(patriotic music)
- In this episode we're gonna take a look
at one of the best eras for trucks ever.
The muscle trucks of the 1990s.
(house music)
The SVT Lightning, the 454 SS,
and of course (engine revving)
the Ferrari-beating GMC Cyclone.
Plus a couple amazing trucks
you've probably never heard of.
Or maybe you have, I don't know.
Why do these insane high performance trucks even exist?
And will we ever see anything like them ever again?
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Up until the 1970s,
there were not many high performance trucks
that made it to production.
And if they did
the performance parts typically bolstered
things like payload and towing capacity.
- [Announcer] Proof the 1960 Chevrolet trucks
are years ahead of any others in durability
and they haul loads faster.
- They were never really built for flat-out speed.
If you wanted a powerful truck back then
you had to modify it yourself,
which to be fair a lot of people did.
I mean, that's how monster trucks started.
I think we should do a whole video on monster trucks.
Let me know in the comments
if that's something you'd want to see.
My point is most trucks were used
strictly for work back then
and the lifestyle truck didn't really exist.
But that was all about to change.
During the 60s people started using trucks as daily drivers
and not just work vehicles
and truck manufacturers took notice.
Eventually they started releasing
super sick high end trim levels
for their most popular trucks in small numbers.
They were called trick trucks
and manufacturers competed to have the coolest versions.
These trick trucks had amazing names
like the Jeep Honcho, the Dude, the Dodge Warlock,
the Beau James, and the Gentleman Jim.
What's up about these James/Jim cars?
Where's the Nolan wide-body wide boy edition?
SM my damn H.
Many of these trucks were just appearance packages
with things like fancy graphics on the sides, buckets seats,
and interiors upholstered by Levi's Jeans, I'm not kidding.
By the early 1970s
muscle cars were choked by emission standards
and went from having tons of power
to being anemic within a couple years.
One of the reasons this happened
was because of the mandated use of catalytic converters.
The catalytic converters of the 70s
helped reduce toxic gas emissions,
but they also sucked down power
quicker than a case of Code Red at a Halo 3 all-nighter.
I really, really want to play grifball right now,
that'd be amazing.
Anyway this led to an era of horrible cars
like the Mustang II or the Barracuda with a slant six.
These just big sludgy behemoths.
But Dodge, cunning like a Ram, found a loophole.
Cars were required to have catalytic converters,
but trucks were exempt from the law
as long as they were over 6,100 pounds.
So for the 1978 model year
Dodge took their half ton D Series platform
and dropped in a 360 cubic inch 5.9 liter LA V8
that was used in police interceptors under the hood.
Upgrades included high flow heads, a four barrel carb,
and most importantly, no catalytic converters.
And the result was the Lil' Red Express.
(jazzy music)
This truck had two huge vertical stack exhaust pipes
like a big rig, that wood paneling,
and a big old decal on the door.
It straight up looked like a toy,
which is fitting because Dodge had previous released
a whole line of adult toys trucks.
sauce,
which included the Warlock.
Now you might say,
"Nolan 6,100 pounds, that's a thick boy."
But despite its weight
the Lil' Red Express was quick as hell.
The 225 horsepower produced
was five more than the Pontiac Trans Am of that year.
"Car and Driver" tested a bunch of performance cars
such as the Trans Am, Porsche 924, and Corvette
in a zero to 100 test
and the Lil' Red Express beat every single one of them!
In fact, the Lil' Red Express
was the fastest production American vehicle
to 100 miles per hour in 1978.
That's impressive on many levels.
The biggest one being
the truck had the aerodynamics of a brick.
Towards the end of the 80s,
after engine technology had gotten significantly better,
the big three started experimenting again with fast trucks.
Carroll Shelby worked with Dodge to make the Shelby Dakota.
(jazzy music)
This performance truck traded
the 3.9 liter V6 from the stock Dakota
for a fuel-injected 5.2 liter V8,
sporting a blackout grill, sweet graphics,
and a freaking cool little triangle thing on the back.
It wasn't super fast compared to nowadays standards,
making do with 175 horsepower and 270 foot pounds of torque,
but it was the highest performing production truck
next to the Lil' Red Express.
