GTP Cool Wall: 1978-1979 Dodge Lil' Red Express

  • Thread starter Thread starter GranTurismo916
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1978-1979 Dodge Lil' Red Express

  • Total voters
    127
  • Poll closed .
Famine
This 225hp diesel truck could out-gun things like, off the top of my head, the 351hp Lamborghini Countach LP400S, the 330hp De Tomaso Pantera, the 360hp Ferrari 512BB, the 295hp Jaguar XJ-S and the 305hp Aston Martin V8?

That's a tall claim.
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From what I've found it only trails a '78 Countach by a tenth of a second through the 1/4 mile. Faster than the XJ-S.
 
Technically, having a better power/weight ratio doesn't mean it's faster. It's true most of the time, but not a given.
 
Rotary Junkie
From what I've found it only trails a '78 Countach by a tenth of a second through the 1/4 mile.
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That's a bit odd given that it's behind by more than half a second to 60mph (5.9s to 6.6s) and by more than FIVE seconds to 100mph (14.2s [with the wing] to 19.9s)...

In fact the Countach would hit the 1/4 at over 100mph, while the Express's claimed 14.7 pass was at 93mph...

As I said, tall claim that a 225hp, 295lbft truck weighing 1.7 tons is faster in a straight line than a 351hp, 270lbft supercar weighing 1.3 tons...
 
Such as one of these:

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Dennisch
Ah yes, but with a couple of aftermarket add-ons....
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This is why I like old toys like these. Because for under $2,500 I could smoke the living snot out of every single car that was listed and do it for helluva lot cheaper.


Still though, I've heard that claim quite a bit :lol:
 
Slash
This is why I like old toys like these. Because for under $2,500 I could smoke the living snot out of every single car that was listed and do it for helluva lot cheaper.


Still though, I've heard that claim quite a bit :lol:
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No, man. It couldn't. But let's not get into this for the 40th time.
 
Zenith
No, man. It couldn't. But let's not get into this for the 40th time.
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Straight line? Oh yes I could, but I'm not gonna argue :lol: Not in the mood.

Ok maybe not for $2500 but still pocket change in comparison to what one of those cars would cost.
 
It was the fastest American made 1978 vehicle from 0-100mph per Car and Driver. So if you look at it from the right angle with the planet aligned just right and the breeze blowing at exactly 16mph from the north on a clear autumn day, then yes, it's the fastest 1978 vehicle.

But seriously uncool, it looks like the offspring of a hipster-mobile and a bro-truck, you'd also look like a huge dork driving one. I do like them though and I've always found them interesting when I see them at a car show.
 
Slash
Straight line? Oh yes I could, but I'm not gonna argue :lol: Not in the mood.
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Buzzfeed
This teen cut SIX SECONDS off his 0-100mph with ONE SIMPLE MOD - you won't believe what happened next!
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You can probably get an MX-5 to 100mph in 20s. And buy the whole car for less than $2,500...
 
Famine
That's a bit odd given that it's behind by more than half a second to 60mph (5.9s to 6.6s) and by more than FIVE seconds to 100mph (14.2s [with the wing] to 19.9s)...

In fact the Countach would hit the 1/4 at over 100mph, while the Express's claimed 14.7 pass was at 93mph...

As I said, tall claim that a 225hp, 295lbft truck weighing 1.7 tons is faster in a straight line than a 351hp, 270lbft supercar weighing 1.3 tons...
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Launch, launch, and launch. The Lil Red Express wasn't necessarily faster, it just wasn't slower by any useful amount. And off any given light, it would dispatch the Countach with ease by way of being able to put power down. 14.6@93 is about what I'd expect from something like this, initial launch being relatively quick but somewhat falling on its face after the 1-2 shift and being held back by having the aerodynamics of a barn door thereafter. Same but inverse for the Countach.

Quickest American vehicle? Yup. Quickest affordable vehicle? Yup. Able to ruin your average Lambo owner's day? Yep.
 
