Lil’ Red Express. 454SS. Lightning. SRT-10. To some, these trim names are as evocative as Testarossa, Turbo, and GTi. From the late 1970s through to the mid-2000s, the street truck wars raged, with all sides firing salvos ranging from a supercharged Ford to a convertible Dodge. While the most heroic and most powerful of these street trucks are enjoying collector success off merit and nostalgia, let’s see if a rising tide lifts all ships.
Yep, it’s time to dig into two half-ton street trucks that had to live in the shadow of either a bigger brother or the product planning equivalent of Tsar Bomba. The wacky early-aughts Chevrolet Silverado SS and Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson
Tenth-Generation Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson
Let me tell you a little secret about the bubble-body F-150 Harley-Davidson: It’s actually a detuned Lightning. Yep, under the hood of this Sturgis-spec truck sits a supercharged 5.4-liter V8 pumping out 340 horsepower. While not a huge number today, you have to keep in mind that the Mustang GT of the time made 260 horsepower, meaning that percentage-wise, this truck would be the equivalent of a 635-horsepower F-150 today. Wild stuff, right?
In addition to the massive bump in horsepower, this F-150 got the MTV Cribs starter pack of chrome wheels, a chrome grille, and a body kit. Maybe it’s just because nostalgia works on 20-year cycles, but I still think these cosmetic add-ons look wicked, and dare I say, make the Lightning look a bit dumpy in contrast to the HD’s Mannie Fresh “House real big, car real big,” I can’t repeat this bar or else I’ll get called into HR, “Everything real big” ethos.
However, I’m not so sure about the Harley-Davidson branding, mostly because cars come with stereotypes. I own a base Boxster and a 3 Series with the lease-spec engine, which means that to other motorists, I’m a rail-thin city-dwelling snob with the imagination of a walnut and a certain disregard for others. I’m alright with that. However, with a Harley-Davidson F-150, there are only two options: Either you make videos of yourself ranting in your truck while wearing Oakleys, or you comment “GOBBLESS KEEP CRANKIN THAT HOG BROTHER” on public social media posts because you’re terminally online and a meme group ended up taking over your personality. This might come as a shock to some, but the latter is looked upon more favorably than the former. Hardigree expressed interest in a debadge, and honestly? I rate it.
So, what’s a tenth-gen F-150 Harley-Davidson worth these days? Well, I remember when they were cheaper than high-mileage second-hand eleventh-generation F-150s. I’m talking four-figure trucks, even for a reasonably nice one. These trucks weren’t even on the Bring A Trailer radar until 2021, and then a funny thing happened: Nice ones started commanding real money.
The all-time Bring A Trailer record-holder hammered for $46,250, but it had just 89 kilometers or 55 miles on the clock. Still, even with the near-new condition, that’s an absurd amount of money for a Canadian example of what is a relatively hated generation of truck. Did it beat inflation? Absolutely not, but that’s only because buying non-blue chip cars brand new as investments is a stupid-ass idea. However, these tenth-generation F-150 Harley-Davidson trucks are now worth actual money.
While the market has slightly softened since peak COVID craziness, collector-grade examples are still hammering around the $20,000 mark. Take this silver-and-black 41,000-mile truck from the Sunshine state, for example. It doesn’t have a wild four-digit odometer reading, but it’s still in exceptionally nice shape and sold for $21,700 on Bring A Trailer in October. That’s not far from where we were during peak craziness, such as this 65,000-mile California truck that went for $25,500. Love them or hate them, these trucks seem to be on the up-and-up.
Chevrolet Silverado SS
I bet you forgot this thing existed for a minute. Proving the might of the heroic LS-based V8, the Silverado SS didn’t even need a supercharger to match the F-150 Harley-Davidson’s peak power output, cranking out 345 horsepower from a six-liter LQ9 naturally-aspirated V8. Yeah, if you’re keeping track, this was just the Escalade engine in a Chevy truck, and the Silverado SS got the Escalade’s four-speed automatic transmission and available full-time all-wheel-drive. While this parts bin drivetrain does sound like more recycled pre-bankruptcy GM slop, it was effective, chopping the zero-to-60 time down into the low six-second range.
What’s more, the Silverado SS rolled on dubs, 20-inch wheels bespoke to the street truck, and this thing came on street truck suspension. According to Car And Driver, “the truck sits nearly an inch lower up front and a full two inches in back.” Hell yeah. Mind you, that’s about as far as the Silverado SS went. It wasn’t a cartoon character of a truck, although if any truck showed GM’s “ehh, good enough” mentality of the time, it was this. Come on, the main interior flourishes are white gauge faces and a cheesy emblem glued to the dashboard.
