Remember When Dodge Sold ‘Adult Toys’ Called Macho and Warlock?

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We live in a fairly puritanical time, in some ways much more so than in previous decades. The concerns of the Mighty Advertiser have triumphed over all, so you get songs with swears bleeped out on the radio and a soft, family-friendly touch on a great deal of media. You couldn’t picture an automaker touting its new line of ‘Adult Toys’ today, but in the 1970s, that’s precisely what Dodge did.

No, I’m not kidding, that’s literally verbatim from the Dodge Pickup Trucks ’78 brochure. It was a big year for Dodge, with the launch of its first diesel truck, and the Lil’ Red Express becoming the fastest American production vehicle by dodging catalytic converter regulations. But it’s also the year that the company boasted about “Two Adult Toys, fresh out of America’s fastest growing truck company.”

And the name of those adult toys? Macho and Warlock. You can’t make this stuff up.

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via eBay.
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“Fun in your truckin’?” They knew exactly what they were doing.

Let’s Have Some Fun

Dodge came up with the idea of selling so-called “trick trucks” in the mid-1970s. It would build rad trucks with plenty of visual dress-up parts and sell them right out of the dealership. After all, customers wanted trucks that looked badass. Why should Dodge leave the aftermarket cash in when it could capture those dollars directly?

The up-kitted models actually started appearing a little before the ‘Adult Toys’ campaign itself. For example, the Warlock actually started limited production in 1976, before becoming more widely available in 1977. From my research, the full push was well in earnest by 1978. That’s when the ‘Adult Toys’ branding first shows up in Dodge’s mainline pickup brochure, though the term started popping up in other advertising as early as 1977. Indeed, the advertising film below has a copyright date for that year.

"Adult Toys From Dodge" 1977. An interesting choice in advertising campaign. From Super8 Film
byu/Telvin3d inDodge

Dodge D Series 1976 Wallpapers 1
The Warlock was a bold, imposing machine when optioned in black.

Warlock

The Warlock is one of the better-known examples of Dodge’s Adult Toys, with the short-wheelbase truck looking best in Formal Black. You could score one in other colors too – Bright Canyon Red, Medium Green, Sunfire Metallic, Citron Green Metallic, or Sunrise Orange were all options, but none quite fit the Warlock name as well as the foreboding black.

Inside, you got bucket seats instead of a typical bench, with a black interior and an optional sunroof over your head if so desired. Outside, it wore gold stripes, oak sideboards on the bed, and a sick set of chrome-plated running boards. To fill out the wheel wells, it also scored a set of wider chrome wheels and fat tires to match.

The Warlock was about show, not go, and didn’t come with any performance upgrades as standard. You could option it with the regular engines available across the Dodge D-Series range. The idea was just to sell something that looked cool as hell. Dodge didn’t particularly mind if the trucks weren’t fast, and neither did a lot of customers. It was the middle of the Malaise era, and most everything was choked by emissions regulations anyway.

Dodge 1978 Pu 7
The Macho Power Wagon.

Meanwhile, if you were a real tough bastard who needed to project a total lack of insecurity with your vehicle, you could grab yourself the Macho Power Wagon instead. I’m kidding. It’s actually just a pretty sweet truck with mods far less over the top than your garden-variety brodozer today.

The Macho Power Wagon came standard with Dodge’s full-time 4WD system, and a 318 cubic inch V8 under the hood as standard for a little more go. There was also a roll bar in the bed, along with a suitably 1970s decal package on the outside.

As an aside, the 1978 pickup brochure had some casual sexism too, as typical. Dodge was more than happy to sell a woman a truck, but it had already pre-judged what she might use it for. A man needed a tough vehicle for moving hockey sticks and cinder blocks, but a woman needed a soft ride for her … “chores.” Blech.

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I can’t even.
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Legit, who wouldn’t love to take a Dodge D100 down to Swensen’s Ice Cream Factory? How is that a chore?

More Toys In The Box

The branding wasn’t just limited to Dodge’s pickups, either. Ads for the ‘Adult Toys’ lineup also included the Four by Four Ramcharger, which previewed the SUV craze that would one day take the industry by storm. It was four-wheel-drive, and had a topless bodystyle for fun in the sun, perfectly befitting the ‘Adult Toys’ ethos. Hilariously, in 1979, the diminutive Dodge D50 minitruck would also be advertised under the same banner, even if it was little more than a rebadged Mitsubishi.

