We're beginning to witness the expansion of a niche segment, all of which started with the Ford F-150 Raptor pickup truck. By all metrics, Ford has done it again, ensuring that its newest Raptor is the best yet, but trucks like the F250R SuperRaptor and MegaRaptor prove that there's a market for trucks larger than the F-150 Raptor. And much like the sports car segment, there's plenty of room for the smaller guys too. Ford learned the hard way that it should have kept the Ranger in production and is now scrambling to get it back into the market.

Chevy has been comfortable soaking up sales that it would otherwise have to split with Ford, but given the wide open gap, it thinks its latest souped-up Colorado has what it takes to challenge the Raptor. It may not win on any Baja racing course, but then again it doesn't exactly have to.

Looking at it strictly from a sales angle, that's a no-brainer. The Colorado ZR2 comes in at a minimum of $10,000 less than the Raptor. It may be down 142 horsepower in 3.6-liter gasoline V6 outfit, but it also weighs quite a bit less, by nearly 1,000 pounds depending on the spec of either truck. However, none of these facts helped keep Chevy from benchmarking the truck agains the F-150 Raptor, and thankfully Roman Mica of The Fast Lane Truck decided to compare the two to see how close to the mark Chevy came and satisfy our curiosity. Oh yeah, and the Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro also makes an appearance here somewhere.