Dodge actually made
a convertible Dakota during the late 80s
as a collaboration with the American Sunroof Company.
Remember that name 'cause it's gonna pop up again later.
The Shelby Dakota,
which was Caroll's first rear wheel drive car
in almost a decade,
helped kickoff what would become
one of the best areas for trucks in the history of truckdom.
Over at Lamborghini they were designing
their own muscle truck for the Italian military.
After a few different prototypes
the raging bull started producing
small numbers of the LM002,
an off-road brute with a 5.2 liter V12 from the Countach.
I think we got to paused and acknowledge how crazy that is.
I love Lamborghini, man.
Meanwhile, Ford had a hot truck in the works
called the Ranger SHO.
This super high output Ranger
was developed with Roush Racing
and had the three liter SHO ironblock V6
putting out 200 horses and 200 foot pounds of torque
at 4,800 RPM.
That's a perfect horsepork.
The boys at Roush threw in
a T-five manual transmission from the Mustang GT,
and keep in mind
the Ranger was still a small truck at this point.
All that fun stuff packed into a mini truck
would have been a collector's item by now,
but sadly the SHO Ranger never made it to production,
although a few concept vehicles
were sent out to be tested by car magazines.
It's sad that they didn't make it.
Putting a big engine in a relatively small package
wasn't a new idea.
GM engineers in the late 80s however
were trying to figure out a way to make a truck version
of one of the sickest 80s sleeper cars,
the Buick Grand National.
The highest performance Grand National, dubbed the GNX,
had a turbocharged 3.8 liter V6,
capable of an insane 360 foot pounds of torque
and 276 horsepower.
A Grand National truck would have been amazing,
but the car was being phased out in 1987
and Buick wasn't really a badge that made trucks.
So they said, no.
Eventually it was GMC who agreed
they could use a halo truck,
but opted to go with a cheaper engine than the turbo six.
The result was the Cyclone.
(engine revving)
Built on the S10 compact truck platform
shared with the GMC Sonoma,
this 3,600 pound four wheel drive sport truck
has a 4.3 liter turbocharged Vortec V6 under the hood
making 280 horsepower and 350 foot pounds of torque.
It could be modified to handle 20 plus pounds of boost.
The cyclone looks sporty and low for a truck,
distancing itself from other trucks
that touted their off-road capabilities.
The Cyclone wasn't for going off road,
it didn't even like doing work really.
With a short bed and a payload of only 500 pounds,
it wouldn't have been able to do much work if it tried.
GMC even said that towing was not recommended.
But what the Cyclone lacked in payload
it made up for in flat out speed.
"Car and Driver" tested it in 1991 against a Ferrari 348
and the Cyclone smoked the Italian stallion
to 60 miles an hour.
The Cyclone posted a 5.3 seconds zero to 60,
which was insanely fast for a truck
even by today's standards.
But after 60 miles per hour
the aerodynamics of the square boy truck proved detrimental
and the Ferrari ended up beating the Cyclone
in the quarter mile, unfortunately.
But honestly the unthinkable had already been achieved.
They even made 10 Cyclones in collaboration with,
you guessed it, the American Sunroof Company
that had a convertible top and a Marlboro livery.
These trucks are the holy grail for Cyclone fans.
These things are so sick.
You gotta love the early 90s Marlboro branding,
even if cigarettes are responsible
for millions of deaths per year.
Despite doing modest numbers
of both the Cyclone and the Typhoon,
just short of 5,000 total,
the article that "Car and Driver" came out with
brought this muscle truck into the mainstream
and made everyone realize
how cool the idea of a fast street truck is.
And the idea caught on.
(jazzy music)
Over at Chevrolet engineers took a new gen C 1500 truck,
internally known as the GMT 400,
and stuffed one of their biggest engines in it,
the 454 cubic inch 7.4 liter V8.
Later versions of the 454 SS made
255 horsepower and a massive 405 foot pounds of torque
in a relatively small package.
You got to remember that trucks are massive now
compared to trucks back then.
And even the full sized trucks of yesteryear
are smaller than what we consider small trucks today.
