Manoli Katakis 
Picture this: you’re driving a Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison or a future Chevrolet Silverado ZR2 along your favorite off-road vehicle trail. You activate the truck’s integrated Performance Data Recorder that captures your latest attempt to trek rocky obstacles, blitz a wide open clearing of sand, and cross the upcoming stream beyond it. Down the way, you see a fellow off-roader that’s beached their truck. You shackle up a tow strap and record the successful extraction. All in a day’s adventure.
When you get home, you take the SD card that saved all of the action and upload it to YouTube, where the GM Performance Data Recorder showcases logged articulation, pitch, roll, steering angle, wheel speed, selected gear, drive setting, brake/throttle, elapsed time, acceleration, braking, and of course, the view ahead. Your YouTube video gets 10 billion views. You’re famous. You retire on a ranch in Wyoming paid for by ad revenue from your video. The end.
Except that reality does not currently exist, as General Motors has yet to work its unique Performance Data Recorder system – that’s sourced from Cosworth – into its off-road performance vehicles. Not even the $100,000+ GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 – and its 1,000 horsepower – has hinted at availability of this technology.
Track-To-Trail Transfer
Much like the Multimatic DSSV dampers that can be found in both the Camaro ZL1 1LE and the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 today, and the Chevrolet Silverado ZR2 soon enough, the GM-Cosworth Performance Data Recorder system can work wonders on the ORV trail just as it can on the road course. And it would be a unique performance app to the off-road performance vehicle segment. Currently, neither Ford nor Jeep (nor Toyota) offer such an app, but GM – despite having a limited selection of truly trail tough trucks – is already a generation ahead with its PDR system in its impressive range of performance cars.
Below is a quick video of the GM Performance Data Recorder in the C8 Corvette. The system is also available in certain variants of the Chevrolet Camaro, as well as the Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing:
With the GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 happening by the end of the year, the next-generation Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon happening in the next two years, and the 2022 Chevrolet Silverado ZR2 seemingly imminent, General Motors has a wide open opportunity to introduce the gamification of the Cosworth Performance Data Recorder into its future off-road performance products in a class leading way. And there’s no real good excuse why it shouldn’t happen.
