images posted at the Cohort by nifticus
(first posted 12/13/2016) The fact that the pre-production version of this pickup was the fastest vehicle from 0-100 mph (as tested by car & Driver) says a lot about the state of performance in the US during the 1970s. This Li’l Red Express truck was both a clever work-around of the emission regulations of the time, as well as a harbinger of things to come. As traditional big-engined fast American cars were disappearing, the pickup truck took over their role, one that could never have been guessed at ten years earlier. And of course, that role has just continued to expand over the decades since. The Li’l Red Express truck was delivering the future in its short bed.
Its git’up and go came from a specially-equipped 360 V8. The the prototype used a police 360 engine, but with SuperFlow heads, HD valve gear, and the quite aggressive camshaft from the 1968 340 V8, fed by a big 850cfm Thermoquad four barrel carb. The 1978 production version ditched the special heads, supposedly because they were not durability-tested. And no catalytic converters were necessary; the 360 exhaled through Hemi-style mufflers and then dusted the less-than pristine exhaust up through the twin vertical “big truck” stacks. Since this is a D150 series truck, it had the higher GVW that allowed it to get by with lower emission standards at the time. And the 1979 version did get catalytic converters, although they seem to not have dinged its performance.
The Li’l Red Express’ engine was rated at 225 net hp at a very low 3800 rpm, which seems somewhat at odds with that camshaft’s qualities. The 1968 340 would happily spin to 6,000 rpm. Whatever…
Update: the specs given for the cam in this engine (252 degrees) do not match those given for the 340 cam (268in/276ex). So clearly that part of the story is BS. This 360 is basically just a police 360 V8, possibly with a bigger carb. The modest hp rating confirms that.
A 2500 rpm stall-speed torque converter on the mandatory A-727 Torqueflite made rubber-burning take offs easy; or hard to avoid. 1/4 mile times of 15.70 @ 88.06mph for the production version wasn’t exactly Hemi-‘Cuda territory, but this was 1978. Speaking of, the second energy crisis, which came along in late 1979, blew the L’il Red Express out of the water.
The resurgence of performance in the 1978-1979 period was short-lived, and so was the lifespan of the Li’l Red Express. But it’s a colorful representative of the early rise of the pickup’s reign and V8 standard-bearer on America’s streets.
That thing is so stupid it’s awesome.
YIPPIE! Someone finally found one of these in the wild and British Columbia of all places; I had no idea Lil’ Red Express Trucks were sold in Canada. I wish there were more photos, but oh well. I hope to find one of these trucks someday, but I might have to settle for a car show. This truck looks to be in good shape, wonder how suceptible the body and stacks are to rust and the wood to rotting?
So that is legit wood on the bed? I see that it’s not structural but wasn’t sure if it was real or some dinoc relative.
It’s all-too real. As in badly weathered.
All things considered, that wood has held up better than some of the other cheeseball styling gimmicks of the day…both literally and figuratively. Di-noc would be faded and perling to the point of looking like an ass sandwich. Vinyl roofs and rainy climates equals a rotfest of mold and tinworms.
These were sold in Canada when new. I remember seeing quite a few when I was a kid.
It’s good that this guy is DD’ing this truck instead of garaging it and only driving it to car shows. But it’s sad to see the dings and surface rust. The interior was in really good shape as was the wood on the bed.
I waited for a while after I took these pics for the owner to show so i could talk to him, but I gave up after a while.
Considering the 78 Corvette pulled a best of 15.1 in the quarter, ( the 78 Trans Am did it in 15.2 and the 78 Z28 took 15.8) the Lil Red Truck was par for the course in 78, considering the aforementioned vehicles had 4 speeds and weighed less.
The loophole that allowed this came about because up to this time, trucks were almost exclusively used for work. Vehicles with high GVW had reduced emissions requirements and some still used leaded gasoline.
I wouldn’t say the Lil Red Express single-handedly brought about the transition from trucks being exclusively used for work to becoming personal transportation vehicles, but it sure did play a part.
The loophole that he was referring to was not the truck GVW but the ability to make changes to an engine configuration after it was smog certified. I would agree with the author that such a loophole seems unlikely given that the whole point was to very closely control the configuration of the engines…
The loophole is all about the GVW, and passenger count. Before 75 you just had to be a “truck” or “MPV” to avoid almost all of the emissions requirements, but the Evap emissions were tied to the number of passengers the vehicle could carry, 3 or under and you didn’t have Evap requirements and 4 and up and you did have to manage vapors.
After 75 the cutoff was 6000lbs and passenger count didn’t matter any more but eventually that was bumped to 8500lbs for 79. As Paul mentioned that is why the F150, D/W150, GM “Heavy Half” International 150 and Scout II XLC all appeared to avoid the cat and other emissions requirements. It was also the way to get the big block in the “1/2 ton” in some of those vehicles.
