Muscle Trucks

Seven of the Fastest Pickups From the Factory

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Most trucks are made to carry stuff. These ones are built to haul – haul keister that is, smokin’ the rear tires and blitzing down the quarter-mile.

The muscle truck isn’t a new idea, starting way back when V8 power first found its way into the workhorse machines that kept our farms, factories, and ranches functioning.

Eventually, you ended up with stuff like the ’68 Ford F100 with the optional big-block 390 and an available four-speed manual. Bales of hay never got home so fast.

Here’s a roundup of some of the fastest production pickups to ever hit the road. Crank up the Corb Lund and giddy-up.



1970 El Camino 454 SS

This is only nominally a pickup, but hey, party out back and business up front. How could we not?

Actually, make that party up front, too: this pickup/car hybrid has a 7.4-litre Chevy big-block shoehorned under the nose. This gargantuan engine – what you’d call the “big stove” option – was rated in the neighbourhood of 450 horsepower, but was actually rumoured to crank out north of 500 hp.

This meant the El Camino could really “andale.” Even though there wasn’t much weight over the rear when the box was unladen, quarter-mile times were reportedly in the low 13 seconds, right out of the box. Bolt on some stickier rubber and chuck a bag or two of cement in the rear and it’d go even quicker.

There were various other hot rod versions of the El Camino, but the 1970 version was the bookend for this type of lunacy. Along came the fuel crunch of the 1970s, and by ’71, the cars were already losing power. We’d like to think the spirit of the car is carried by the Australia-only Holden Utes, which can still be optioned with major Chevy V8 power.



1978 Dodge Lil’ Red Express

In the late 1970s, the fastest-accelerating American car wasn’t a car. It was a pickup, and it had stacks.

The Lil’ Red Express Truck was built off the short-wheelbase Dodge D150 half-ton pickup, and owed its existence to some clever wriggling through a loophole in the restrictive EPA regulations. Under the law, engines which had already been certified could be lightly modified, so Dodge’s engineers went all out, beefing up the valve springs, reworking exhaust and intake, and swapping out the heads for better flowing ones.

The police-spec 360 cubic inch (5.9L) V8 also had a police-spec cam shaft, and didn’t have to run with a catalytic converter. Basically, we’re talking the Blues Brothers Bluesmobile in pickup form. Hit it.

While the V8 only pumped out 255 hp, it did so at just 2,250 rpm, making the Lil’ Red Express worthy of its name. When Car and Driver clocked it from zero to 100 mph, it crossed the line quicker than any other American car of the time.

And then there were those gleaming chrome stacks, each a healthy 2.5” in diameter. The brochure reportedly indicated that the Express might not comply with local noise ordinance laws. Now that’s a truck.



1991 GMC Syclone

The compact GMC Sonoma was a decent little truck, available with a fuel-efficient four-banger, or a workhorse 4.3L V6 with 160 hp. Or you could get it with a 280 hp, 350 lb.-ft. of torque turbocharged version of that V6 and go hunting Ferraris.

While Chevy brought back the 454SS in pickup form in 1990, the Syclone was even faster, and was the quickest production pickup truck in the world for years. Developed partially by the team that came up with the 20th anniversary Trans-Am Turbo – the one with the turbocharged heartbeat of a Buick Grand National – the Syclone combined massive turbo punch with an all-wheel-drive holeshot.

Zero to 100 km/h came in just five seconds, and this boosted-up Sonoma would sweep on through the quarter-mile in 13.5 seconds, solid figures, even by today’s standards. At the time, it was enough to stomp a Ferrari 348 into the ground during a head-to-head comparison test.



1999 Ford SVT Lightning

The F-150 sits perpetually atop the best-seller list, loved by Canadians for its durability and strength. Apparently, when you’ve got the R&D budget buoyed by bulletproof sales results, sometimes you go a bit crazy.

A creation from Ford’s Special Vehicles Team, the Lightning has a 360 hp supercharged 5.4L V8 (later versions saw power creep up to 380 hp), and can put down some seriously non-truck-like performance stats. On the skidpad, it’ll also pull 0.85 g, with sticky stock rubber.

There are a few weak points to be sorted out in the drivetrain, particularly as many owners modify their Lightnings for easy power gains. Getting more than 400 hp out of the blown-V8 is fairly straightforward, but you have to beef up the driveline to match.

Having said that, it’s a pickup truck with a 5,000 lb. towing rating and an engine that’s mostly shared with the sleek Ford GT. That’s quite a recipe.



2004 Dodge Ram SRT-10

In every car company, to hear some tell it, there are people who build things, and people who keep an eye on the bottom line and make sure no one tries anything silly. Sometimes, the second group of folks take a vacation. That’s how this sort of thing happens.

At some point, a group of Chrysler engineers were sitting around looking at the empty engine bay of a Dodge Ram pickup, when one of them said, “You know, I bet we could fit a Viper engine in there.” Then, apparently because there was no one around to stop them, they did just that.

The SRT-10 was the result, and it’s a thundering behemoth of a thing, a sledgehammer powered by a 510 hp 8.3L V10. It’s not just that it’s fast, it’s the noise it makes, an earth-shattering howl as it lunges forward like a charging bull elephant.

Happily, it’s got the brakes and rubber to match the power — big 305-series tires on 22-inch rims styled to look like the Viper. In fact, the SRT-10 is basically just a Viper that can haul lumber home for your summer deck project. Sometimes things are best when you just leave the engineers to their own devices.



2005 Toyota Tacoma X-Runner

Toyota produces nice, safe, reliable cars and trucks. They have good resale. They can be a tiny bit dull.

However, they also have a pickup truck that’ll spank a Nissan 350Z in a handling contest — where’d that come from?

The X-Runner is a sport-tuned version of the Tacoma with lowered suspension, 225-series summer rubber, a chassis cross-brace, and optional TRD big-brake package and supercharger. In factory form, it’s plenty quick, with a 4.0L V6 making 236 hp, and a 6-speed manual transmission. The supercharger boosts things up to 305 hp – Z-killing territory.

And, because it’s a Toyota pickup, the X-Runner is still a semi-practical choice, with that aforementioned solid resale and reliability. Toyota just announced they’d be continuing this sportiest version of the Tacoma for 2014. That’s good news.



2014 Ford F-150 Tremor

Spiritual ancestor to the Lightning, the Tremor sport truck is a one-year experiment that apparently won’t carry over to the new, lighter F150 — at least, not right away.

Powered by a twin-turbo Ecoboost V6, this regular-cab pickup’s got 365 hp and an even-better 420 lb.-ft. of torque on tap way down low in the rev range. Stomp the throttle from a stop and you can really rip up the pavement.

Here’s hoping Ford brings back this Ecoboosted option next year, where less weight will mean even better ground-shaking performance.

Driving Canada

It just amazes me that GM could not follow up the 454SS with a proper Vortec 454 or 8.1L post 1996. That and they didn't do more with the Typhoon in the 2nd gen S/T trucks.

Of those listed:
1) 1970 LS-6/M22 El Camino
2) SRT-10 Ram
3) Syclone
4) Lightning

Rather than the Lil' Red I'd take a 1976/77 GM truck 1/2 ton RCSB step side with the 454 option.

Love the 2014 Ford F-150 Tremor, it really looks Amazing!  That color is really cool!
Thanks for sharing these pics with us.  

Regards
Rod

Missing the first: 1963 Dodge Custom Sport Special, with 365HP 426 Max Wedge power.