However, don’t let this distract you from the fact that the GMT800 as a whole was one of the best pickup trucks of all time. It was as handsome as Beelzebub in Maison Margiela, and in black with the SS’s monochrome look, equally as sinister. It was built like a tank, has one of the greatest engines of all time, and while GM’s four-speed automatic transmissions never felt like they were made to hold up to such power, if you just kept the fluid happy, these trucks would go to the moon and back. The GMT800 Chevrolet Silverado SS is one seriously impressive truck for something seemingly created on a budget of pocket lint and wishful thinking, and that’s reflected in online auction prices.
Like the F-150 Harley-Davidson, these street trucks are recent to online auctions, with the earliest Bring A Trailer auction closing right at the end of 2020. Sure, $27,750 is a strong figure, but it was also a truck with 28,000 miles. Surely, this would be the peak, right? Oh man, absolutely not.
Remember how the 2000s was the era of buying brand new vehicles to sit on and hope they appreciate? Yeah, a 2005 Silverado SS with just 60 miles on the clock showed up on Bring A Trailer in 2021, and it shattered all expectations. Sticker price back in 2005? $42,920. Adjusted for inflation? $59,549.58 in 2021 dollars. The actual transaction price? $62,500. While the seller likely didn’t beat the market once storage, taxes, and everything is factored in, $62,500 for a 2005 Silverado is a damn strong price.
Obviously, nothing is stealing that record anytime soon, but have Silverado SS prices plummeted in the years since? Well, no. Earlier this year, an example with 8,000 miles, aftermarket wheels, and a freaking bed cap brought the gavel down at $45,750 on Bring A Trailer. It’s safe to say that nice examples of these trucks are officially big-ticket collector vehicles.
So Now What?
The emergence of these more mainstream street trucks on the digital collector car marketplace over just the past few years suggests a few things: We’re finally at the point where nostalgic younger millennials have buying power, the classic truck market is still on its meteoric ascent, and manufacturers would probably be wise to bring out new street trucks ASAP. You just can’t get GM, Ford or Stellantis to make you something like this anymore, and there’s every chance we’ll look back on factory half-ton street trucks like we look back on ’80s muscle cars like the Monte Carlo SS and Magnum XE.
Oh, and here’s a bigger lesson: Don’t buy a new car with the hopes of holding onto it for a long time, never driving it, and just having it appreciate. Once you add up all the costs, you rarely beat inflation. Drive your machines, enjoy them, have fun with them, and don’t be so worried about resale. You aren’t going to profit much in a hobby that’s stacked against you.
(Photo credits: Ford, Bring A Trailer)
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I have a purple 99 Dakota R/T. I love street trucks.
Why show up and yuck someone else’s yum? I hope you can never afford a sports car 🙂
I’m not really sure how to talk about this. You’re correct, of course, but I’m really not joking when I say that these sorts of trucks genuinely make me uncomfortable. They feel designed to appeal to the sort of masculinity that needs to broadcast how tough they are in every thing they do, and have no sense of humor about being absurd.
I mean, these are absurd vehicles, right? Pickup trucks and SUVs that have been factory modified to be bad at truck things so they can be… sort of alright at sports car things.
But pointing out that they’re a bit… well, silly, usually results in what seems to be the target demographic owner getting real mad about it.
by that argument, almost any modification makes a vehicle worse at something. If you lower almost any vehicle you get a stiffer ride. If you lift almost any vehicle you increase rollover liability. If you tint the windows you make it harder to see out of at night. what part of an inanimate object makes you uncomfortable? Im sure the people that buy these deemed them good or sufficient for what they wanted to do with them. I guess if you wanted a pickup that handles better than a stock pickup, this would be a good option. I dont know for sure, but I would think anyone could get mad if you stereotyped them and made fun of their car.
I have always wanted to get a Harley-Davidson F-150(and immediately remove any mention of Harley-Davidson from it). There was a local guy to me that had a built one with a Kenne Bell supercharger making mid 800whp and the mental image of him doing a burnout that caught the pile of burnt rubber on fire has never left my brain. That, and I have a massive soft spot for this generation of truck since my dad bought one brand new in 2001 and still owns it to this day so I spent many hours of my life in the back seat of one going on family vacations and such. It is a 2001 F-150 XLT Supercab with the larger rear seat area so riding back there felt like the lap of luxury to a young me. It even had a rear 12v outlet I could plug my Gamebody into so it didn’t run out of battery on long trips. It is at 198k miles and running strong as could be. Love it.
