2024 Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison vs Can-Am Maverick R Review: Battle of the Best

There are more ways now to spend a lot of money and go off-road than ever before. That’s a fact. Just think of a vehicle you want to buy and there’s probably a gravel-slinging version of it—yes, even if you’re set on a Porsche or Lamborghini. You aren’t stuck choosing between a Jeep and a full-size truck anymore, and rigs like UTVs and midsize pickups are some of the most capable out there. That’s why we decided to compare two top dogs in their respective categories, the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison and Can-Am Maverick R, to see which is best if money and maybe even sensibility are no object.

Thinking back on the Chevy S-10s and Yamaha Rhinos I grew up around, these machines might as well be aliens. Who ever thought we’d get a dedicated trail truck on 35s with front and rear lockers from the factory? And I’m not sure anyone could’ve predicted the 240-horsepower Maverick R and its praying mantis front suspension a decade ago. One thing’s for sure: They both get a lot of looks. But what I really care about is how they do when the going gets rocky.

We don’t normally do this type of review, but I thought you might be interested to see how these two high-performance specials do against each other. They both take entirely different approaches to off-roading, but they have more in common than you might think. All we want to know is which one is better at what it’s built for.

Compared and Contrasted

These are what you get when you pick a category and say, “Alright, now which one’s the most expensive?” In the picture above, you’re looking at more than $110,000 of sheet metal. The Colorado ZR2 Bison is the pricier of the two, of course, at $65,125 as tested; meanwhile, the Maverick R is a bit further back at just $44,499 before destination. Amazingly, you can spec the Can-Am to nearly the same price as the Chevy if you opt for the manufacturer’s “Nothing But the Best” bundle that adds mega audio, electrical, bumpers, racks, and more for a total of $61,981. That’s crazy.

Out the gate, you can tell the Colorado ZR2 Bison isn’t built for speed. Its 2.7-liter turbo four-cylinder is plenty powerful with 310 hp and 430 lb-ft of torque, but it’s tasked with turning 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler tires. Clearly burnouts were never the goal. Instead, it’s meant to get max traction in every situation, and it’s aided by a 42:1 crawl ratio. That’s the same as the non-Bison ZR2, but this AEV-Chevy collab offers 12.2 inches of ground clearance—1.5 more than the standard truck.

Then you have the Maverick R, which does speed better than just about anything else on the 4×4 market today. Its 999cc three-cylinder angrily spools a 54-mm turbo, which is close to what you’ll find on a modern diesel pickup with more than six times the engine displacement. And while the Colorado ZR2 Bison is geared for highway driving, the Can-Am has no problems smoking its 32-inch ITP Tenacity tires from a dig. It’s a drift machine that just so happens to have 17 inches of ground clearance.

It wouldn’t be fair to pit one against the other in a drag race, nor would it be relevant to see which can fit more stuff in the bed. They’re two entirely different vehicles. But what we can do is talk about how good they are at their specific jobs and reach a conclusion on which one to buy if you’re shopping for a pure off-road toy.

The Maverick R: King of Huckin’ It

Might as well start with the Can-Am, then. You can tell it’s a beast from the time you fasten the bucket seat’s multi-point harness. The exhaust note isn’t the loudest I’ve heard, but it revs aggressively and makes a ton of turbo noise. And unlike most other sport side-by-sides, it has a dual-clutch transmission with paddle shifters so you can click through all seven gears. Choose which drive mode you want—Normal, Sport, and Sport+—then you’re good to go.

These drive modes configure steering, engine, and suspension settings in this top-of-the-line model with Smart Shox. Anything above Normal and the auto transmission downshifts aggressively, making sure you’re in the powerband should you need to floor it. Select Sport+ and the Rotax three-cylinder is doing all it can to keep the turbo spooled, which you can hear since it’s all right behind your head. It’s really not a pleasant experience, but if you want a Sunday driver, you should look somewhere else entirely.

I’ve never driven a side-by-side with more manic speed than the Maverick R. Peg the throttle and you will struggle for grip, even if you’re on flat ground. Loose surfaces leave you with no hope of putting all the power down in the first four gears. It revs, spools, and snorts in that order as you feather the throttle and work the wheel to keep it pointed in the direction you hope to go. Odds are, unless you’re Travis Pastrana, the Maverick R is faster than you.

It’s so fast that if you aren’t driving in the desert, you can’t get everything out of it even if you are Travis Pastrana. The top speed is limited to 93 mph, but where I live in the Missouri Ozarks, there’s not enough room to hit that. Instead, you’re left flabbergasted that it’s possible to hit 75 mph on short straightaways while barely slowing down through nasty washouts that would wreck a car at anything more than 10 mph. That tall-knuckle suspension juts up into your line of sight more than you might expect, further supporting the idea that the Maverick R is simply another breed.

If pace is what you’re after, I’m not sure there’s anything better.

The Colorado ZR2 Bison: King of the (Super Steep, Super Rocky) Hill

Flip to the Colorado ZR2 Bison and it’s at its best going slow, up and over obstacles like a surefooted billy goat. It can scurry across wide-open spaces just fine with its Multimatic DSSV shocks, and it even has a Baja drive mode to keep the eight-speed transmission in the right gear while you flog it. With its bigger tires and tall stance, though, it’s better off tackling tight forest trails with loose boulders and the like.

I tested it around my family’s creekside property where we have deep gravel ditches, fell trees, and shot rock to wheel on. It’s the perfect terrain for testing a truck’s abilities at low speeds because if it can’t crawl, the ground won’t do it any favors in getting traction.

Those big tires meant I rarely bottomed out, even when driving down into deep holes on the beach and climbing back out of them. Just about everything underneath the truck is covered with steel skid plating—that’s a big reason why you’d get the Bison—and I never worried about what might happen. The locking front differential got me out of some hairier situations like they were nothing, and if you need a winch, the AEV steel front bumper is built to accept one.

Because the Bison is so well-armored underneath and on the sides thanks to tubular rocker guards, it gave me confidence to straddle objects I’d otherwise leave alone. Pointy rocks are whatever when you have the height to clear ‘em and the plating to bash ‘em if they’re bigger than you expected. I really wish I could’ve taken the rig out further but alas, I only had it for five days during a work week.

Throw on a Go Fast Camper and I would pick the Chevy for a jaunt through the Pacific Northwest over any other new truck. It’s not the all-out, run-full-speed pickup you might be used to if you’re coming from a Ford Raptor but it’s a mighty capable overlander. It also looks pretty good, in my opinion, which is at least half the battle for most buyers in this space.

The Verdict

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: These are two drastically different machines. It’s way more difficult to pick a winner for that reason, but after my seat time in both, I reached a conclusion.

Neither the Chevy nor the Can-Am can compete in the other’s element. Whereas the Colorado ZR2 Bison is a bumbling giant compared to the Maverick R in the twisties, it’s very much flipped when you drive the Maverick R at 5 mph and below. The Can-Am’s transmission has a low-range mode but dual-clutch units like this just aren’t great when you’re crawling. It feels especially slippy and jerky, which is the opposite of what you want when you’re trying to finesse your way up a rock wall. The side-by-side has a major advantage when it comes to approach angle and ground clearance, but you have to fight it a lot more. 

That said, the Maverick R is the most rewarding when operating in its intended environment. The fun-per-dollar value is way higher and if nothing else, Can-Am has built a vehicle that forces you to grin and pick the bugs out of your teeth. It isn’t practical, comfortable, or reasonable in any sense, so good thing for the Mav that’s not the criteria for our off-road toy test. It’s the best at what it’s built for, and for that reason, it wins.

Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com