It has never been legal to alter an engine configuration after emissions certification unless the parts are close enough to stock to be considered stock replacements or if the part was tested to not increase the emissions at any time. Doesn’t matter if it overall lowers the emissions if it ever results in higher emissions it is illegal.
I don’t remember saying “single-handedly” anywhere in that post. Because that certainly wasn’t the case. I did say it was “a harbinger of things to come”. It was one of the first high performance trucks, a segment of the market still going with trucks like the Ford Raptor.
“Heavy” 1/2 ton trucks, like the Ford F-150 and the Dodge D-150 had an uprated suspension so that they fell into a higher GVW category, which had lower emission standards. That’s why Ford created the F-150, and the other followed suit.
Sorry if it came out that way, Paul. I was answering my own question, not yours 🙂
Before then, “1/2 ton” pickups typically topped out at 5600lb GVWR. While the “3/4 ton” models were typically around 7500lb GVWR, it made sense to offer a “Heavy Half” at 6100lb GVWR. At least with Chevy, the difference was minimal, slightly stiffer rear leafs and one size wider tires.
I think there were vehicle registration differences in some states, resulting in higher tag fees. California didnt care, fee-wise, as commercial tags are based on unladen, not gross, weight.
Hey, could you grab me a large Red Expresso at the Federal CAFE?
Hat tip. 🙂
One of these roamed our neighborhood when I was a kid. Even as a pre-adolescent, I found the styling to be too cartoonish for my tastes, especially the semi-style exhaust stacks.
Stacks on pickups were mildly popular in the late 50’s and 60’s especially on pre 1950 pickups. They really looked best on 30’s and early 40’s pickups.
The stacks are the coolest thing ever in the winter time when you put the peddle down though, dual swirls of exhaust trails.
They looked better with the older grille style and round lamps. Better being subjective. Can’t deny the performance, but it’s not exactly subtle…
Agree on that grille! Stacked squares never really did it for me, at least not on a bodystyle like this. The 80s era GM trucks pull it off much better.
This is a flashy truck, but in the grand scheme of things, none of the styling add ons really compromise its ability to be used as a TRUCK. At least this took performance in the right direction, vs trading upgrades in hp, handling, mpgs and quality for vinyl tops, opera lights and pillow tufted seats. JMO.
I am not sure how, but I completely missed the significance of these back in the day. Strange, considering what a Mopar fanboi I was then. I sort of assumed that these were a follow-up to Ford’s successful “Freewheelin’ lifestyle vehicles” of the prior couple of years. I never dug into these enough to know that there was some semi-real performance under all of the slightly too clever gingerbread.
I have never researched this supposed loophole, but 1976-77 (when this vehicle was in planning) would have been pretty early in the emissions game, so it is not inconceivable that there were some holes in the regs big enough to drive a truck through. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) But if there was such a loophole, you can be sure that it got closed right up as soon as the EPA got wind of this truck.
The Warlock would was an appearance package, more on par (in concept) with the Ford Free Wheelin’ trucks.
When I was a kid curca circa ’84-ish a guy up the street had one of these too, and it even had the General Lee style ‘Dixie’ horn installed which he would pop off pretty regularly. Really cool truck that reminded me of some of my HotWheels. At the time I assumed it was customized from a stepside D150, but later found out it was a factory special. I sure do hope this rig gets the love it deserves instead of continued decay.
Not sure about the loophole either, but in those days catalytic converters were not required on trucks over 6,000#’s gross vehicle weight. That was the reason all the domestic manufacturers came out with heavy duty 1/2 ton models. The Ford F-100 was joined by the F-150, Dodge D-100 by the D-150, Chevy had the ‘Big-10’, and GMC had the ‘Heavy Half’. In 1979, I believe the minimum GVW for not having cats was raised to 8,500 GVW.
In 1978, GMC also had a special model called the ‘Street Coupe’ with was a high-GVW 1500 series half ton step-side with a 454 and Turbo 400 transmission. It was pretty quick, but not as fast or as flashy as the ‘Little Red Express Truck’ .
I can attest that the Ford F-150 with a 460 from this era were quick too. My uncle bought a ’79 F-150 with the Indy Pace Truck package. My Dad later bought it off of him. It was a F-150 long box regular cab with a C6 transmission and 3.50 gears in the Ford 9″ rear. The truck was modified with headers and dual exhaust. I don’t know if it was equipped with a catalytic converter from the factory but it had none with the dual exhaust. In any case, it would pass anything but a gas station, very quick truck for it’s day. We had it in the family for almost 20 years. Now, I wish I would have bought it when my dad sold it as I have never seen another like it.