Silverado Super Sport, still with drum rear brakes.
Silverado SSs had four wheel discs.
They did until GM cost-cut them out.
> with a Harley-Davidson F-150, there are only two options: Either you make videos of yourself ranting in your truck while wearing Oakleys, or you comment “GOBBLESS KEEP CRANKIN THAT HOG BROTHER” on public social media posts because you’re terminally online and a meme group ended up taking over your personality.
I just about died laughing from this. THANKS A LOT THOMAS
I worked at a grocery store in college and we had a 70+ year old man that would pull up in his black and orange Harley Davidson F-150 and sit in the lot looking for people parking in the “Veterans” or “Parent with child” reserved spaces and if he felt they weren’t actually veterans or if they didn’t have a child he would leave these absolutely unhinged letters he made on their windshield. We made a game of taking the notes off while he watched because he would never confront anyone directly. I even balled them up and tossed them in the bed a few times. Eventually he was banned from the entire chain of stores by name.
no Ram in this article?
Wasn’t there something just below the SRT10? Some kind of R/T Daytona or something, with a fixed wing over the tailgate.
There was also a TRD supercharger available on the Tundra 😉
Yup! They had the Daytona and Rumble Bee Rams. Let’s not also forget about the Tacoma S-Runner and X-Runners.
They did, but they weren’t even close to the SS. Maybe the HD F150’s.
You could get the dealer installed TRD supercharger on either the 6 cylinder Tundra or the 6 cylinder Taco. They were mid 4 figures, but did come with a CARB approved ECU.
These are both cool trucks. Street trucks are cool. Regular trucks are not. Also, older compact 4-banger pickups are cool as well, especially with stick.
My S-10 thanks you for the kind words. 227k miles still on the stock clutch
Mine is at 269k kilometers with original clutch.
You’ll get there, these clutches on these seem to just last forever
I hope so because I can’t help thinking the four wheel drive will make replacing the clutch significantly more difficult.
Most likely, yes. Mine is RWD so much easier. I would imagine I could do it in an afternoon from how much space there is underneath
I’m sorry but these just aren’t cool. A Chevy pickup with an Escalade drivetrain is just an Escalade with a bed, and Escalades are not fast or cool.
SS had higher compression. Plus, did the Escalade have full time AWD? The SS had AWD with something like a 35/65 F/R power split and a locking rear axle.
I think these things were cool as hell, I was just disappointed they only existed on the post-refresh update and not the original design of the GMT800 Silverado.
A regular cab short box would have been cool as fuck too.
The SS had literally the exact drivetrain from the Escalade. The higher-compression LQ9, and the full-time AWD. Technically, you could get a 5.3 and 2wd on the Escalade, but as far as I can tell pretty much no one did.
It’s the Denali that ‘made do’ with the LQ4.
You’re right (though, I couldn’t find anywhere the Escalade had a locking rear end, it would make sense that it did since everything else is the same). I guess I didn’t look hard enough.
Still, full-time AWD on a pick-up is pretty cool compared to 4WD and a transfer case. Sure, the Silverado wasn’t the fastest one out there, but it was cool.
I’ve also warmed a bit to the Escalade, especially the first generation. Though, I’d certainly take a Tahoe or Suburban first… this AWD on the second gen seems cool though.
Gimme a Maverick with the Focus RS AWD drivetrain.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having a first generation f150 Lightning. All 230 ground pounding herspers. Assuming I could find one that isn’t rusted out now.
As somebody who drives a single cab 2wd ’95 f150, it is so not special to drive, and 230 vascular ponies is enough that it’s not totally slow. I love the look of Lightnings but no way are they really fun to drive at all.
Someday I want to build a Lightning with some real(400+) power and the suspension to actually handle.
I’m just here to say that debadging a HD edition F-150 would be a crime
DATS A BADGE OF HONOR RIGHT THERE AND YOU BETTER BE PROWD TO HAVE THAT ON YOUR TRUCK GOBBLESS
-sent from my Samsung smart fridge
a crime I desperately want to be guilty of
My dad had a ’03 Silverado SS in red. He bought it new and sold it eight years later during which time it suffered exactly zero mechanical issues. I remember waking up every morning for school hearing that thing accelerate down the main road outside our neighborhood.
He got rid of it because of the terrible gas mileage–I think he reported 8-13 mpg. You could watch the gas gage go down under full throttle.
I know people deride the SS for being less awesome than other performance trucks of the time, but it holds a special place in my heart. My dad got rid of it shortly before I got my driver’s licence which I’ve always been somewhat bitter about.
