Woke up this morning, charged your Silverado EV.
HBO’s classic series The Sopranos made an appearance during the Super Bowl along with Chevy’s first electric truck. Nearly frame for frame, Chevy’s 60-second ad matches the opening sequence of the 1999-2006 show with the late James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano in a Chevy Suburban. Except this is the 2022 version.
In the driver’s seat is Jamie-Lynn Sigler, the actor who played gangster Tony’s daughter, Meadow, who sat next to her father in the passenger seat in her most famous scene. Instead of a cigar she has a lollipop; in place of Tony’s gold chains she wears a tennis bracelet; instead of paying a toll she uses her electronic E-ZPass. But most noticeably, instead of a gas guzzler, she’s driving from Manhattan into New Jersey in a dual-motor battery-powered Chevy Silverado with 400 miles of range. The truck will first be available summer 2023.
A few days before the ad aired, Sigler said in a Zoom call that the first thing she noticed when she got into the truck was, “This feels like something from the future.” This EV, with its 17-inch touchscreen, silent ride, and EV-to-EV charging ability, makes a 1999 Suburban feel like a relic from another era. Though there are echoes of the big Chevy vehicles of yore in its dominating size (the truck bed is about 9 feet long), and cabin that seats five comfortably.
Would Meadow be riding in an electric pickup in 2022? Sigler thinks so. “Meadow has always been a socially, environmentally, and all-around conscious person.”
Sigler said she got to actually drive the e-truck during the shoot and felt it represented the “heavily flawed characters” from the show well, who are tough but reliable.
The minute-long spot, directed by show creator David Chase, concludes at a charging station with another familiar Sopranos face. As with the series itself, we’d hate to spoil the surprise ending.