Question for those of you that were actually able (i.e. old enough at the time) to buy one new: At the time, was this considered desirable and really cool or kind of over the top in a kitschy, caricature-like way? I’m really curious if it has to be viewed in a bell-bottomed, open necked shirt, “you really had to be there to understand it” sort of way or if it was beyond that already.
To me, in the here and now, it just looks tacky. (Note though, that while there is really nothing inherently less tacky about a Smokey and the Bandit Trans-Am with the screaming chicken hood but that, for whatever reason, is compelling and cool to me.)
Does geographic location come into it? Was this more desirable in the midwest, or the south, or considered cool in LA or Chicago or Boston (besides the natural less-trucky-ness aspect of those metro areas even though Jon Baker of CHiPs did drive a blue Chevy Stepside in the show….)
Did you have to ask? About the Li’l Red(neck) Express? 🙂
Like all things automotive, it’s cultural. In 1978, I was living in the People’s Republic of Santa Monica and driving Peugeot 404s. This thing would have stood out like a very sore red thumb there at the time. Yuck!
In San Bernardino, Bakersfield or Palmdale? Fuck yeah!!
Of course there were those that could (and still can) transcend these tribal/cultural boundaries. My hat’s off to them.
Thank you, it is as I suspected but was too PC to just go there. 🙂
Being familiar with all of the locales you mentioned absolutely gave me a chuckle, a perfect visualizer. It’s amazing that two places at most 110 miles apart can literally be a world (or more) apart in matters concerning Peugeot 404 and Li’l Red Express!
“Question for those of you that were actually able (i.e. old enough at the time) to buy one new: At the time, was this considered desirable and really cool or kind of over the top in a kitschy, caricature-like way?”
As someone that was/is a Mopar fanboi and also had an opportunity to buy a Little Red Express back in the day ,I would say that they were considered over the top.
There was also the reality that during a Minnesota winter a 2wd pickup was less than desirable….
I’ll offer a slightly different perspective. In 1978, I moved from the People’s Republic of Berkeley (to use Paul’s term) just 20 miles south to Fremont, though some ways it might as well have been Bakersfield or Palmdale. Anyway, I had just got my Ford Fiesta, replacing an Alfetta, so my tastes were a little different, and I thought these were a bad joke. But … we knew they were fast, as we had all read that C&D test, so in the end, they did get some respect from my import/sportscar friends. And of course, we appreciated the homage to the original “Li’l Red Wagon”.
Just like anything else then or today, taste was (is) subjective. I was in my early 20s then and I took a dim view in general of the late ’70s trend toward (IMO) tacky stickers and other questionable “look at me!” automotive styling gimmicks. Obviously, not everyone felt the same way. I was stationed in SoCal at the time and someone I worked with (a country boy from Oklahoma) had a new Lil Red Express. It wasn’t something even my early 20-something self would have bought or driven (I drove a new Chevy Caprice at the time) but he seemed to like it.
These were before my car buying years and couldn’t have considered one for myself but I loved the thing. It really wasn’t that crazy for the seventies. I do remember the truck being expensive. For that reason I imagine truckers into the concept would have just made one for themselves, out of a used truck. For younger guys a Camaro or Trans Am would be the better chick magnet, for not much more money.
These were done mainly as a publicity stunt to support the brand. Not only was it a cool product with burnout potential galore and those fantastic stacks, it was a commentary on the times that one of fastest vehicles in America was a pickup. Lil Red got tons of ink.
Trans Ams and Z28’s were more popular as new performance cars, but the Dodge Lil R.E. was good reading material in car magazines.
The lack of emissions regs on vehicles over 6000# GVWR also meant that for a short time, the heavy-half-ton pickups could have the manufacturer’s biggest engine–a 460 F-150, 440 D-150, or 454 Big 10/Heavy Half, in short or long bed, 4×2 or 4×4, regular or extended cab. At least, until fuel economy became a concern
There was also a version in black named warlock.
The Warlock preceded this, and was mostly an appearance package. It didn’t have the hot engine this one did.
I have a strong desire to get a four door pickup, with a front bench and virtually no options to operate as today’s version of an inexpensive full sized american sedan. Only two problems: even with a six cylinder, rubber floor mats and crank windows, full sized , 4 door pickups aren’t very inexpensive. And two, empty bed leaf spring pickups don’t handle rough pavement on corners very well. The Ram has coil springs so may be the one to buy, but I can only imagine the danger of driving the Little Red Express fast on back roads and hitting a patch of bad pavement!