So I get what your saying and I agree in principal. But its possible right now to option an F150 with a big powerful engine, a regular cab, 2WD and a short bed. That essentially is what we are talking about. Throw any one of 10,000 supercharger, turbocharger or other super power off the shelf high HP kits on it and you have a fantastic street truck that can eat just about anything for lunch. I am pretty sure you can do the same thing with a Ram or a GM truck. While these are not true “Factory” street super trucks they are still what people have been using for the base for them forever. Most of the super trucks were just appearance packages with minor tweaks and a really well curated options selection outside of the Lightning and the early ones like the Lil’ Red Express.
Honestly the Rumble Bee’s were the best as they weren’t too much money and upgraded the looks and performance well for what you paid.
Today I would just custom order the right starting point and have fun with the aftermarket. Then you have a real chance on the secondary market. especially if you take your time, do it right and don’t make it too much to your own specific taste.
Ford will sell you a complete kit for $12k and back it up with a 3 year warranty. I’m not sure what the install would cost at your local dealer though. You can absolutely do it for quite a bit cheaper yourself, but factory warranty and factory support is pretty dang nice. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a44079153/ford-f-150-700-hp-supercharger-aftermarket/.
We all know Hardigree was the buyer of that HD F150, no one else would spend $46K on a jellybean.
As for modern availability, you can still spec a 2wd, regular cab short bed from Ford or GM (Ram maybe still with the Classic?) with a V8 as powerful as either of these trucks had. A aftermarket set of lowering springs and you’re basically there.
I take some of this back.
GM does not let you spec a V8 in a RCSB anymore. Need to have either a long bed or a bigger cab.
Ram does not offer a RCSB at all, even in a Classic
Kudos to Ford for still letting you build a sport truck. 400 hp 5.0, rear locker, and lighter aluminum body should make for a pretty fun machine.
Isn’t the F150 still heavier than a comparable Silverado or Ram?
But yeah, kudos to Ford for still offering single cab short beds, let alone with a V8, and even more so for offering a factory supercharging kit and warranty with the FP700 kit. I imagine like a dozen people will actually pull the trigger on all that, but still…. it’s cool.
I don’t think so, at least not when it was introduced. The weight savings from the aluminum Super Duty was plowed back into stronger frames, more equipment, etc but I think the intention was mostly to improve efficiency on the lighter, smaller trucks.
So I had to go back and look. And yeah, back in 2015, it does look like the F150 was technically the lightest of the bunch; according to CD while it lost 600 pounds, it was pretty much matching the Silverado’s weight (I couldn’t find the actual numbers). By 2019 when C&D did another comparo of the then brand new butt ugly Silverado w/6.2L against the new Ram w/5.7L mild hybrid and F150 w/3.5L EB, the Silverado just eeked under the F150s weight by like 90 pounds.
Interesting.
I wonder what the weight difference between an OHV V8 and a twin turbo V6 is alone?
Based on the spec sheets for a 2023, the 5.0 looks to be about 30-50 pounds lighter than the 3.5; but it’s hard to tell what exactly is causing that weight change. Even though it’s like-for-like cab/bed/drive configuration I’m sure there are other standard options and equipment that change when selecting either engine. Cause for some reason the 5.0 is about 30-50 pounds lighter in every listed configuration except for the SuperCrew w/ 6.5′ bed and 4×4 where it’s listed as 19 pounds heavier.
a quick google says a fully dressed( fluids and accessories) aluminum block 6.0 is 460-480 lbs. the 3.5 TT has a dry weight of 449 pounds. At work or id look harder. Not much weight difference at all
I built it on Ford’s configurator ant it came to 45k total, cheaper than the used Chevy in the article.
What if I want the AWD of the Silverado SS though?
The 10th gen F-150, despite what popular opinion may be, were and are damn good trucks and their fans are passionate (I am one of them). The HD trucks like you said are basically crew cab Lightnings which is what keeps values high, the HD styling is really sharp and the Harley badging doesn’t seem to deter a ton of people. They usually buy them in spite of the badging, not because of it, and just deal with it. Also keep in mind that not every Harley F-150 came supercharged, only certain years did, they also came as extended cabs earlier on as well.
The Silverado SS I’ve always seen as a half assed effort from GM, it sounds like they did a little more than I remembered but I’m still surprised to see them trading for that much. Of course, a 6.0 LS is easily bumped past the stock 345 hp these days, where the supercharged Ford 5.4 is about tapped out without serious mods.