Why doesn't anyone make a race truck anymore?

[excell]

Been thinking about this a lot lately. I ask the hivemind: Why haven't manufacturers, or even the aftermarket for that matter, put out a race truck like the Lightning or Ram SRT-10? "Performance" trucks have gone the way of the Raptor, Z-71, upcoming Ram RTX, etc. -- even aftermarket like Shelby trucks are supercharged lifted bro-dozers.

 

I'd kill for a stock height or slightly lowered performance F150 Super Crew "Lightning" with bigger brakes and better road suspension and the Raptor EcoBoost or a supercharged Coyote, or a similarly set up Ram with the Hellcat, etc. Surely there has to be a market for road-mannered trucks with big fucking horsepower, right?

[Geeto67]

"performance Truck" is somewhat of a subjective thing - they still make them in the form of the Raptor, Chevy Z71, F-150 Tremor, and Dodge Rebel TRX, but they old school "muscle trucks" like you are talking about have kind of died on the vine. I suspect they don't make them because there are like 6 people who would buy them and 3 of those people are on this forum, and 2 of the 6 probably can't get approved for financing or insurance.

 

Hot Rod and Muscle trucks tend to be a product of regulation. When muscle cars died out in the 1970's because of insurance and emissions, the emissions exempt and differently rate tabled trucks became the go to for go-fast with the Dodge little red express, Big block Chevys, and 460 fords. When fuel mileage became the bottleneck for performance cars in the 80's and 90's, the big three when to the fuel mileage exempt trucks again and built the 454SS, 2wd 5.9 ram (and later SRT10 ram), and Lightning.

 

Right now, performance cars are in their second golden age, and really there is no reason to look at the trucks for a cheat around a set of rules. But that doesn't mean the bones aren't there - a 2wd F150 tremor is a set of lowering springs away from being a modern day lightning. Ram will sell you a bare bones 2wd tradesman with the 5.7 hemi, and Chevy will sell an LS powered 2wd LT even if it is the 5.3 (I hear turbos work well on them). The big three just don't see a need to offer you a sticker and name job for 6 people that would buy them over a challenger/camaro/mustang/SS/SHO/Charger/etc...

 

Now I will say since dodge's business model seems to be "hellcat all the things" there are rumors of a 2021 hellcat ram road truck, but right now that is for a quad cab truck. The Rebel TRX is supposed to be hellcat powered but it's a raptor competitor. I will say this though - a buddy of mine just bought an TrackHawk Gran Cherokee, and if you don't need a bed that's kind of the next best thing to a muscle truck.

[-Alex-]

Basically what he said. Probably doesn’t help that with the entry level trucks being $35-40k, a hot rod version would be $50k+ no doubt.

[Not Brian]

The 3.5 ebs have made more power than the old Lightings since 2015. Get a standard cab rwd model and there you go. Or get a Chevy 1500 with a 420hp/460tq 6.2 like I did. These niche trucks exist; They just don't have the silly badge names.

 

Just read Kerry's post after typing mine and I'm basically repeating it. But yeah, why buy a sports truck when there are infinity funcar options out there at the moment

[RyM3rC]

you mean, you want a truck for how you're going to use it vs. how the marlboro man would? :lolguy:

 

if you want a street truck, are you sure you want a truck at all? porch makes what you want. so does MB. so does BMW. the muricans are still sellin 16k tow ratings and starbux points

[Robochan]

http://performance.ford.com/enthusiasts/media-room/20180/10/2018-ford-f-150-supercab-by-zb-southern-ground-and-kurt-busch.html

[STEVE-O]

its very easy to build your own now and roll the added options into payments. A few dealers made their on lightning when the coyote came out and you can pretty much add any option into a raptor you ever wanted or even just get a roush raptor and call it a day. But again it comes with a decent price tag

[Geeto67]

http://performance.ford.com/enthusiasts/media-room/20180/10/2018-ford-f-150-supercab-by-zb-southern-ground-and-kurt-busch.html

 

look at how long the thing is...jesus.

[Darkside]

Count me as 1 of the six that would buy one then. A performance awd truck would be great, too bad I'm not into diesels.

[zeitgeist57]

2019 Ford F-150 Limited?

 

0-60 = 5.1 seconds

1/4mi = 13.7 sec

450hp/510lb.ft.

[excell]

"performance Truck" is somewhat of a subjective thing - they still make them in the form of the Raptor, Chevy Z71, F-150 Tremor, and Dodge Rebel TRX, but they old school "muscle trucks" like you are talking about have kind of died on the vine. I suspect they don't make them because there are like 6 people who would buy them and 3 of those people are on this forum, and 2 of the 6 probably can't get approved for financing or insurance.

