The 2027 Chevrolet Silverado 9C1 police pursuit vehicle runs a 402-hp V8 and has no battery pack. A truck wearing that badge stood in the GM Fleet booth at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando last week, and photographs of it spread through emergency-vehicle enthusiast groups before the weekend.
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The setup is a half-ton pickup with a new 402 hp version of the 5.7-liter small-block V8, rated at 428 lb-ft of torque and sent to both axles through a 10-speed automatic. For a department that was waiting to see whether Chevrolet would follow its Blazer EV police model with an electric pickup, the answer on display was gasoline.
The 5.7-liter small-block and the numbers behind it
Electrek’s Jo Borrás described the truck after seeing photos taken at the booth by Dorian Jzak and posted to the Emergency Vehicles Photography page on Facebook. His account lists the 402 hp and 428 lb-ft figures, a 9,300-pound maximum tow rating, an optional 2-inch lift that keeps the pursuit rating, and a driver’s-side LED spotlight. A 16-inch touchscreen is standard, as on the civilian Silverado.
Chevrolet has not published a pursuit-vehicle spec sheet that Electrek could cite, so the horsepower and torque come from that single report of the booth truck. Treat them as what was shown in Orlando rather than final ordering data, which fleets will get when GM opens the 2027 order guide.
Compared with the outgoing package, the jump is real. FleetOwner’s 2025 rundown of the lineup gave the Silverado PPV a 5.3-liter V8 with 355 hp and 383 lb-ft, so the new engine adds 47 hp and 45 lb-ft, roughly 13 percent more power. Towing stays at the same 9,300 pounds that Chevrolet advertised when the pickup first took a pursuit rating.
The 2022 truck also set the template for what the 2027 version inherits. Government Fleet listed standard Rancho shocks, a locking rear differential and a skid plate, with the optional 2-inch lift raising ground clearance to 11.35 inches. Interior volume was quoted at 129.8 cubic feet, and the bed measured 5 feet 8 inches. Electrek’s report says the 2027 truck keeps the lift option while retaining its pursuit rating.
Chevrolet’s first pursuit-rated pickup in 2022 and the 2027 refresh
Chevrolet introduced that first pursuit-rated pickup on March 30, 2022. Police1 reported a four-door, short-bed, four-wheel-drive truck with a 355-horsepower 5.3-liter V8, a 10-speed automatic and six-piston Brembo front calipers on 16-inch rotors. Ed Peper, then U.S. vice president of GM Fleet, said the company was constantly talking with customers about how to meet their needs. Government Fleet’s coverage of the launch added a 220-amp alternator, wiring for the horn and siren and five upfitter switches.
The new engine follows a broader refresh. When Chevrolet revealed the 2027 Silverado 1500 on June 16, 2026, Kelley Blue Book said the 5.7-liter V8 replaces the 355-hp 5.3 as the mainstream V8 and the 6.6-liter replaces the 420-hp 6.2. No outlet gave power figures for the civilian 5.7 at the time, which makes the 402 hp quoted for the police truck the first number attached to it.
Horsepower gains are an old tradition in the program. FleetOwner traces Chevrolet’s factory police packages to the 1955 150 sedan and 210 wagon, where a police-tuned 265 cubic-inch V8 made 205 hp against 162 hp for the retail version, according to the Museum of American Speed. Seven decades later the gap between a pursuit calibration and a civilian one is smaller, but the habit of leaning on a V8 for the badge has held.
Why a combustion pickup still matters to patrol fleets
The contrast with Chevrolet’s electric pickup is stark on paper. Electrek cites the Silverado EV at more than 750 hp in its top mode, 775 lb-ft and an EPA-rated 478 miles. Even so, the gas-powered 9C1 is the one pitched at police work, where a patrol truck idles through long shifts, carries heavy equipment and cannot spend an hour at a charger in the middle of a call.
GM already sells an electric patrol vehicle. FleetOwner reported the Blazer EV PPV for 2025 with an estimated 297-mile range and a projected 130 mph top speed, and Yuri Tello of GM Envolve, the company’s fleet and government arm, said the changes to the lineup came from law-enforcement customer feedback. Pickups in the same program stayed gasoline.
Timing and price are the other gaps. Kelley Blue Book said the 2027 Silverado 1500 was expected to reach dealers at the end of 2026 with pricing still unannounced, and the police package has its own order process through GM Fleet. Departments planning 2027 purchases therefore have a horsepower figure from a trade-show truck but no dollar figure to put against it. One question remains open in the booth report: whether the touchscreen will work with police-department software. Electrek quotes the expectation that enforcement computing will continue to be an upfitter issue, meaning agencies and the shops that outfit their trucks will still handle radios, laptops and mounting hardware on their own.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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