DETROIT – Shortly before the North American International Auto Show opened to the public Saturday, Chevrolet gathered a crowd of local students for the unveiling of its first LEGO Silverado.

The students clamored around the Chevrolet space on the auto show floor, curious about the surprise hidden under a black sheet. "We want to see it!" a student from the excited group yelled out.

The sheet was lifted to reveal a bright red LEGO replica of Chevrolet's 2019 Silverado 1500 LT Trail Boss.

"We are thrilled to reveal the LEGO Silverado, said Sandor Piszar, the marketing director for Chevrolet Trucks. "This is a totally realistic replica of our all-new 2019 Silverado LT Trail Boss, and it's the first time that a full-sized Chevy vehicle has ever been made with LEGO pieces."

He also announced Chevrolet will be featured in a cameo role in the upcoming film, "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part," which will be released on Feb. 8.

"These LEGO opportunities are the latest in our partnership with Warner Bros., which started back in 2017 with the reveal of a full-sized LEGO Batmobile right here in Detroit," he added. That unveiling coincided with the release of "The LEGO Batman Movie."

More: $110,000 limited edition Lincoln Continental with 'suicide doors' sells out in just 48 hours

More: 3 highs, 3 lows of Detroit auto show: Toyota Supra generates buzz, Infiniti flubs debut

More: Detroit auto show: Tech giants take the wheel in voice recognition systems

As the students crowded around the large red truck, staring at the hundreds of thousands of LEGO pieces, Piszar said Chevrolet hopes their partnerships with LEGO and Warner Bros. will inspire kids with imagination and creativity.

In a press release, Chevrolet shared facts about the red LEGO Silverado – with working lights – that was put on display.

• The model is 72 inches high, 240 inches long and 96 inches wide

• It weighs 3,307 pounds total

• The most common LEGO brick used for the model is a red 2x8 stud brick

• It took more than 2,000 hours to assemble

Each of the 334,544 LEGO pieces that came together for the replica were hand-selected and placed by 18 LEGO Master Builders at the LEGO Model Shop in Enfield, Connecticut, the company added.

One of those LEGO Master Builders was Jeffrey Rushby, who was on-site to watch the unveiling.

"It starts with a 3D model from Chevy, of the truck, and then we port that into our LEGO brick builder program, which converts it to brick. And then there's many, many hours of clean-up and putting in all the fine-tuned... like the Trail Boss sticker and the Chevrolet bowtie, and eventually it's ready to go to the build floor, which is a layer-by-layer, brick-by-brick process," said Rushby, who is a senior model builder.

Rushby said all of the LEGO pieces were then glued together, and the finished model was loaded onto a car-carrier truck and transported from Enfield to Detroit.

"It's always great to see how kids react to our models, it's why we do what we do. The best part of the job is to get it in front of the kids," he said.

Makayla Stone, 11, said she wants to go into engineering when she grows up. "This year we're working on robotics and we're making a robot (out of LEGOs)," she said.

Excited to see the new cars and put together a miniature LEGO Silverado with her fellow students, Stone said the unveiling sparked ideas about what her own school group can do with the LEGO robot they're planning.

"It was so amazing," Stone said.

Contact Aleanna Siacon at ASiacon@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AleannaSiacon.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Chevrolet built this 2019 Silverado truck out of 335,000 LEGO pieces