklike capabilities. Its sleek shape made the Honda Pilot and Ford Explorer look like barns on wheels. (The redesigned 2012 Explorer looks like a barn designed by Antoni Gaudi on wheels.) A hit for Chevy, the Traverse has sold briskly, and no one has seemed to miss the old TrailBlazer.

If the newly turbocharged 2013 Chevrolet Malibu proves anything, it's that people at Chevy have figured out how to subvert the Office of Management and Budget. The Malibu turbo's apparent innocuousness would well suit a technocrat, one, for example, who tabulates the effectiveness of government subsidies for a car company like Fisker, and finally recommends pulling the plug.