Black Widow is one of the industry’s premier truck upfitters, elevating the truck experience for owners of full-sized pickups, including the Chevy Silverado 1500. With Black Widow Lifted Trucks, you get a lifting package whose parts are carefully designed to work together at every level. This includes not just the mechanical modifications but proprietary bodywork as well. Everything is professionally installed in the Black Widow factory in Trussville, Alabama.
What You Get
A Black Widow Silverado gets noticed. A proprietary black grille replaces the standard Silverado grille. Black hood vents hint at the power that lies underneath. Custom badging adorns the truck, including the famous Black Widow spider logo and premium Black Widow badging across the tailgate. It all adds up to an aggressive look that complements the lifted, off-road stance.
And that stance reveals the true heart of a Black Widow truck: its lift package. Black Widow builds the foundation for a true go-anywhere Silverado with a six-inch Suspension Lift Kit. This kit centers around high-strength cross members combined with steering knuckles and upper control arms to raise the truck above virtually any obstacle it’s likely to encounter on the trail.
The next component of the lift kit consists of FOX shocks. These shocks use special damping technology so that, unlike some lifted trucks, Black Widows are comfortable to drive on roads and highways. Yet these shocks also guarantee steady off-road handling no matter what Nature throws at you. Fox’s proprietary design prevents the shock oil from entering the nitrogen gas chamber, preventing the shocks from fading under hard use.
Wheels and tires are crucial to a successful off-road suspension setup. 20-inch wheels come standard on the Black Widow Silverado. They have painted black rings and black-and-gray spokes, but as an option, they can be painted the same color as your Chevy. The famous spider logo sits at the center of each wheel. Red caliper covers peek through the spokes to hint at their stopping power.
Wrapping the wheels are 35-inch AT KO2 all-terrain tires from BFGoodrich. These tires provide extra-long tread life and go-anywhere traction. Reinforced sidewalls deflect obstacles that would puncture lesser rubber.
Black Widow has considered your comfort inside the cabin, too. Custom-stitched upholstery makes even the longest or toughest ride comfortable. The Black Widow logo resides on the headrests, so we hope you don’t mind having the outline of a venomous spider right behind your head! Red LED lights give the interior a sinister ambiance that befits the Black Widow name.
Note that Black Widow only lifts brand-new trucks directly from the factory. The components of their lift packages are designed to work together, so customers can’t mix and match or request their own parts to be installed. Most of the company’s parts are manufactured in-house in their own factory and can only be ordered separately as replacement parts for current Black Widow truck owners. All Black Widow parts are covered by their own three-year, 36,000-mile warranty.
Black Widow, in their Own Words
Black Widow’s website has a video celebrating the initial launch of the current generation of Black Widow Silverado 1500. In this video, the company’s designers describe the philosophy with which they approached their Silverado modification in their own words. One of the striking things about this video is how much they enjoy their work. You can be pretty sure they get to drive these things themselves because their excitement and affection for the truck come through loud and clear.
Toran De Joy, one of the company’s industrial designers, described the primary mission of the design team. “We want you to be able to just look at this thing and feel like, OK, I can go after the world,” De Joy said. “Nothing’s gonna hurt this truck, and I can conquer and do whatever I need to.”
The designers spend a great deal of time focusing on the custom bodywork that they created for the Silverado. Tylor Butler of the Production Design and Development team said, “In the past, we always put big fender flares. This year, they’re smooth, they’re skinnier, and they just look more streamlined and OEM to me.”
Blending custom bodywork with the natural lines of the Silverado to create an OEM look comes up repeatedly. Chris Chappell is an industrial designer with Black Widow who seems at times to be almost giddy with delight over getting to help design this truck. He said, “Black Widow is supposed to be aggressive OEM. It blends in with the OEM look more than other OEM lines.” He described the process that resulted in the new grille for the Silverado, saying that the team went through about fifteen iterations of the design to get it just right.
Michael Kress, Director of Design, said, “I think we are able to push the limits of the vehicle design…we have the opportunity to pull that concept truck out and bring in those elements that, on the larger OEM side, were not feasible…we can bring that excitement, bring that aggression back.”
Chris Chappell gets the last word, giving advice to Black Widow Silverado owners. “It looks really cool, but it’s also capable. It’s got great ground clearance, good power, you know, awesome tires. Get in the mud, enjoy the thing. Use it like a truck, pull your boat, and just have fun with it.”
And that perhaps is the most important ingredient in a Black Widow-lifted truck like this Silverado 1500 design: fun. You could use it to tow a Bobcat or cross a muddy oil field in spring, too, but the real point of this lifted truck is to go four-wheeling where almost no other full-sized pickup can go. So get a Black Widow, and take the man’s advice: have fun with it.
