2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro vs. Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison vs. Jeep Gladiator Mojave: Off-Road Trucks Battle!

You’d be forgiven for thinking you have to buy an EV or supercar to get bleeding-edge technology in your new car. With EVs' near-infinite software possibilities and supercars’ steady march of performance and handling progress, the lowly pickup truck is often ignored in the annals of automotive progress. That’s a mistake.

High-performance off-road pickups bearing the names Raptor, ZR2, TRD, and others are often the tip of the spear for what’s possible. Right now, the midsize-truck segment is where most of the innovation is happening.

For years, it was Jeep pushing the envelope, with the first electronic stabilizer-bar disconnect, beefy Dana 44 axles, and real-lowww-range gearboxes in its Wrangler, the vehicle on which the Gladiator pickup is largely based. The 2024 Jeep Gladiator Mojave X picks up that mantle. Jeep’s first Desert Rated off-roader, the Gladiator is a go-fast take on the plucky rock-crawling Trail Rated Gladiator Rubicon. Swapping out the Rubicon’s high-pressure shocks, 4:1 low range ratio, and aluminum steering knuckles for 2.5-inch internal bypass Fox shocks with hydraulic jounce dampers, a faster 2.72:1 low range, and heavy-duty cast iron steering knuckles paired with a thicker Dana 44 front axle, the Gladiator Mojave aims to be the quickest Jeep in the desert since the SAS executed desert raids against Rommel’s Afrika Korps.

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Chevrolet then picked up the mantle. The Colorado ZR2 introduced us to the magic of Multimatic Dynamic Suspensions’ spool-valve (DSSV) dampers in pickups in 2017. Previously only used in supercars, race cars, and track specials like the 2015 Chevy Camaro Z/28, the Colorado ZR2’s dampers managed to somehow blend great on-road manners with Baja-blasting and rock-crawling capability. The 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison is the latest and greatest descendent of that plucky pickup. The product of the second-generation Chevrolet/American Expeditionary Vehicles (AEV) tie-up, the newest Colorado ZR2 Bison ups the game by blending the latest-generation DSSV dampers, enough body armor to make an MRAP jealous, and massive 35-inch tires with beadlock-capable wheels.

Despite the fact it was caught napping when the midsize pickup resurgence hit a decade ago, Toyota has long been to midsize pickups what Ford is to full-size. But its off-road-spec Tacomas have often been reactionary, not radical. That changes with the 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro. For starters, it’s the first hybrid in the segment. It replaces its tired V-6 with a punchy 2.4-liter turbocharged I-4 with an electric motor wedged between the engine and the eight-speed automatic, and it stows a battery pack under its rear seat. Its combined 326 hp and V-8-like 465 lb-ft of torque makes it not only the most powerful truck in the segment but also the most efficient with and EPA-rated 22/24/23 mpg city/highway/combined. Toyota hasn’t skimped on the off-road hardware, either, outfitting the new Taco with trick manually adjustable Fox shocks, front seats with their own hydraulic suspension, and a stabilizer-bar disconnect.

But which off-road-ready pickup is best? To find out, we strung together a series of trails that would throw just about every conceivable condition against these three trucks in just 48 hours. Starting on the floor of California’s Mojave Desert, we’d pick our way through boulder-strewn canyons to test the trucks’ body armor, low range gearing, and other off-road tools; blast across the sandy high desert to evaluate their suspension systems, traction control, and chassis stability; and then finally climb 10,000 feet in the Eastern Sierra mountains in search of narrow gulches, mud, and snow. The winner would be the most capable rig, sure, but also the most confidence-inspiring, fun, and value-laden of the three. The results surprised us more than the treacherous conditions.

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The Gladiator Is a Jeep Thing

Back in 2019 when the Gladiator first hit the streets, we took the then-new Rubicon model on an overlanding expedition on the Mojave Road alongside the contemporary (and now last-gen) Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison and Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro. The trail’s high-speed salt flats and desert stretches largely favored the Baja-ready Tacoma and Colorado, but the Jeep’s surefootedness and relentless off-road capability helped it split the two desert runners in the final tally. Sticker shock and the Gladiator’s propensity for dragging its belly over everything keep it out of the Chevy’s top spot. In our finishing order discussion, we even reasoned that a Gladiator equipped with a desert-ready suspension instead of one designed for rock crawling could have upended things.