Your doubts are well founded. I would immediately lay a month’s pay that nothing like this alleged loophole existed, and I’d win that bet because the standards have never included any provision that allows a certified vehicle configuration to be altered after certification in a manner that increases its emissions. All of this “Well, it was early in the emisisons regulation era” (no, it wasn’t, it was a decade into it), “Yeah, man, it had the hot ’68 340 camshaft in it” (no, it probably didn’t), “Tom Hoover found a secret loophole” (no, he didn’t) type of handwaving is the product of fertile imaginations.
I would lay an additional month’s pay that my first guess about the identity of those “available sources” would be correct, and if so, it is brimming with yarns and tall tales and misrecollections along this broadly general line. Gather ’round, boys ‘n’ girls, while your uncle Yers Turly tells you a story. I know it’s true and correct ’cause it was told to me a couple decades ago by someone who worked for the same company as [name of engineer] a few decades before that. Why, I remember it like it was yesterday! Pfft. The human memory is not the camcorder it feels like—not even a little bit, not even if we assume the best of fastidious intent, which is not a reasonable assumption when we’re talking about this subject.
And that’s true even if we’re fortunate enough to have access to primary sources, like an engineer who was there at the time and working on the project. I long ago lost count of how many writing projects I’ve been involved with where the project engineers earnestly shared their detailed recollections of what went down and how…with enormous chunks of their stories directly and substantially contradicted by mountains of high-quality documentary evidence. Not because they were deliberately telling fibs, but because they just didn’t remember correctly.
(It doesn’t always work this way, though—I had the great privilege to be involved with this bodacious book by renowned longtime engine engineer Willem Weertman, and he was very meticulous about it: he wrote what he remembered, then methodically reviewed the archived documents and photos to check and correct his recall on each and every assertion)
But probably none of that really applies in this case; it sounds more like a run-of-the-mill fish story: My friend’s dad had one o’ those! A ’64 Charger convertible with a 383 Hemi and 4-speed, bought new off the lot! Man, that was a sweet car, it had triple 2-barrels, cowl induction, disc brakes, and a vinyl top!
The ’76-’78 light truck emission standards (HC 2.0 g/mile, CO 20 g/mile, NOx 3.1 g/mile) were only slightly more stringent than the ’72-’73 passenger car standards (HC 3.0 g/mile, CO 28 g/mile, and NOx 3.0 g/mile for ’73). Enough had been learned and enough technology had developed between ’72 and ’78 that making a ’78 half-ton pickup meet the ’78 standard with acceptable driveability was easier than making a ’73 Imperial (or Valiant) meet the ’73 standard with acceptable driveability.
As for the ’79 (through ’81) truck standard: HC 1.7 g/mi, CO 18 g/mi, and NOx 2.3 g/mi. A slight shave down from the ’78 standards, easily met with a catalytic converter. That would’ve cleaned up the exhaust to a degree that would allow more optimal engine tuning (fuel/timing) without violating the standards—such was very evident in the driveability and fuel economy of a great many ’75 catalyzed cars versus their uncatalyzed ’74 versions, too. And the catalytic converters Chrysler used were open-cell monolithic items with straight-through configurations, not the ridiculously restrictive pellet beds GM used or the equally stupid Ford designs where the exhaust hits a wall before it has to turn a corner to get into the converter. So the minimal/no performance degradation in the ’79 Li’l Red Express versus the ’78 is not surprising, either.
The cam specs, as given at this source http://www.dodgeconnection.com/LilRedInfo.html is this: Duration 252 degrees w/Overlap 33 degrees
That’s less duration than the specs I find on the ’68 340 cam, being 268in/276ex duration. So much for that. Allpar has regurgitated the same misinformation.
According to Hot Rod magazine, the pre-production truck use the 252 cam. This truck used an E58 360 short-block, a Holley 4160 Series carb and aluminum intake, W-2 cylinder heads fitted with 1.5:1 ratio bronzed rocker arms, heavy-duty valvesprings and dampers, 252/252-degree camshaft, 8.4:1 compression. It also had a double-roller timing chain, “selected crankshaft” heavy-duty main bearings, and a windage tray for the oil pan. The truck with these specs was tested by Hot Rod to run 14.70 secs @ 93 MPH in the quarter. This truck was also in the Car and Driver test that turned out a 0 – 100 mph time of 19.9 seconds, the quickest of all the cars in there “double the double nickel” article. It also had a 118 mph top speed, the fourth highest.
