The Li’l Red Truck was a 1970s anachronism
Tightening emission rules and skyrocketing insurance rates killed muscle cars in the early 1970s. Those lightweight intermediates pioneered by the 1964 Pontiac LeMans GTO option featured big V-8s in relatively light cars. Now they were facing insurmountable sales resistance.
They were out of place in the austere 1970s, a decade demanding cleaner exhausts and higher fuel economy. This resulted in poor running engines, bringing a new word called “driveability” into our vocabulary. It was a hunkered-down era far from the freedom and performance of the ’50s and ’60s.
With car engines weakened by hardware such as air pumps and lower compression ratios for the lead-free gasoline needed by catalytic converters, some performance enthusiasts turned to light trucks for their fun. Trucks were largely exempt from emission legislation and relatively inexpensive to buy.
Nobody stepped up to this new performance darling category with more enthusiasm than Dodge. Their first foray was the 1977 Dodge Warlock, a pickup adorned with gold pinstriping and genuine oak racks. It came in several colours and could be had in a four-wheel-drive Power Wagon version. It was just the prelude to an even more outlandish pickup for 1978.
This was the Li’l Red Express Truck that arrived mid-year. It was based on the regular Dodge D150 half-ton Utiline narrow-box pickup with a 2,921-mm wheelbase. But that’s where the relationship to utility ended, because the Li’l Red Truck was strictly a toy for big boys.
Naturally the Li’l Red Truck came only in red, in this case Bright Canyon Red for 1978 and Medium Canyon Red for ’79. It got Dodge’s upscale Adventurer cab embellished with a golden “Li’l Red Express Truck” decal on each door. It could be optioned up with personal choices such as extra instruments, including a tachometer.
For a special touch of “workin’ truck” cachet, the cargo box had oak panels bolted to the sides and tailgate. It rode on fancy chromeplated wheels fitted with LR60-15 white-letter Goodyear radial tires.
But what really separated the Li’l Red Truck from other pickups were two 63-mm diameter vertical chromed exhaust stacks, complete with perforated heat shields, that poked out from under the box at each corner of the cab and rose up to discharge above roof level just like the 18wheelers the Li’l Red Truck aspired to be.
Those precocious pipes were fed by a 5.9-litre (360 cu in.) V-8 engine modified and reinforced to pump out 225 horsepower at 3,800 rpm and 295 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,200. It breathed through a four-barrel carburetor and was adorned with chromeplated rocker covers and a twin-snorkel air cleaner.
This big-inch thumper drove through a three-speed Load-Flite automatic transmission, a beefed-up version of Chrysler’s famous Torque-Flite car unit.
With barn door aerodynamics and weight of 1,588 kilograms plus, one would have expected only mediocre performance. But there was a surprise in store. That big, brawny V-8 combined with a low 3.55:1 axle ratio, stiff cargo-carrying rear springs and low-profile 60-series tires turned out to be a hotrod sleeper.
When Car and Driver tested a Li’l Red Truck in November 1977 (fitted with special large-port cylinder heads), they compared it with eight hot cars of the day including a Chevrolet Corvette, Pontiac Trans Am, Porsche 924 and Saab Turbo. The truck beat them all with a zero to 161 km/h (100 mph) time of 19.9 seconds.
But while the testers found Li’l Red quick in acceleration and good for 191 km/h top speed in spite of its bluff shape, they also found a ride that was noisy and rough. This is not surprising with those giant stacks blasting out at ear level and a suspension designed for hauling cargo, not coddling passengers.
Dodge sold 2,188 of its macho playthings during a shortened 1978 model year and carried it into 1979 with minor changes. Sales totalled a surprisingly good 5,118 for 1979, in what turned out to be a bad year for the Chrysler Corp.
Chrysler was caught with its products going one way and public preference going the other. It was suffering with a line of large out-of-date cars, but it wasn’t alone. The whole North American industry was in the doldrums due to the arrival of the second oil crisis of the decade.
With emission standards continuing to tighten, it would be the last year Dodge would offer the Li’l Red Truck.
The audacious little rig had been a brief reincarnation of the ‘60s muscle-car era, this time masquerading as a commercial vehicle. It was outrageous and impractical and definitely out of step with the times, but as a kind of disguised hot road it was a rare interlude of good old irreverent fun.