I’d buy it chrome-free.

The chrome wheels and gas cap, the chrome rails on the cargo bed and the chrome-edged running boards were pretty. But they made little sense in the dust and mud and along the rocky paths where I drove the 2010 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT Z71, a four-wheel-drive pickup engineered for off-road use.

The cacophonous chrome cladding, a part of the “Z71 appearance package,” was like gilding on a dump truck, which reflects how I used the Silverado 1500 LT Z71 at local landfills.

The pretty stuff meant more work of the marginally productive kind — covering the chrome cargo rails to prevent scratching, washing and polishing the chrome wheels, removing gunk from the chrome-edged running boards.

Many of the real truck people I met in my nearly month-long life with the fancily dressed Silverado Z71 shook their heads. Their assessment was that I was a truck poseur, an escapee from an office cubicle more interested in making a statement about reclaimed manhood than I was about doing real work.

It became clear to me why Chevrolet’s parent corporation, General Motors, offers 31 versions of the Silverado 1500 pickup, down from 37 models in the 2009 model year. Pickups are bought for style and function, one more than the other or in equal parts, depending on your station in life.

There are pickups for poseurs, trucks with sparkling exterior options generally eschewed by real truck people. There are single-cab versions, “standard cabs,” which are bare-bones work trucks consigned to a hard life of hauling and pulling, largely unconcerned about aesthetics.

There are the extended-cab models, such as the Silverado 1500 LT Z71 driven for this column, which come with two small rear doors allowing access to the rear cabin. There are crew-cab models with four full side doors — big doors with handles that swing forward in the same direction.

Added to that dizzying array are the following mixes: bed sizes (short, 78.7 inches; and long, 97.8 inches); engines (4.3-liter, 195-horsepower V-6, preferred by people more interested in fuel economy than pulling and hauling; a 4.8-liter, 295-horsepower V-8; a 5.3-liter, 315-horsepower V-8; and the optional 6.2-liter, 403-horsepower Vortec V-8, used for this column, which is capable off running on gasoline or 85 percent ethanol); and interiors ranging from the workaday cloth and vinyl of the tested 1500 LT Z71 to the plusher-than-thou, leather and wood grain interiors of LTZ models.

In the good old days, when regular gasoline was flowing at $2 a gallon and less, when easy credit made all things possible and when jobs were careers, Chevrolet sold all of those models, and did so en masse. But those days are gone, along with some of the models favored by poseurs.

The oddly outfitted Silverado 1500 LT Z71, chrome on the outside and practical as heck on the inside, remains. And after nearly a month behind the wheel of that truck, it’s easy to see why real truck people love it minus the pretty stuff. It’s a bona fide workhorse, capable of hauling 1,714 pounds onboard and pulling a trailer weighing 10,400 pounds.

It is as much at home in the mud and muck as it is on the highway, where it moves so smoothly and competently, with such easy acceleration thanks to that optional 6.2-liter V-8, it’s easy to forget you are in a pickup truck.

GM boasts that its full-size Silverado models get the best mileage in the full-size pickup segment. Perhaps they do, as a group, when available technology such as dual-mode gas-electric hybrids, automatic cylinder deactivation and flexible fueling systems using ethanol are used.

But I found little to cheer about on that score with a real-world, gasoline-only performance (because I didn’t go out of my way in pursuit of E85 ethanol) of 14 miles per gallon in the city and 18 miles per gallon on the highway, powered by the 6.2-liter, 403-horsepower V-8 in the test truck.

Still, I fell madly in love with the Silverado 1500 LT Z71. It did so much work, moved so much stuff without grumble or rumble, I wanted to adopt it as a member of the family.

The bottom line

Forget the chrome. This is a hard-nosed work truck that comes with all sorts of useful stuff on the inside, including the OnStar emergency communication and navigation system, laptop hookups and other infotainment connectivity. It’s also one of the best-driving trucks on the market.

2010 model changes: Little has changed for 2010, which means, for the budget-minded, it might make more sense to shop for a 2009 model. Just go easy on the options, of which there are many in the Silverado line.

Suggestion: GM should consider reducing Silverado production costs by reducing/consolidating options. Do we really need chrome-clad rails on the cargo bay?

Ride, acceleration and handling: Excellent highway marks in all three. But this is a big truck, which means it could be nerve-wrecking for you and fellow motorists in tight city traffic.

Head-turning quotient: Big, bold and powerful. City drivers generally stay out of the way of this one.

Capacities: Two full side doors, two small rear-access doors and a short cargo bed. Seats for six people. Payload, onboard capacity, is 1,714 pounds. It can tow a trailer weighing 10,400 pounds. Fuel capacity is 26 gallons of regular gasoline or E85 ethanol, or gasoline/E85 mix.

Safety: Standard equipment includes ventilated front-disc/rear-disc brakes. This column prefers rear discs all around. Also standard are four-wheel antilock brakes, electronic brake force distribution for extra protection in panic stops, electronic stability and traction control, front side air bags and rear head air bags.

2010 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 LT Z71

Base price: $32,275 As tested: $37,490

Type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, extended-cab pickup designed for off-road use

Engine: 6.2-liter V-8 with a flexible fueling system, mated to a four-speed automatic transmission

Mileage: 15 mpg combined, tested using gas only and carrying heavy loads