The production engine had a number of changes. The W-2 cylinder head wasn’t a production piece, and engineering felt it wouldn’t pass emissions certification and durability standards. So the standard 360 heads with 1.88-inch-diameter (intake) and 1.60-inch-diameter (exhaust) valves were used. A cast-iron intake and a Carter ThermoQuad with an 850-cfm rating was replaced the Holley setup. The camshaft was 268-276-44 and HD valvesprings, dampers, and pushrods were used. This valvetrain and cam were said to be from a ’68 340. Compression was 8.4:1, while the E58 360 was 8.0:1. This higher compression came from 1974-early ’75 360hp pistons (PN 3780071). The production truck ran 15.71 seconds at 88.06 mph and averaged fuel economy of 13.1 mpg in the June 1978 Hot Rod magazine test. That said, Hot Rod did tend to get the better quarter mile times of most magazines.
The above mentioned facts from Hot Rod and seem to be a fairly accurate. It sounds as if the Little Red Truck engine basically got a better valve train, high compression pistons and a hotter cam. The only thing that doesn’t make much sense is the very low peak power. The smaller valves and lower compression would drop the peak power a bit but not that much. A 1972 340 made 240 hp @ 4800 rpm, which used the same 268-276 cam, smaller valve heads and 8.5:1 compression. The 1974 high performance 360 used the same cam again and 8.4:1 compression and it made 245 hp @ 4800 RPM. It seems to me that the specs on the 1974 engine and the LRT engine would be pretty close to the same. I wonder if Chrysler quoted lower on the RPM band?
Whether or not the EPA required the 360 to be recertified with those changes, I am not sure but I would tend to think that this would require a re-cert. That said, as per Daniel Stern’s EPA requirements about, I would think that if a 1972-73 340 and the 1974 360 all passed passenger car emission standards, I don’t see how it the 1978 LRT wouldn’t pass the light truck standards which seem to be at similar levels. Perhaps the “loop hole” bit is a bit of folk lore. I always understood that it was just the fact that trucks had looser emission standards than cars was the reason that this engine was put into a truck.
Everything you say is from the other sources, with one exception: the camshaft. The source I linked to in my earlier comment has a list of all those components, including the following cam specs, which in my reading is NOT the same as the 340 HP camshaft. Frankly, I really doubt that 340 cam would have allowed this engine to pass the emission standards. And it being a milder cam really explains why this engine had such a low power peak.
As I said, it’s really just a police 360 with a few minor tweaks.
I don’t see how you can conclude that the EH1 360 is the same or a slightly modified E58 360? A 1978 E58 360, with 8.0:1 compression, had the following specs:
175 hp @ 4000 RPM
270 ft-lbs @ 2400 RPM
There is no way a larger carburetor is going to make this engine produce 225 hp (if have any real effect on power). I question the cam specs too, but there is no way that the EH1 shares the same cam as an E58. Yes there is slight bump in compression, but that won’t account for 50 more horsepower.
I see a couple of more reasonable explanations. If the EH1 did use the 268-276 cam, it may have ground advanced or run advanced via the timing chain. This would lower the power band, and explain why it still makes so much more power than the E58. A 1974 360 HP was 240 hp and 320 ft-lbs of torque. The EH1 was 225 hp and 340 ft-lbs of torque. Again the increase in torque would support a more advanced cam timing, The 268-276 cam did pass emissions for 1974 passenger cars, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t pass for a 1978 truck.
The other explanation is that it used an all together different cam. It makes more sense to me that the pre-production truck used the hotter 268-276 cam while the production truck used a milder 252 cam. Perhaps this got mixed up over the years? Or maybe it used a different cam all together, but I am fairly certain it was NOT the same as the E58 360.
“Everything you say is from the other sources, with one exception: the camshaft. ”
This is not true. You state the pre-production truck used a Thermoquad carb, when it actually used a Holley 4160 and an aluminum intake. The production version used the Thermoquad and a cast iron intake. I also mentioned a few more engine features that you didn’t in your article.
FWIW those horsepower/ torque specs for the EH1 were numbers I got from the Hotrod article. I just dug out my Hemmings Muscle Machines June 2015, which has a buyers guide for these trucks. It quotes the EH1 as:
225 hp @ 3800 RPM
295 ft-lbs @2400 RPM (although states some sources say @ 3200 RPM)
I think these may be more accurate as Hemmings typically does excellent research. What surprises me about the above information is that the peak torque and power are fairly close together, suggesting this would be a very peaky engine.
Interestingly, Hemmings states that the production engine used the 252 cam (33 degrees overlap) but other details are the same as the Hot Rod article. It makes reference to using “super flow” heads in one caption, but the body which spells out the engine details does not include any head differences. Of note, this article claims an EGR was added in 1979 along with the catalytic convertor.