Dodge’s Street Van also played a big role in the ‘Adult Toys’ campaign. Latching on to the burgeoning custom van craze, Dodge offered a version of its Tradesman van that was specifically designed for customization. It was sold with plenty of chrome and with a swathe of bright color options and came with a “Customizing Idea Kit” from the factory. This included full-size templates for cutting custom interior carpets and the like, along with guides to different paint schemes for the outside. Dodge also encouraged owners to fit portholes, sunroofs, or other unique touches to make their vans truly their own.

Dodge 1978 Truck
The Ramcharger is up front, with the Macho Power Wagon off to the left, and the Street Van in the rear. Note the Warlock in green on the left—doesn’t quite hit the same, right?

Dodge 1978 Street Van

It’s also worth noting the role the popular Lil’ Red Express played in the Dodge lineup at this time. As far as I’ve been able to find out, the muscle truck that started it all wasn’t actually a part of the ‘Adult Toys’ campaign. It had its own marketing materials and was sold as a highly specialized model for 1978 to thread through an EPA loophole that closed in 1979. Trucks built for that model year sat on dealer lots as they were far less appealing when lacking the same performance as the 1978 model.

I could be wrong about the above statement, of course. But as far as I’ve seen, the ‘Adult Toys’ campaigns simply didn’t feature the Lil’ Red Express.

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When was the last time an automaker went this hard on encouraging customization?

The Times, They Are a-Changin’

From my research, 1980 was the last year that Dodge used the Adult Toys branding. Flip through Dodge’s pickup brochure from 1980, and you’ll see the decals and colors had shifted to meet the new decade. The final D-50 Sport and Macho Power Wagon looked killer when clad in black, orange, and yellow. Street Vans were still happening too, but it wasn’t to last.

1980 Dodge Pickup 08 09 (2)

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By 1981, it was all over. The Dodge Van brochure that year featured a page on “The Fun Van” but the graphics were tamer and the crazy portholes and windows were all gone. It was a new decade, and the zeitgeist was moving on from the custom van craze. Similarly, the 1981 pickup brochure made no mention of marital aids at all.

The campaign was a little risque and was fitting for the era. The sexual revolution had washed over the U.S. like a crashing, salty wave, and attitudes in society had shifted significantly. A little cheek in advertising was well-received by the younger market. Plus, adult toys were very much coming into vogue at the time. They might have been invented in the 19th century, but it was in the 1960s and 1970s that they began to slowly enter the mainstream.

In any case, it’s a marketing campaign we’re unlikely to see the likes of again. As our media focus has shifted online, platforms have begun enforcing ever more restrictions on tone and content. You couldn’t run it on TikTok, and it’d probably be uncomfortable on YouTube too. Never mind that the underage segment buys precious few new vehicles, the world has changed.

Image credits: Dodge

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73 thoughts on “Remember When Dodge Sold ‘Adult Toys’ Called Macho and Warlock?

  1. While I loved the Lil Red Express and the Warlock as a kid, the one that I was always sold on, and honestly am still sold on, is the Power Wagon. A neighbor had a yellow Power Wagon, with the vertical text in black on the bed fender, and I absolutely loved that thing. I keep an eye out for one whenever I browse the used listings, though so far no luck.

      1. That would be my first choice as well, and the black wheels on it are just perfect. I can’t imagine complaining about the black and yellow one, but it’s just not quite as perfect as the balck/red. What a great looking truck.

  2. Those are SUCH good looking trucks! Way more style than anything on sale today. Plus, these trucks you can actually reach over the side of the bed to put things in, like an actual usable vehicle for hauling things!

  3. Those were the days. I remember all these ads from then. The trucks were ok, but were just pretty boring.

    Especially compared to the vans. Must have built close to 1K Vans back in those days. And recall several customers who actually sent off for the Dodge interior custom kits, which they then brought to us to build and install.

    And remember very well some NSFW times spent in them. Need to be careful here, so this does not become a letter to Penthouse.

    It was a different time, and a different world. As a 20 year old with very little sense, between the women and the vans, most everyday sort of felt like Christmas.

