The Bravado Bison is a four-door crew cab pickup truck manufactured in-universe by Bravado, returning in Grand Theft Auto VI after a long run in Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. The truck was confirmed for the new game through multiple sightings in the second official trailer released in May 2025, where it appears as a second-generation model with a heavier, more modern silhouette drawn from the fifth-generation RAM 1500. In a state built around swamps, farmland, beach towns, and highway sprawl, the Bison slots in as the default blue-collar workhorse of Leonida.
Overview
The Bison belongs to the larger family of pickup trucks in the series, a class Rockstar has leaned into heavily for the rural and suburban parts of Leonida. It is a full-size four-door pickup with a short bed, fitted out in civilian, commercial, and government liveries across the series. Bravado itself is a thinly veiled parody of Dodge, and the Bison is the lineup's answer to the real-world RAM 1500. That framing has stayed consistent across every game it has appeared in, even as the sheet metal has been redrawn to match whatever pickup generation happens to be on American roads at launch.
Because Leonida is modelled on Florida and parts of Georgia, the Bison fits the setting naturally. Pickups are everywhere in that part of the United States, from beach towing duty to farm work to daily commuting, and Rockstar's world has been populated with Bisons in each of those contexts. The truck is unglamorous on purpose. That contrast, where a dusty workhorse shares a highway with tuned exotics, is part of what gives the vehicles and combat side of the game its texture.
Appearance in GTA VI
The Bison was confirmed for Grand Theft Auto VI when Rockstar Games published the game's second official trailer on May 6, 2025, alongside the updated release window. Pre-release coverage independently identified the truck in several trailer frames. The second-generation Bison carries a squared-off grille, a wider stance, and a taller beltline than its predecessor, all cues pulled from the current-generation RAM 1500. Multiple body colors and at least two trim tiers have been spotted across the trailer's scenes, from stripped-down work trucks to chrome-trimmed daily drivers.
Trailer 2 Sightings
The three most widely documented Bison appearances in the second trailer are listed below. Each has been corroborated by at least two independent pre-release vehicle breakdowns.
Timestamp | Scene | Bison Variant |
|---|---|---|
0:35 | Interstate 97 traffic, towing a personal watercraft on a trailer | Silver civilian crew cab |
1:27 | Roadside shot of Lucia during community service | Red civilian crew cab, passing at speed |
Highway background | Utility truck parked on the shoulder of Interstate 97 | Vice-Dale County work livery with bed equipment |
The highway tow scene at 0:35 is arguably the most significant of the three. It is the first time Rockstar has openly shown a civilian pickup hauling a trailer in marketing footage for the new game, and pre-release coverage trailer towing will again be a real gameplay mechanic rather than a cinematic one. The utility Bison on the shoulder of the same highway wears a Vice-Dale County livery, placing the truck squarely inside the fictional county structure of Leonida.
Updated Design Language
Compared to the GTA V model, the second-generation Bison is visibly larger and more aggressive. The front clip uses a tall, slab grille flanked by narrow headlight clusters, the fenders bulge over the wheels, and the cab roofline carries further back to accommodate a true four-door crew layout. The bed retains the short, squared profile of its predecessor. Chrome trim, wheel designs, and mirror housings vary between civilian and commercial trims spotted in the trailer, suggesting Rockstar is continuing the series tradition of shipping multiple factory variants of the same base pickup.
Historical Context in the Series
The Bravado Bison was introduced in Grand Theft Auto V in 2013 and has been a fixture of the series ever since, including a long run of livery and performance variants in Grand Theft Auto Online.
Grand Theft Auto V and Online
In GTA V, the Bison appears as a common civilian spawn throughout Los Santos and especially Blaine County, where it is the default pickup for farmers, construction workers, and rural residents. Rockstar's in-game description frames the truck as originally marketed to working people before Bravado doubled the price and pitched it at urban buyers, a piece of satire consistent with the studio's long-running commentary on American truck culture. Its real-world reference points are documented across pre-release and post-launch coverage as a blend of the 2009 to 2018 Dodge Ram 1500 cab, a Ford F-150 style bed, and visual cues pulled from GMC Sierra and Toyota Tundra front-end designs of the same era.
GTA Online expanded the Bison with a set of liveried variants tied to specific in-game companies and jobs, including a construction-marked truck used by the McGill-Olsen company and a branded variant for The Mighty Bush nursery. Both retain the same chassis but add bed equipment, toolboxes, and signage, reinforcing the truck's role as the default commercial pickup in the shared world. Combined, these variants make the Bison one of the most numerically common pickups across the last-generation GTA lineup.
