1979 Dodge Lil Red Express Truck - Holy Jimmy Carter, Batman

When I was growing up on Long Island back in the '70's, no one drive pickup trucks as daily drivers. Tradespeople might have but work-a-day hacks? Nope. Sure, some did, one guy in my friend group had a small Toyota pickup but he wasn't originally from the Island, so he got a hall pass. Anyone else who dared to drive "a truck", was gently chided as being a hillbilly, bumpkin, hayseed or worse yet, a farmer. So, when Dodge came out with their "Lile Red Express" in 1978, they looked to me like someone wearing a Batman costume to church on Sunday. Our subject here is a 1979. 

We dig beneath the shiny red paint, pinstripes, and good grief, are those (factory) exhaust stacks?! And we find there was a (fairly) sound reason Dodge rolled these out. 

Dodge's (Chrysler's) problems began long before the government backed bailout, and Lee Iacocca came to the rescue. Years of product planning gaffes and internal strife left the company with little money for product development in a day of increasingly strict emissions and safety mandates. The energy crisis of 1973 only adding to their misery since most of their models were older, fuel-inefficient designs. 

So, Chrysler had no choice but to resort to repurposing existing models. Change the model nameplate here, gussy up the bodywork there. Worked for a little while too before cork came out of the beer can.  

This included not only their car lines but their light trucks as well. Thus, in the mid-1970's, Chrysler started peddling "adult toys" which weren't much more than lightly disguised versions of trucky stuff they already had in showrooms. The Lil Red Express was one of those "adult toys". 

Exploiting a loophole in the EPA's emissions regulations regarding light trucks with a GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) of over 6,000-pounds, Dodge was able to slip Chrysler's "E58", 360 cubic-inch V-8 "cop engine" into these things with some perfectly acceptable modifications like the cam from their old (and awesome) 340 V-8 that helped the Copper make 225-horsepower (net) and 295-pounds of torque. Along with their stump pulling 3.55 "Sure Grip" inside their heavy-duty 9 1/4-inch pumpkin, this thing went like (relative) stink. All had Chrysler's wonderful 727 Torque Flite automatic. 

I mean, zero-to-sixty in 7.5-seconds and the quarter mile in 15-seconds kind of stinky. That this could keep up with Chevrolet Corvettes, Camaro Z28s and Pontiac Trans Ams of the day probably says more about those cars than how fast this was, but still, pretty impressive. Even today, you drive anything that can churn those kinds of numbers you wouldn't say it was underpowered. 

Also, with big rig trucks as popular as they were back then, well, us myopic, stuck-up Long Islanders didn't care about them but what did we know, the factory stand up exhaust pipes or "stacks" and step side rear box added to the "truck" aesthetic. The bed and tailgate trimmed in oak, along with the step side design reduced their practicality, and made as much sense as Long Island having an NHL franchise as well.  

This popped up on Facebook Marketplace recently about an hour south of Erie, Pennsylvania with an asking price of, holy Jimmy Carter, Batman, $29,500.