Also interesting, my Motor Truck Repair manual does not list any power specs for the 1978 engine. But for the 1979 engine it lists the following:
215 hp @ 4000 RPM
300 ft-lbs @ 3200 RPM
These specs may be where the 3200 RPM torque figure comes from that Hemmings mentioned.
FWIW, a 1979 Dodge St Regis, which had a 195 hp E58 engine. The compression was increased in 1979, which accounted for the power increase from the 1978 engine. This car ran 0 – 60 in 10.1 seconds and had a top speed of 122.9 MPH. which suggests to me that the EH1 was still significantly more powerful than this engine.
In any case, one thing can be concluded, the history of the LRE EF1 engine is definitely not well documented. I am also fairly certain that it’s not just an E58 with a bigger carb.
Er…no, they don’t. They have a high-handed, selfgratulatory attitude that does a good job of convincing readers of the veracity of their articles, but they get a lot of stuff wrong. Not just picky details and trivial minutiæ, either; they’ve written many articles with completely faulty premises and wagonloads of bulk wrap where the facts are supposed to be. Two examples offhand: a 2016 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines prattled inaccurately about the origins and deployment of positive crankcase ventilation, the first vehicle emission control system. And in 2009 they did basically the same thing in an article about the catalytic converter.
It’s difficult to think of a sector of the auto enthusiast press that isn’t full of horseapples. Cool stories, though, bro, and that’s what draws readers, and that’s what brings advertising revenue, and that’s why magazines (of whatever format) exist.
@Daniel Stern,
give me a break. I have been a subscriber to their magazines for years and most of their articles on cars are well researched and accurate, especially compared to the quality of work we find on the internet. Sure there are mistakes, and maybe the articles you mention in particular aren’t their best work. If the PCV article you are referring to is the one I am thinking of, then the article was tech article written by one of their tech writers, and the history wasn’t really of utmost importance to the premise. That said, compared to many other publications, these guys are enthusiasts who own and restore cars, and do make attempts at producing a quality publication.
If you have a better source of information to offer on discussing the LRE truck engine specifications, why don’t you offer it up?
Bill, Frankly, this truck doesn’t hold very much interest for me, and I’m just not motivated to try to ferret out just what exactly was in the engine. It’s very clear though that there is a distinct lack of consistent info out there on it. I’ll leave it to someone else to find the absolute truth.
As regards its power output, just keep in mind that it had a lower bar to clear in terms of emissions compared to the passenger car/police 360, so that alone may well account for some of the difference.
This post was just meant as a quickie Outtake. I underestimated its impact and its issues. In retrospect, I would have spent more time on it and handled it differently. Next time. 🙂
Paul, this isn’t a truck I have taken a particular interest in either. It was reading your article and the discrepancies you found that made me look into the details of the truck. This is what I love about CC, these articles cause interesting discussion, and hopefully in the end we all benefit from further knowledge.
It’s really interesting that the details of this trucks engine and development are so unclear. Typically with numerous sources I can usually find the real story, but in this case I am still uncertain how the LRE engine was built. I don’t agree with your conclusion that it was just an E58 engine retuned, but I have nothing concrete to prove otherwise. I still think there had to be some more serious internal modifications beyond carb and exhaust tuning to account for the power and performance difference, but what that was I cannot say with absolute certainty at this time.
Application of a nose to factory parts cattledogs and service manuals including ’78 and ’79 Dodge Truck and whatever year Chrysler Corp passenger car will resolve most or all of these questions, for whoever might have sufficient interest and time.
Great book, BTW.
My bad. I was not aware of that. good info thanx Paul.
Coolest pick up truck ever made. Period.
I wanted one back in the day!
Wow I haven’t seen a Little Red Express in this sad of shape in a long time. Yeah in the 90’s you would see them like this sitting alongside someone’s house or in their back yard and when you did see one for sale it wasn’t priced much higher than a standard Dodge truck in similar condition. However their value and desirability seemed to take a big jump by the early 00’s and many seemed to get drug out and restored.
Nice to see one in the wild. I am going to try and catch the “Free Spirit” that appears near work once in a while.
Important note: there were two DIFFERENT cams used in the 1968 340. The 4-speed used a more agressive grind. (For 1969, all 340s got the “automatic” cam.) Many times, only the 4-speed cam is listed in specs…the LRE got the 1968 automatic cam.
The prototype had W2 heads, a Holley carb, an even-hotter cam, and I think larger exhaust pipes. The 1979 was down, IIRC, 40hp (255 to 215) from the 1978.
Not super important in context of the Li’l Red Express; the ’68 manual cam was 276° intake duration, 284° exhaust duration, 0.444″ lift, and the ’68 automatic (plus ’69-’73 all) cam was 268° intake duration, 276° exhaust duration, 0.429″ lift. Neither of them sounds like a match for the Li’l Red Express truck cam.