    Even with gas at the obscene cost of 75 cents a gallon, it felt like the good times would never end. Obviously I was wrong.

      1. There may not have been HIV but there was plenty of herpes and other icky stuff.

        OTOH there were no DNA paternity tests and as is my understanding more sympathy for the “he said” side of the argument.

        Side note: I once found a stash of (Ohio) newspapers from the 1960s. The want ads were pretty awful. Many boiled down to something like this:

        Secretary wanted. Redhead desired, Good figure, 36-24-34 preferred. Apply to xx-xxx

    1. And remember very well some NSFW times spent in them. Need to be careful here, so this does not become a letter to Penthouse.

      So I guess a black light for the fluorescent psychedelic artwork would have not been a good idea?

  4. I remember 12 year old me being VERY impressed with the Warlock. Sadly, my father was a dedicated GM man, so I was stuck doing time in Pontiacs.

  5. Minor quibble, but “street van” spelled backwards is actually “nav teerts”. I think the little cartoon hippie is intended to be portayed as stoned so I’m not going to judge his real spelling ability, but: am I also stoned, is that really a Big Four car ad? Times have changed, indeed 😀

    1. Dirty & sketchy & a fair bit of the music absolutely sucked. Not to mention how freakin dangerous it was. Everyone was freaked out over something: war, inflation, gas prices, the Communists. Nuclear drills where we hid our heads under the desk in the first part of the decade. Yeah: good times.

      1. The economic disparity, rampant divorce, substance abuse, Hell I grew up with 11 miles of three-mile island and the closed steel mills of the region.

            1. Thank you for the report. I was living thousands of miles from Pennsylvania so my personal risk was nil. My dad was a nuclear engineer at the time so I got a nightly technical play by play interpretation of events which was mostly lost on my adolescent brain. Thanks to TMI the nuclear industry in the US pretty much died out and Dad lost his job. That was our steel mill closure.

              As your reports mentions right up front despite having a partial meltdown there was very little release of radioactivity and no real overall danger of radiation to the public. The average exposure for 2M people was 1millirem over the timeframe of the event vs the local natural radiation dose of 100-125 millirem over a year. By that it was a nothingburger. Thanks to the containment vessel this was no Chernobyl and was highly unlikely to be. I knew that at the time thanks to my Dad explaining it to me over and over again but I can understand folks who didn’t have a nuclear engineer in the family and were in the zone would have felt differently.

              The panic and fear cased by the uncertainty was the real danger. The cigarettes the people were smoking in the interviews to calm down were ironically probably dosing them with more radiation than the stricken reactor. Since I wasn’t there it’s the non technical side of the event I was asking about.

              1. You are right it was the uncertainty. A lot was going on, the public did not get clear confident answers. Yes there was containment but the what if was also scary. The idea that waiting until it was bad for parents of young children was scary. Do you know that the movie china syndrome was out only 12 days before the actual really nuclear incident of TMI? Thank goodness Carter was president. He knew first hand how reactors worked. Imagine if someone like trump would have been president or the internet conspiracies would have been around then.

                1. Do you know that the movie china syndrome was out only 12 days before the actual really nuclear incident of TMI?

                  I was aware. I didn’t see it till a few years ago though.

                  Imagine if someone like trump would have been president or the internet conspiracies would have been around then.

                  I shutter to think…

                  For anyone interested I can recommend a really good couple of series of books written on the subject of nuclear power. They were recommended to by by a fellow auto website commentator 🙂

                  The author is a nuclear physicist who spent his career in nuclear power and he presents a very balanced approach. No fearmongering nor apologies. One series is written for a teen audience, the other is written for layperson adults. There is a fair amount of technical info given but its very approachable:

                  https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-Mountains/dp/1605986801

                  https://www.amazon.com/Fusion-Nuclear-Power-Facts-File/dp/0816076537/ref=sr_1_8?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qbXrCQoCScZOapvQjNtzZZAxitktsYbgIERqC_xZrYRIfQxqdqtCzsuo_QtB_7LGtL8M3L26z15pU5cHCZAamGkIfbsjQsyrR8RXjtIB9p-X6azWSDyAyEZRgaxaPjhVQt4RMwzFUc3LlLIV733AzoKkEObmyAUa_jd9SP3dWUdi2QYh4EMAX6YyaH5Fwk5WjTXUMkQKC-cHGem_nk0PTwRS1j7AfCmm4KlPWR8XCtQ.5f5C-p7bihaVNKf_11CwJxJQbYrHGgZA121EYG38rlw&dib_tag=se&qid=1709916066&refinements=p_27%3AJames+Mahaffey&s=books&sr=1-8&text=James+Mahaffey

                  1. Thanks, Also to clarify I am not anti-nuke. (I do wish the people I saw in 1985 at TMI were more confidence-inspiring) I grew up to be a scientist and science educator.

