What's The Difference Between A Chevy C10 And K10?

Chevrolet currently has two different models available if you're looking to buy a pickup truck. The first is the Silverado, their signature truck and the second-highest selling vehicle in the United States. The second is the Colorado. They technically have other trucks available, but these are all variations on the Silverado, like an EV version. The delineation between the Silverado and the Colorado comes down to size, with the Silverado being a full-size pickup and the Colorado being a compact.

This is generally how most car companies distinguish the various vehicles in their arsenal that are of the same type, such as sedans or coupes. However, in the case of Chevrolet, it used to have a name delineation between different pickup trucks that didn't have anything to do with size. 

For the 1960 model year, Chevrolet introduced C model and K model pickups. At first glance, these seem to be identical trucks. They had the same chassis, the same powertrain, and the same body. If you were to look at a C10 and a K10 parked next to each other, you probably wouldn't be able to tell which was which. The distinguishing feature between C and K model pickups from Chevrolet was how they drove.

[Featured image by Derrellwilliams via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]

A C10 and a K10 were both half-ton pickup trucks from Chevrolet, and the company also had "20" and "30" variations to designate three-quarter-ton and one-ton pickups as well. What set a C10 apart from a K10 was how many wheels were used to drive the vehicle. A C10 was a two-wheel drive pickup, whereas the K10 was four-wheel drive. The difference is as simple as that, and Chevrolet would use the C and K distinctions for decades. Because of the drive difference, the four-wheel K models tended to be pricier than the C models.

That being said, the company would abandon the "10," "20," and "30" naming structure in 1988, and it would instead rename these models 1500, 2500, and 3500, respectively, which is how GMC was naming its essentially identical pickup trucks. Both companies are branches of General Motors. Meanwhile, GMC started referring to its C and K models as Sierras, but Chevrolet continued to just use the C and K designations until 1999 when the company introduced the Silverado. This truck would act as the successor to the era of the C and K models, and if you want a two or four-wheel drive truck, you just have to choose that option, with the four-wheel drive model being a few thousand dollars more. So, we essentially still have the C and K model pickups from Chevrolet, just consolidated under one name.

[Featured image by MercurySable99 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]