Someone near me has a ’79 , and took the stepside box from a D150 to make a pup trailer that matches the LRT perfectly, a real nice sight. Both boxes have matching canopies too.
From 89-92 there was a run of about 500 ‘lil Red Express Dakotas, I was lucky enough to snag one of them off the lot. A very nice throwback to these gems.
I remember those Dakota’s.
Im pretty sure the LRT Dakota never was a factory piece, I think they were dealer commissioned. Mr Norm had done a few of the 3rd gen Ram also. Without the stepside bed, it just seemed lacking. Still a cool rig in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, apparently LRE enterprises was commissioned to build them and they were sold just as any new Dakota
There was one of these for sale at a used car dealer near work, I think they finally sold it.
one of the local yahoo’s in our village who had more of his daddies money than brains bought the first one in the area. in a little Ontario town of 1400 people it set the place on fire. unfortunately after getting TOO well known with the cops, he tried an insurance scam and claimed it was stolen and burned in the woods.
have seen a couple in shows since but that one made age 15 a very good year to be a teenage gearhead! ( seeing Olivia Newton-John in Grease was another teenage fantasy that year but that’s for another blog!) 😉
Does anyone know if the Warrior, Midnight Express, and Warlocks shared the same power train as the LRE?
No, they did not. Not sure about the Warrior, but the Midnight Express had a 440. Warlock’s could be had with any D-150 engine. There was also a ‘True Spirit’ pickup, similar to a warlock but based on a Swept-Line model.
The one big surprising thing about these trucks that was just as jaw dropping as their looks and performance, was the fact that they were built by Dodge. Their truck divisions image was quite conservative to say the least.
Ugg. I had a 1980 dodge truck. 318. Sold it after a couple years. Tough as nails. When I see this lil’ number, all I can think of is gas mileage sucked big time, and it’s a useless step side. This was all about some gimmicktry to spice up truck sales. The engine is no big deal, and insurance wise, you paid wayyy more for the privilege of owning one. Just get a regular cab and swap in a big honkin’ gas throbbin’, rubber meltin’ engine, and no ones the wiser. That’s what we all did back then. No Emissions to worry about. It was so easy, and good comradeship with all the guys. Even the newer Cadillac converts, just got yanked out. (Probably led to worse performance back then though) ha!
Are you intoxicated?
Ridiculous then, sad now!
I missed the Hemi, 440 Six Pack Chrysler performance days but remember the write ups on these Lil Reds like it was yesterday. One of the magazines did a comparison test and I believe it was tied with Corvette for fastest 0-60 time. When I heard about the Hellcat line of supercharged V8s a few years ago believe it or not my first thought was this little red truck from the 70s.
That’s a pretty neat observation actually, they’re both high performance vehicles with cute names that really came out of the blue in left field. With the Hellcat the Shelby Mustangs and ZL1 Camaros were cranking out 5-600, then suddenly the Challenger, the bit player(but best looking…) of the current ponycar wars comes out with 100+ horsepower more than that? Woah! I wasn’t around in the 70s but it seems like turning a similarly also ran D series truck into a formidible giant(for the 70s) killer would evoke a similar response. I imagine Hellcats will be written about in the future with the same kind of context as the Lil Red Truck is now.
Ram dipped into the nostalgia pool a few years ago and resurrected the theme of the Lil’ Red Express into a Sema vehicle. The stacks don’t translate well to the modern body style. I do like the bumper on this new truck though.
http://www.allpar.com/cars/concepts/ram/lil-red-express-truck.html
I love stepside trucks of the 70s, but the visual package of lil red express just strikes me as way to damn novel, like something an Americana themed restaurant would customize for display near the enterance. Maybe I’d like it better with just the stacks and wood, maybe I’d like it with just the decals and mag wheels, but as a whole it just reminds me of every late 70s-early 80s custom car I see – too much JC Whitney crap burying the design and fighting with each other for attention. – I get the admiration from the performance perspective, but me personally I’d rather have it be a regular red stepside with just the power upgrade, if I were in the market the aesthetics would completely turn me off.
Having said that, this well worn example is just cool, the patina(and my definition of “good” patina, like the 66 Charger from the other day) somehow ties it all together. Maybe that’s what these have been missing for me all this time. Little red wagons look better beaten up, and so does the truck.
My dad bought bought a little red express truck in 1978 and still has it to this day. He said before that he had a corvette for about a week and found it too slow. His little red express is in a little worse shape than this one is and it hasn’t been started for a couple years.