Jeep answered the bell just a year later with the Gladiator Mojave. And yet here we are with a trailing finish in a comparison that largely took place in the Mojave's namesake desert. What happened?

The phrase, “it’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand,” is as good a place as any to start. At face value, yeah, we suppose it is a bit hard to understand why someone would spend $70,130 as equipped (lesser Mojaves start at $58,825) for such a dated truck. While the Gladiator only hit the market in 2019, the Wrangler it’s based on arrived in 2017. Jeep has continually tweaked and changed the face-lifted-for-’24 Wrangler, offering up turbocharged four-cylinders (in both mild hybrid and non-hybrid varieties), a diesel, a V-8, and a 4xe plug-in hybrid to go with the standard Pentastar V-6, the Gladiator, after the EcoDiesel’s dismissal last year, soldiers on with a minor face-lift and the under-gunned 3.6-liter V-6 in a crowd of hotted-up four-pots. A 4xe version is promised for 2025, at least, but that may not help the value proposition.

Producing a test-low 285 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque and mated to an eight-speed auto (a $2,500 option; a six-speed manual is standard), the Gladiator Mojave’s powertrain feels tired in this crowd. When scrambling up rocky and rutted hillsides, it lacks low-end grunt, which is only masked somewhat by aggressive throttle response in Off-Road+ mode. On higher-speed, sandy stretches, the Gladiator struggled to keep pace with the Colorado and Tacoma due to its lack of top end, the live front axle, and its heavy, slow steering. Not that you’d necessarily want to hang on the Chevy’s or Toyota’s tail in the Jeep, considering its long brake pedal travel and tendency to smoosh its armored belly into the ground.

The Gladiator Mojave’s new shocks, however, fix a lot of the flaws we found in the Gladiator Rubicon over the same type of terrain. The Fox pieces are in their sweet spot just north of 20 mph on small- or medium-size desert events, with the audible clunk at its bumpstops letting you know you’re at the Jeep’s limit and that it’s doing its job. That’s almost twice as fast as we could’ve managed with the Rubicon over similar terrain. Even so, we hate that Jeep tossed out some of the Rubicon’s features in creating the Mojave—chiefly the front stabilizer-bar disconnect, which helps keep the front live axle in contact with the ground during extreme articulation over rocks of the type that litter the Mojave Desert, as these photos can attest.

And yet, maybe we do understand this “Jeep thing” after all. Despite the Gladiator’s inherent flaws, it’s hard not to love this truck. It’s agricultural and rough, sure, but there’s really nothing quite as satisfying as looking over its iconic curved hood and flat fenders, bikini top open, and head out the driver’s window as you easily pick your way along a mountain trail.

Whereas the Chevy and Toyota rely on a bevy of cameras and drive modes to help navigate off-road, you don’t need them in the Jeep. Visibility is exceptional, and the Jeep is easy to place—you will know each obstacle you’re going to drag on before you hear the scrape of steel on rock. As road test editor Joe Berry put it, “The Gladiator is a charming machine, by which I mean to say it’s charmingly analog.” Aside from the Off-Road+ switch, the Gladiator relies on you to know when to slide its manual transfer case from 4H to 4L or back to lock the rear diff (four-wheel drive only, sadly), as well as how best to navigate the obstacles at hand.

Despite its flaws, the Gladiator is so charming that if it weren’t for its highly optimistic sticker price and weak engine, we can almost see ourselves interpreting its flaws as character and ranking it higher. Almost. With a hypothetical $15K discount or that plug-in hybrid 4xe powertrain?

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Is This the Best Tacoma Ever?

Every good matchup needs a heel, and the Tacoma embraces that role. Long the segment bestseller despite a platform that predated YouTube, the new 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro embraces modernity and all that entails, moving to a new architecture and returning bigger, stronger, and—for its rivals—scarier than before. Among this group, the Tacoma is the most powerful, the fastest, the quickest on our figure eight, has the highest payload capacity, ties for best towing capacity, and is the most efficient. It isn’t prohibitively expensive in this trio, splitting the price difference between the Jeep and Chevy at $65,895 as tested.

Right out of the gate, the new Tacoma impressed us. Its hybrid powertrain features a V-8-like glut of power that just makes everything easy. Off the line, the Toyota hits with a shot of electric power to get you moving as the turbo builds boost, with the motor handing off duties to the turbo-four just shy of 2,000 rpm, wherein the whole Tacoma surges forward. Whether clambering over rocks at low speeds in 4Lo or throwing rooster tails as you blast across the desert plains in two-wheel drive, the Taco’s powertrain is proof positive enthusiasts don’t need to fear electrification.