 

Hot Rod and Muscle trucks tend to be a product of regulation. When muscle cars died out in the 1970's because of insurance and emissions, the emissions exempt and differently rate tabled trucks became the go to for go-fast with the Dodge little red express, Big block Chevys, and 460 fords. When fuel mileage became the bottleneck for performance cars in the 80's and 90's, the big three when to the fuel mileage exempt trucks again and built the 454SS, 2wd 5.9 ram (and later SRT10 ram), and Lightning.

 

Right now, performance cars are in their second golden age, and really there is no reason to look at the trucks for a cheat around a set of rules. But that doesn't mean the bones aren't there - a 2wd F150 tremor is a set of lowering springs away from being a modern day lightning. Ram will sell you a bare bones 2wd tradesman with the 5.7 hemi, and Chevy will sell an LS powered 2wd LT even if it is the 5.3 (I hear turbos work well on them). The big three just don't see a need to offer you a sticker and name job for 6 people that would buy them over a challenger/camaro/mustang/SS/SHO/Charger/etc...

 

Now I will say since dodge's business model seems to be "hellcat all the things" there are rumors of a 2021 hellcat ram road truck, but right now that is for a quad cab truck. The Rebel TRX is supposed to be hellcat powered but it's a raptor competitor. I will say this though - a buddy of mine just bought an TrackHawk Gran Cherokee, and if you don't need a bed that's kind of the next best thing to a muscle truck.

 

This is a really well thought out reply, I had not considered the impact of the fuel economy bullshit at the time. I still think there's a market for this that's less than 0, but maybe the consumer has just moved on to bro-dozer bullshit since there's no real reason to push the consumer on a race truck?

 

Something I hadn't really thought about, Jeep does make the hellcat Grand Cherokee which 100% fits the bill of "race truck" IF it were actually a truck. If there's a market for these, surely there's a market for a similarly equipped truck?

 

you mean, you want a truck for how you're going to use it vs. how the marlboro man would? :lolguy:

 

if you want a street truck, are you sure you want a truck at all? porch makes what you want. so does MB. so does BMW. the muricans are still sellin 16k tow ratings and starbux points

 

Because yea, I'm not a Marlboro man and I never go off road. BUT no, SUV's and such -- even luxobarges -- don't fit my needs. I routinely haul server and tech equipment for my clients, which a truck is great for. Nevermind loads of mulch, landscaping stuff, kid crap, and all the other things I haul around. I work my truck, I just work it on the street.

 

2019 Ford F-150 Limited?

 

0-60 = 5.1 seconds

1/4mi = 13.7 sec

450hp/510lb.ft.

 

I could buy an ideal spec F150 Super Crew with a 5.0, install a blower, lower it, add suspension stuff, and put on performance tires... but I sure would love an OEM-tuned package with a warranty. As it is, I wouldn't do any of this to my truck until the warranty is out, which will be 6 years from now. I'd much rather just buy an OEM package, like the Lightning, and drive away. Just the phase of life I'm at right now. I don't want to constantly be working on my daily driver. If something breaks, I want to drop it off at the dealer and let them deal with it. I want a 700HP street truck with a warranty.

[STEVE-O]

You do know you can add a roush charger and retain warranty right? And you do know there are dealers (cough cough) that can do it for you also right?

[excell]

You do know you can add a roush charger and retain warranty right? And you do know there are dealers (cough cough) that can do it for you also right?

 

⬇

 

I could buy an ideal spec F150 Super Crew with a 5.0, install a blower, lower it, add suspension stuff, and put on performance tires... but I sure would love an OEM-tuned package with a warranty. As it is, I wouldn't do any of this to my truck until the warranty is out, which will be 6 years from now. I'd much rather just buy an OEM package, like the Lightning, and drive away. Just the phase of life I'm at right now. I don't want to constantly be working on my daily driver. If something breaks, I want to drop it off at the dealer and let them deal with it. I want a 700HP street truck with a warranty.

 

This isn't really about options, or dealer installed options. It's really about an OEM truck. I'm prodding at the hivemind on why OEMs never revisited the race truck. Seems like everything is getting a race version lately so why not trucks...

[Cordell]

A couple things I want to say on this topic.

 

 

2019 Ford F-150 Limited?

 

0-60 = 5.1 seconds

1/4mi = 13.7 sec

450hp/510lb.ft.