All that power and the 454 kicked in at around 1600 RPM,
which helped the truck achieve
a zero to 60 time of 7.7 seconds,
on par with the Mustang GT of that era.
But you wouldn't know it from the outside.
The 454 SS, unlike the Cyclone,
looked like any other truck on the road at the time.
And the only defining features were the blacked out grill,
a red bow tie, and the 454 SS logo on the back.
It's pretty much a sleeper.
You would never know that this was a muscle truck
with a massive engine and Bilstein shocks
if you were just a casual fan.
Ford saw all of this playing out at GM
and realized that a halo truck of their own
could bring attention to the rest of their truck line.
After all they had the best selling truck in America
with the F-150 and thus had a market share to protect.
So they looked to the high performance division of Ford,
SVO, to take the reins on this new project.
In 1993 Ford's Special Vehicle Operations
debuted the first generation Ford SVT lightning.
(thunder)
So the blue oval's biggest competition with this new truck
was the 454 SS.
Mainly because the Cyclone was virtually unbeatable
and it didn't make too much sense
from a business perspective
to produce something that could compete with that,
mainly because it would cost a ton of money to develop
and they didn't plan on selling
very many of these performance trucks.
A truck that could compete with the 454 however
was a much more attainable goal.
They took a full sized ninth gen F-150,
put extensive suspension and handling upgrades in it,
and dropped a 5.8 liter V8 under the hood.
Engineers upgraded the stock headers
to cast iron cylinder heads from the GT40 of all cars,
they installed high flow ports,
and tuned the engine to make 240 horses
with 240 foot pounds of torque, that's a horsepork.
The lightning was two and a half inches lower
than a stock F-150
and had Formula GP shocks upfront
and both a front and rear anti-roll bar for better handling.
Unlike the Cyclone
the SVT Lightning maintained
almost all of the payload capabilities of the F-150
and a tow limit of 5,000 pounds.
It was still a truck that you could drive like a Mustang.
Although it was close
to three seconds slower to 60 then the Cyclone,
the suspension upgrades help the Lightning to handle
better than both the Cyclone and the 454 SS.
The first gen lightning would go on to sell
almost 12,000 units more than the Cyclone
but 5,000 fewer than the 454 SS.
Following the debut of the Lightning in '93,
the high-performance muscle truck market was solidified
as a legitimate niche scene.
But one company was noticeably silent
during these first few years these trucks were popping up.
But that's because they were in the basement
mixing up some medicine.
(electronic music)
For a couple of years from 1998 on
Dodge offered a high performance version of their Dakota
with a 360 cubic inch Magnum V8 under the hood.
They also bolstered handling
by dropping it an inch from stock Dakota height.
It had a quick ratio steering box
and heavy duty front and rear sway bars.
The Dakota RT could do
a seven second zero to 60 on street tires,
but many RT owners put slicks on it and hit the drag strip.
(tires screeching)
Around the same time
Dodge had a concept truck called the Sidewinder.
It was a hot rod looking truck
with an eight liter V10 from the Viper GTS-R,
making 640 horsepower.
Supposedly the truck could get to 170 miles per hour
but it never went into production.
I can already imagine me and the boys
looking cool as heck cruising around in one of these things.
I'm driving,
James is sitting shotgun,
got Jeremiah and Jobe in the back.
It's a good day.
I miss my boys.
These high performance trucks paved the way
for all the super amazing trucks we got
in the 2000s and 2010s.
The second gen Lightning, my personal favorite,
the SRT 10, my also personal favorite,
the Trackhawk, the Silverado SS Intimidator.
When there's competition between brands,
we the consumers reap the benefits.
If I keep talking about these cool ass trucks
I'm probably gonna want to buy one.
So before I get tempted to boot up Craigslist,
that's where I'll leave you today.
Trucks are great.
To the viewer who suggested I comb my hair
before I filmed one of these videos, no.
I'm representing for all the curly boys out there,
all the thick boys out there.
For something a little different
check out this episode of "Wheelhouse" on vans.
Follow Donut on all social media @donutmedia.
Follow me @nolanjsykes
for the ongoing ramblings of a madman in progress.
Be nice and I'll see you next time.