A couple of my friends and I had ’77 and ’78 Dodge trucks. Two of us had ’77 Macho Power Wagons, rated at an entirely too optimistic 160 or 165 horsepower from their 2 barreled Holley carbs. The other friend had a Lil Red Express Truck that would just destroy us in a race. We could get out on him, but he would very soon go blowing past us. We decided to start modding our trucks to beat him, as he was a “Keep it the way the engineers did it in the first place” kind of guy. The first factory pieces to go was the intake and carb. An Edelbrock aluminum intake and a Thermoquad went on my friend’s silver PW, while I put the same manifold on mine, topped by an AFB, which wasn’t on it long. Soon, I had a TQ carb on my truck too. Then it was headers and exhaust. My friend’s PW got Cherry Bombs, and mine got a huge 3″ diameter very short set of pipes with little short turbo mufflers. My truck easily won the volume contest, at every speed, but especially at full throttle. At this point, we could nearly keep up with the LRET, even with the added weight and drag of full time 4WD. Next came a cam. I went with the Mopar Purple cam, recommended by a local Mopar guru, and my friend went with a Crane, I think. My truck had better midrange, but his was slightly better at the top end. I cracked the 14’s at the old Irwindale Raceway in 1980. My friend did it at OCIR a few months later. I was the first one to get rid of my truck, as it was a turd, breaking stuff all the time, and I don’t remember what was the last straw that finally made me dump it, but it was on a Sunday morning, and I hit the steering wheel hard enough to break it. After it caught fire twice, it must have been pretty bad. I had it from April ’77 to June of ’81, replaced by the ’79 Trans Am that i wrote about before. My friend’s PW was wrecked in early ’82, and the LRET hung around until about late ’91 or early ’92, when he sold it for a new Camaro which he still has, modded with a LS drivetrain. It’s a 12 second daily driver. He says the LRET is still being driven in the Vegas area quite often. We all miss those seats. All three of us agree, those seats in the Dodge trucks of that era were the most comfortable we’ve ever sat on. I know nothing I’ve had before or since has come close.
A duplicate of my PW, I even had the lights on top, much better pic than I have of mine:
A short bed regular cab light duty 2wd pickup was the was the logical successor to the big performance coupes of the 1960’s. Basic pickups back then did not actually weigh that much, well under 4000lb typically equipped. My ’93 C1500 was only 3700lb unladen. That early Dodge Charger featured this week could have tipped the scales about the same or more. A Polara was certainly heavier.
Even with brick-like aerodynamics, it is easy to see how this pickup could be so quick. Performance tuned 360, check, 727 Torqueflite, check, and a more aggressive standard axle ratio than you would find in a passenger car.
I remember 1979.
Disco, diesel GM cars, long haul truckers, fuzz busters, CB radios, “good buddy”, Billy Beer.
The truck looked silly then
Still does.
It sure would be a boring world if everything were the same.
Vive la dif·fé·rence!
There was a “brother version” marketed at the same time. Was black/gold, colors. my sister and brother in laws, friends had one. It was a good looker too. Rode in it two times. ((both times as a passenger in the bed)).
I can’t remember if it had those “old school” back fenders like this “Red Wagon” one.
That sounds like a Warlock.
Fastest production vehicle in the US at the time.
Paul is right, appeal is a cultural thing. Or more specifically, a sub culture thing. I remember when these were new, I didn’t care for the stacks then, still don’t. They were fast for the time, I remember the “Double the double nickel” article in C&D. Ford provided a 400 cid. Thunderbird for the comparo.
In the Bay Area back in the ’70’s, newer step side Chevies were the truck of choice, among blue collar men. Young or old. Lowered with bigger meats. Or just with some nice “rims.” My Dad bought a new ’75 loaded up black Chevy Step Side that got compliments for years. I drove it a lot back then, very car like, he kept it until he passed away in ’07. In the Bay Area you seldom saw a Ford or Dodge truck that was customized, actually I don’t recall seeing anything but a Chevy in my circles.
I was always more of a car guy, and vowed that I’d never drive a truck. The Trans Am was another Bay Area favorite, starting in 1975 and up until the 1980’s. They were a bit over the top, but they were so desirable. My brother had a ’73 Camaro, a ’76 Trans Am, and finally a ’76 Camaro Z28. Then in 1980 he bought a new BMW 320i. So we were aware of foreign cars and their image. I stuck with American cars, mostly late model Cadillacs for years. I didn’t find import cars to be that desirable or satisfying. .
The camshaft was indeed the 68 340 auto camshaft and it was used in both years trucks. I can get you the specs on it if you want and would be happy to try answering any other questions. I run the Canadian owners group on facebook and also help with the big international group. I’ve been around these trucks since they first came out. There is a lot of misinformation out there about these trucks and other trucks from that era.