Why the Bison Matters
Within the Bravado catalog, the Bison sits between the smaller Gauntlet muscle coupe and the larger Duneloader utility pickup. Its importance comes from how often it spawns and how flexible its use cases are. It can carry cargo in the bed, haul a trailer, ford shallow water, and take on light off-road driving, which makes it a common sight during both scripted missions and emergent open-world play. That same flexibility is what makes its return in GTA VI feel inevitable rather than surprising.
Real-World Inspiration
Bravado, the fictional manufacturer, is Rockstar's parody of Dodge. The name, the bull emblem, and the heavy reliance on truck and muscle car archetypes all point directly at Dodge's branding, with the Bison specifically referencing the RAM sub-brand that Dodge spun off in 2010. The model's name follows the Bravado tradition of picking horned, heavyweight animals like the Buffalo and the Bison to echo the RAM badge.
The GTA VI Bison updates this template. Pre-release breakdowns repeatedly identify its primary real-world reference as the fifth-generation RAM 1500, which debuted in the real world in 2018 and remains in production. Secondary influences identified by and include the Chevrolet Silverado, especially in the rear quarter and side profile, and Ford F-Series cues in the mirror housings and bed. The result reads as a composite modern American full-size pickup rather than a direct one-to-one copy of any single vehicle.
Element | Real-World Reference |
|---|---|
Overall proportions and front fascia | Fifth-generation RAM 1500 (2018 onward) |
Side profile and rear quarter | Chevrolet Silverado (current generation) |
Mirrors and bed detailing | Ford F-Series (twelfth generation and newer) |
Manufacturer identity (Bravado) | Dodge and RAM |
That composite sourcing is consistent with how Rockstar has always treated vehicle design. The studio picks visual cues that communicate category and class instantly, then files off enough identifying features to avoid direct trademark conflicts. A player who has ever seen a modern full-size American pickup will recognise the Bison as one without needing any label on the tailgate.
Expected Role in Leonida
Given the visual cues and the scenes in Trailer 2, the Bison is expected to fill several overlapping roles across the state. In the rural communities of Grassriversthe surrounding swampland, the Bison should be the default pickup for farmers, hunters, contractors, and airboat operators. In the denser suburbs outside Vice City, it becomes the daily driver for working-class residents who want a single vehicle that can handle commuting, hauling, and weekend recreation. On the interstates, it will likely show up towing boats, jet ski trailers, and cargo trailers, matching the behavior Rockstar teased in the trailer.
Utility and Government Use
The Vice-Dale County utility Bison spotted on the shoulder of Interstate 97 is a strong indicator that county and municipal services will rely on the truck. Pre-release breakdowns have also identified a Bison-based police variant configured around a Vice-Dale Police Department livery, complete with a rooftop light bar and agency markings drawn from real-world Miami-Dade Police patrol trucks. If both variants reach the final game, the Bison will be among the most versatile single chassis in the world, used for work crews, rural police patrols, animal control, parks service, and similar government roles.
Story and Heist Potential
Story-wise, the Bison fits naturally into the working-class framing Rockstar has established for Jason and Lucia. Rockstar has shown both protagonists occupying lower-middle-class spaces in marketing, including Lucia's community service sequence, and the Bison is exactly the kind of truck a character in that orbit would drive or steal. For heist play, its bed and towing capability make it a credible getaway vehicle for anything bulky, loud, or better hidden under a tarp. A separate dually Bravado pickup was also shown in Trailer 2 towing a large safe through the streets, which hints that pickup-based hauling jobs and heist sequences are designed around trucks of this class rather than vans alone.
Gameplay Expectations
No official performance numbers for the GTA VI Bison have been published by Rockstar as of this writing, so any specific top speed, acceleration, or handling figures should be treated as unconfirmed until the game ships. Based on the truck's trailer behavior and its role history in GTA V and Online, reasonable expectations are a strong torque curve, competent off-road grip, middling braking, and moderate on-road speed. It will almost certainly be one of the first pickups the player can legitimately buy or commandeer early in the story, rather than a locked late-game unlock.
Notes on Sources and Uncertainty
Everything specific to GTA VI in this article is drawn from either Rockstar's official second trailer or from pre-release vehicle breakdowns that identified the truck visually in that trailer. Because the game has not yet shipped, the exact in-game name, trim list, price, and performance tuning are still officially unannounced. The article will need to be revisited after launch on November 19, 2026, to confirm or correct those details and to add first-party data from the final release.
Any content tied to leaked 2022 development footage has been deliberately excluded. Only Trailer 2 material and subsequent Rockstar-sanctioned marketing is used as a basis for GTA VI claims, in line with this wiki's sourcing rules.
Related
Pickup Trucks category overview
Grassriversthe rural Everglades-inspired region where the Bison is expected to be a default spawn
Leonidathe state-level setting of the game
Vehicles and Combat system overview