2007 Chevrolet Silverado vs 2007 Toyota Tundra

Toyota has spent more than $1 billion-a reported $400 million more than originally intended-on a brand-new factory for the Tundra in San Antonio, Texas, smack dab in the middle of America's single largest pickup-truck market. And right about now, Toyota's marketing team is kicking off a multimillion-dollar Tundra charm offensive through the heartland of America-a string of sponsorships, promotions, and events aimed at giving potential buyers hands-on experience with the new truck.

Automotive products don't come much more uniquely American than the full-size pickup, and despite a couple of solid tries, neither Toyota nor Nissan has won the hearts and minds of mainstream (read recreational-use) pickup buyers. Even the most loyal insider knows that however hard it tries-the warm and fuzzy ads showing American Toyota workers in American Toyota factories, the move into NASCAR-Toyota is still perceived by many as an outsider.

There are signs this market may be changing, however: According to a recent J.D. Power survey, half of recent full-size-pickup buyers were not loyal to the brand they'd previously owned. Toyota figures it need only build a better pickup, which means a Tundra that's bigger and more powerful than the Detroit trucks-a strategy driven by Toyota's North American product planners, not those from the head office in Japan. Behind the badge, there's a lot of American pride at stake in this Tundra.

Has Toyota gotten it right this time? To find out, we put the new Tundra together with our newly crowned Truck of the Year, the Chevrolet Silverado. Our testers were the top trim levels with 4WD, fairly typical packages for recreational truck buyers.

Our $37,914 Silverado featured Chevy's mainstream 5.3-liter V-8 driving through a four-speed automatic transmission, and while the topline LTZ Silverado's default suspension is the Z85 handling/trailering setup with monotube shocks, the 20-inch wheel option on our tester required the Z60 max street-performance suspension with twin-tube shocks. Chevy's 4WD system offers two-wheel drive, a full-time Auto all-wheel-drive mode, 4x4 High, and 4x4 Low.

In Auto mode (to reduce the wheelspin endemic to an unloaded pickup), our tester proved the best handling of any Silverado variant we've driven, past or present. Much of that is credited to the computer-controlled all-wheel-drive system that sends power to the front wheels a split second before it detects rear wheelslip, though its more street-friendly tires clearly helped. During most of the handling tests, the Silverado proved the traction king, winning the slalom and skidpad-grip contests.

Our $42,500 Tundra came with a high-tech six-speed auto as standard, but curiously offered a less sophisticated part-time 4WD system, which was a challenge for our track testers, as they wrestled with traction-control nannies that effectively corralled most of the 381 horses from the new, top-range 5.7-liter Toyota V-8. Put simply, the 5.7 makes so much power, we couldn't get a clean run down the quarter mile (even with the traction control switched off, the electronic nanny still jumped in to keep things in order). Our test crew felt there was more to be had, so they switched the Tundra's 4x4 system to four-wheel high range to disconnect the power-robbing electronics, and with all four wheels locked in unison the 0-to-60 number improved about eight percent.

The Tundra's 0-to-60 time of 6.0 seconds is the fastest time we've recorded in any stock half-ton pickup and shades the Silverado's by 1.7 seconds.

That Tundra power made up in the straights most of what its trail-biased tires gave away rolling under in the slalom curves. Tester Neil Chirico reckoned more street-friendly tires could erase much, if not all, of the Silverado's higher slalom-speed advantage. Again, all handling tests were done with 4WD.

Away from the track, the Toyota's soft suspension and big sidewalls absorbed bumps better, while urban environs demonstrated what the Tundra's tighter-by-nearly-a-yard turning circle really means in parking garages. Both trucks control pogo-sticking much better than their predecessors, and isolation is good for body-on-frame 12-foot wheelbases.

Once clear of jarring potholes and broken city streets, however, the better steering and crisper responses of the Silverado provided big pickup entertainment bettered only by Dodge's Ram SRT10 or Ford's F-150 Lightning. With forethought to the lackadaisical throttle response, you could even steer a bit with your right foot, something Grandma Toyota would never allow in the Tundra.