Nor should they fear technology. The Tacoma TRD Pro’s electronic sway bar disconnect helped the Toyota hang with the solid-axle Jeep in the real rocky stuff, while the truck’s drive modes ably smoothed out power delivery and prepared the truck’s traction and stability control systems for the varied terrain.

The low-tech stuff performs solidly, too. While not quite as impressive as the Chevy’s DSSV dampers, the Fox shocks are stable at speed, compliant, and resistant to bottoming out. They work together with the TRD Pro’s fancy suspended front seats to minimize impact harshness, although we suspect the suspension ultimately does more work there than the seats.

Yet like all heels, the Tacoma TRD has some flaws. For starters, all those off-road tools trend on the finicky side. The electronic transfer case was slow to shift from two-wheel drive to four-high or four-low, and if some unsaid condition isn’t met, the new Tacoma, like most Toyota off-roaders, will beep, bong, and flash idiot lights at you, leaving you to guess as to why four-wheel drive won’t engage or the rear diff won’t lock.

The Tacoma TRD Pro also felt under-armored and vulnerable compared to the Colorado and Gladiator. The leading edge of the Toyota’s bumper is plastic, which ought to be cheap to replace when damaged, but the intercooler hiding behind it won’t be. The metal skidplate directly underneath the engine can take a beating, but that neat TRD branding is inset in plastic that’ll pop off when you use it. And the rock sliders are also too short, ending just forward of the bed, making the lower bed corners vulnerable to dents (sorry, Toyota). Adding insult to injury, the Tacoma is the hardest truck of the trio to see out of. The greenhouse is pinched, the sideview mirrors are carlike and small, and that attractively high hood combines with the bulky suspended seats to make it difficult to correctly position your eyes to place the Tacoma on the trail. The multitude of trail cameras are little more than a band-aid, considering their low resolution and tendency to overexpose outside conditions, making sharp rocks and two-tracks look one and the same. 

And let’s revisit that suspension. Unlike the Jeep and Chevy, Toyota’s Fox shocks are adjustable. Manually adjustable. Normally we’d applaud the novelty of having to crawl under a truck to twist some dials to set up a suspension, but that type of setup works far better on a track than it does in the unforgiving and unpredictable Mojave and Eastern Sierra. As technical writer/in-house 4x4 junkie Jered Korfhage succinctly put it, “Who will ever get under this truck in mud or rocks to dial in each corner of the suspension? I barely have the patience to tie my shoelaces, let alone recalibrate my suspension from pavement to bumpy dirt.”

While saying that the 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro is merely a massive improvement on the previous model would be somehow underselling the sea change that’s taken place with Toyota’s flagship off-roader, the competition hasn’t sat still, either.

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The Colorado ZR2 Bison Feels Like Cheating

Prior to the Max fiasco, there used to be a saying that pilots fly Boeings but operate Airbuses. Your friendly Southwest pilot could barrel-roll his or her 737 if they were so inclined, while your JetBlue A320 pilot would be software-limited to a weak wing wag. There’s a similar philosophy difference between the winning Colorado ZR2 Bison and the second-place Toyota that ultimately makes the Chevy both a better truck and a better off-road tool than both the Tacoma and Gladiator. Need to lock your rear diff in two-wheel drive to power through some unexpectedly deep sand or (more likely) hang the tail out? Go for it. Would you like to turn traction and stability control full off, so you don’t bog down in a momentum-matters situation? Knock your socks off.

Of course, the above would mean very little without a solid basic architecture. The new Colorado ZR2 sports Chevy’s high-output 2.7-liter 310-hp and 430-lb-ft I-4, which is mated to an eight-speed auto and full-time-capable four-wheel-drive system. Unlike the previous Colorado, the new one’s chassis is designed from the get-go around the AEV Bison package. The stretched versus the previous-generation Colorado is capable of swallowing the Bison’s massive 35-inch tires (standard ZR2s and the other two trucks in this comparo wear 33s), while the $11,700 premium of the Bison package adds useful factory-backed upgrades alongside those 35s, like boron steel front and rear bumpers, steel skidplates under the engine, steering rack, fuel tank, transmission, and rear diff (standard ZR2s have aluminum skidplates underneath the engine and steering rack and a steel skidplate under the transfer case), plus a spare tire carrier in the bed for the 35-inch spare that no longer fits underneath.