 

Starting with this, I agree that these are good numbers, especially for a truck. However current technology could produce better numbers. When you have Corvette ZR1s breaking into the 10s, or Hellcat Redeyes running 9s, it wouldn’t be hard to have an 11 second truck.

 

So the argument has to be made if something like this would sell, in short maybe. Certainly big dumb bro trucks sell, but so do these fast cars. Would I or anyone I know be in the market for one? Probably not. So perhaps in a limited number making it special you could have some type of muscle truck. I’d bet with the current state of the automotive market with GM and Ford scrambling to kill off cars and re-evaluate their position, this is likely one of the farthest things from their plans at this time.

 

I’d love to buy a used one in 10 years to play with but I doubt it’s going to happen in the first place.

[excell]

And then I just saw this... https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/next-daytona-500-pace-car-huge-pick

 

 

Maybe I'm ahead of the trend?

[Cordell]

⬇

 

 

 

This isn't really about options, or dealer installed options. It's really about an OEM truck. I'm prodding at the hivemind on why OEMs never revisited the race truck. Seems like everything is getting a race version lately so why not trucks...

 

Well where the automotive landscape is right now; unless it’s already in production or some new tech (like autonomous or electric), it’s probably on a shelf and will stay there for some time.

[caseyctsv]

I wonder if Chevy will consider an RST version of the Silverado. I love the looks and performance of the Tahoe RST. A bit lower / tighter suspension, bigger wheels and tires, blacked out chrome and the 6.2.

 

 

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[Geeto67]

I am also one of the 6 that would consider buying a modern muscle truck, so much so that I play with the configurators all the time to see what I can do. Here is some of what I have found out:

 

Dodge:

you can get a bare bones, no option 2wd shortbox single cab tradesman with a 5.7 v8 making 395hp, 8 speed trans, LSD, and 3.91 gears for right around $30K msrp. Forum posts put most of these out of the box in the high 13's second 1/4 mile range which isn't bad, and bolt ons could get you 12's. The only downside is that you can get a manual V8 challenger R/T slightly cheaper and it will have a nice interior. Also it's work truck spec so it's more of a carry your slicks in the bed kind of truck than a carve up an auto-x truck

 

Ford: You can order a bare bones regular cab short bed F150 with the 5.0L v8 making 395hp, 10 speed trans, 3.55 e-locking rear, for $33,165. You have to take the tow package to get the 3.55 gears and they won't let you order the truck with the 3.73 unless it is a v6. Because it is a 5.0L coyote (albeit an iron block one) the aftermarket is somewhat open to you. F150 forums is estimating these trucks at high 13 second - low 14 second 1/4 mile times. Still for $3K more you get nicer things like a backup camera than the dodge. The 2014 Tremor which was the raptor v6 in a 2wd sport truck ran about a 14.4, made 365hp and 420 ft/lbs, so in theory the new 5.0 base model f150 should be quicker.....in theory.....

 

 

Chevy: I haven't played with their config in a while because 5.3 lol, but I imagine you can get a low $30K base spec truck with a v8. Forums are talking about stockers running 14.7 out of the box and tuned ones high 13's. TO be honest, it's hard to care about chevy right now when dodge is the cost leader, and ford has the better equipment. That said, I have heard the 6.2 4wd truck is an absolute beast.

[Otis Nice]

And then I just saw this... https://www.topgear.com/car-news/usa/next-daytona-500-pace-car-huge-pick

 

*massive pic*

 

Maybe I'm ahead of the trend?

 

At least it’s adequately powered, using a 6.2-litre V8 with 414bhp and 460lb ft.

 

So less than the Ford? :gabe:

[excell]

So less than the Ford? :gabe:

 

The old Silverado SS was too... :gabe:

[aussiek2000]

I wonder if Chevy will consider an RST version of the Silverado. I love the looks and performance of the Tahoe RST. A bit lower / tighter suspension, bigger wheels and tires, blacked out chrome and the 6.2.

 

 

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they do make a silverado RST. Most of the stuff off the tahoe are options on the truck though

[excell]

they do make a silverado RST. Most of the stuff off the tahoe are options on the truck though

 

Didn't know this was coming: https://www.nydailynews.com/autos/latest-reviews/flash-drive-2019-chevrolet-silverado-rst-review-article-1.4014884

 

Still not quite a performance truck, more equivalent to my F150 "Sport" in being just a looks package though.

[cdk 4219]

Because it needs 9000hp to go faster than a Kia Forte. And because they are silly.

[Draco-REX]

[caseyctsv]

I truly do not understand how or why someone would DD a pickup of any sort. I wanted to punch a baby every day I had to DD my Suburban.

 

 

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