                    1. No worries, I didn’t get the impression you were.

                      (anti nuke that is).

                      (I do wish the people I saw in 1985 at TMI were more confidence-inspiring) I grew up to be a scientist and science educator.

                      Those books should help. In them the author describes the work at Argonne including several reactor explosions. Some were intentional, some not, one was a murder/suicide.

                      The intentional ones were small reactors that had reached the end of their service lives and it was decided to blow them up to get experience in nuclear disaster cleanup. The murder/suicide, well I’ll leave that as a teaser for you to find out about.

  6. This is from circa 1970 so a few years before the Adult Toys ad campaign but here’s Don Knotts endorsing “The Dude” sport trim package for Dodge trucks:
    https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/cimg/www.dodgeforum.com/1600x900_85-1/319/5159409696_b302cc652a_b-190319.jpg
    One wonders why Dodge didn’t recruit him while he was playing Ralph Furley on the sitcom Three’s Company as that’d have been in keeping with their Adult Toys theme.

  7. I can’t take the commercial seriously. It shows young people having fun. Truck commercials need to show a truck storming up a rock pile with their competitors trucks stacked on the bed while towing a space shuttle.

  8. You can see the wave of conservative backlash after the excesses of the ’70s, which incorrectly tied fuel shortages, market crashes, and inflation with what they considered “moral failings.” We never did quite lose that – most cars are still colourless and drab.

  9. There is not a single truck on sale today that makes me want it just from seeing it. I don’t mean today’s trucks can’t compete in performance, they’re obviously generations better. I mean they have less immediate visual impact. I would kill (feeling mean today) for that Ramcharger with the detachable lid or even that Warlock with its stepside sexy. They’re more visceral, truck versions of the screaming chicken Trans Ams of the same era. I was just looking at side-by-side pictures of the new Bronco Heritage and these trucks. The Bronco is my favorite among contemporary trucks, but these old crates reach out and grab my attention in way the Bronco just doesn’t. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I don’t think that alone explains the appeal. Fun era, regardless of the outdated social mores. The Adult Toys theme was fun and we could use more of that. Sometimes you can be a bit too protective and that turns you into a killjoy. Thanks for the blast.

    1. In the trailer for “The Fall Guy” movie, they show the classic 80’s truck and a new Chevy all painted up like the classic version. The original has so much flair. The modern one looks like ass regardless of the paint job.

  10. Did the owner’s manuals have sections on “How to Wash Your Adult Toy”, “How to Lubricate Your Adult Toy” and “What to Do When Your Adult Toy Gets Stuck”?

  11. As someone who was just learning to read (in part with car brochures my dad brought home) and in prime playing-with-toy-trucks age this made every bit of sense to me, the “Adult Toy” trucks were real trucks painted up like my toy trucks. When I said this to dad and mom, they said yeah, that’s exactly what it means. The other part went completely over my head and they were happy to let it..

    Not long after I was wondering why there wasn’t a 5-door Chevy Citation X-11. Much as I’d like to brag of being, at age six, a precocious predictor of the sports-sedan craze of the ’80s, I think it was more a matter of simple pattern recognition.

  12. I read way too long before I realized they weren’t marketing actual adult toys in the style of the trucks.

    I’m still afraid to google what an actual sex toy named ‘Warlock’ would look like though.

    1. Yup, a blacked out package on the DS Ram, which just feels lazy against the vintage version.

      Sadly, Lil’ Red Express never got beyond a SEMA built, because a Hellcat-powered street truck would be hilariously stupid (IE, right in Mopar’s wheelhouse).

    2. I scrolled the comments to make sure someone said this. As Maymar said, it was a lazy sticker package with parts from other models painted black.

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