Like its namesake, this ZR2 is at home in rugged terrain. Any rugged terrain, really. No matter whether we were trundling over rocks, up rutted hillsides we couldn’t walk up, blasting across the desert floor at speed, or making our way into the spring snowline at upwards of 10,000 feet, the Bison didn’t skip a beat. “Best suspension of the group,” Korfhage said. “These Multimatic shocks are on a different level than anything else here. Just as much at home going 30-plus mph in the bumps as it is crawling a vertical rock face. It’s an off-road cheat code.”

Whereas it was clear where the limitations of the Gladiator and Tacoma’s Fox shocks were, we’re not sure we ever found them in the Chevy. These shocks somehow have the articulation to rock crawl at a snail’s pace yet provide a magic carpet ride when blasting through desert moguls. That’s especially impressive considering just how heavy the Bison’s 35-inch tires and its beadlock-capable wheels are.

While those 35s, the Colorado’s armored carapace, and well-placed cameras (including those on its underside) inspired confidence, the Colorado’s powertrain drew praise, too, even if we were left pining for the extra shot of boost from the Toyota’s hybrid motor. The Chevy’s I-4 blends the top-end power of the old Colorado’s V-6 with the low-end grunt of that truck’s turbodiesel I-4. It’s quick on boost and accelerates quickly, the only signs of turbo lag revealing itself in four-low at low speeds in the truck’s EV-like one-pedal Terrain off-road mode. 

Compromises? Well, there are a few. Like the Toyota, the Colorado is cramped inside, especially in back. Unlike the Tacoma, though, it lacks storage cubbies up front for items such as phones, walkie-talkies, gloves, or tire pressure gauges. You also lose precious bedspace (not to mention two tie-downs) due to the vertical tire carrier in the bed. We also loathe the Colorado’s overreliance on touchscreens for basic vehicle functions. Headlights—which you might want when kicking up rooster tails so others can see you—are on one menu, whereas foglights are under an entirely different one. Traction and stability control defeat are buried in the infotainment display, too. The cameras? Those are under yet another menu for you to hunt and peck to find as you navigate down a trail. But hey—at least there’s a hard button on the center stack that can put all four windows down at once but not up again.

The Bison package also feels notably heavier than the Gladiator and Tacoma, almost as if it were a half-ton truck. The 35-inch tires have a lot to do with that. While the standard 33-inch-tired Colorado ZR2 is shockingly refined and easy to drive on pavement, the Bison is noticeably slower to respond to both acceleration and steering inputs, and it doesn’t absorb impacts at street tire pressures as comfortably as the lesser ZR2 or the Tacoma.

Despite those minor flaws, the end result was a unanimous first-place finish for the Colorado ZR2 Bison from our editors. It’s easily the most well-rounded, balanced, and fun-to-drive off-roader of the group. Whereas the other two trucks feel more like specialists, the Chevy is a generalist, happy as a clam no matter the terrain. Capable, comfortable, and confidence inspiring, everyone from off-road novices to junkies will find something to love about the Colorado ZR2. And that’s before we even consider its price. At $60,540 to start and fully loaded as-tested at $64,730, the Colorado ZR2 Bison is a killer value, offering capabilities and features at prices the other two trucks simply can’t match. There’s even another $11,700 in savings baked into the Bison; while we appreciated the extra armor and 2 inches of tire of the AEV-developed package, experience with the “regular” Colorado ZR2 has us convinced the results would likely have been the same had we not had the Bison package. The core capability of the Colorado is just that high.

So next time you’re tempted to dismiss the dirty and banged-up Gladiator, Tacoma, and Colorado as bro-core, think twice. They may not look like much at first glance, but these three are on the bleeding edge of what’s possible in a midsize off-road pickup.

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3rd Place: 2024 Jeep Gladiator Mojave X

Verdict: We totally get the Jeep thing, but we wish the brand would pay half as much attention to the Gladiator as it does the Wrangler.

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2nd Place: 2024 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro

Verdict: A significant improvement over the previous Tacoma TRD Pro that we now wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.

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1st Place: 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison

Verdict: This very well may be the most capable off-roader on the market under $100K.