Rotary Junkie
Launch, launch, and launch. The Lil Red Express wasn't necessarily faster, it just wasn't slower by any useful amount. And off any given light, it would dispatch the Countach with ease by way of being able to put power down. 14.6@93 is about what I'd expect from something like this, initial launch being relatively quick but somewhat falling on its face after the 1-2 shift and being held back by having the aerodynamics of a barn door thereafter. Same but inverse for the Countach.

Quickest American vehicle? Yup. Quickest affordable vehicle? Yup. Able to ruin your average Lambo owner's day? Yep.
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To what? 40mph?

Famine's post already shows the Countach would hit 60mph quicker & then walk away.
 
With a proper launch that doubtless took multiple tries, yes. Also you seem to be ignoring that time to a speed != distance to a speed. By the time the Countach started actually gaining the gap band would be playing for the Countach.
 
The claim, iirc, is fastest American made vehicle for that model year, not fastest vehicle made period. Considering all the junk that emissions choked American companies were forced to make, it's a pretty easy claim to believe.
 
Famine
That's a bit odd given that it's behind by more than half a second to 60mph (5.9s to 6.6s) and by more than FIVE seconds to 100mph (14.2s [with the wing] to 19.9s)...

In fact the Countach would hit the 1/4 at over 100mph, while the Express's claimed 14.7 pass was at 93mph...

As I said, tall claim that a 225hp, 295lbft truck weighing 1.7 tons is faster in a straight line than a 351hp, 270lbft supercar weighing 1.3 tons...
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According to my very limited research, the 14.7 second time was actually for a prototype, and the production version could only manage a 15.7 second pass at 88 mph. The data is more variable for the LP400S, with websites listing anything between 13.3 and 14.6 seconds for the 1/4 mile, but that's still over a second faster than the Dodge.

Nobody is trying to claim the red express thingy is slow; it's pretty obvious that it had very impressive performance for the day. But to claim that it is faster than a contemporary Lamborghini Countach is just silly.
 
Rotary Junkie
With a proper launch that doubtless took multiple tries, yes.
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:lol:

Reaching much?
Rotary Junkie
Also you seem to be ignoring that time to a speed != distance to a speed. By the time the Countach started actually gaining the gap band would be playing for the Countach.
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Car & Driver's test that is the origin of the 'fastest US made car in 1978' line had the Express doing 0-100mph run in 19.9s. The Countach ran a quarter mile at 103mph in 14s.

The Countach beats it to 60, 100 and the quarter, by plenty, oodles and lots respectively. The only way the Express would reach a higher speed in a shorter distance or time would be if there was a Flux Capacitor on board. And since you have to be doing 88mph for that to function even that's off the table. You try and draw the distance graph that has the Express 0.7s behind to 60 and 6s behind to 100 against a car hitting the quarter at 103 yet only trailing by a tenth at 1320ft.

The claim actually is that it's the fastest car built in the USA in that year with the 19.9s 0-100mph as tested. That's not a surprise given that everything else was being strangled by emissions equipment and the Dodge had a light truck loophole that meant it wasn't. This was the year of the 170hp Corvette and the 130hp Mustang - though I recall that the Pontiac Trans Am was still in the 200s, so even that particular claim has a faint whiff of dubiousness about it.
 
:lol: I sort of figured that it would get this sort of response, though I still think it's sub zero!
 
Famine
though I recall that the Pontiac Trans Am was still in the 200s, so even that particular claim has a faint whiff of dubiousness about it.
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The Burtmobile was back up to 220 for 1978, and Car and Driver tested a 1979 model and it got to 100 in under 17 seconds, to an eventual 132 MPH. The Trans Am they tested alongside the Express had the same engine, but was saddled with an automatic with a stupidly low axle ratio because the stick shift in that year would have had a lower top speed. The actual article is quite a lot of fun to read. Especially the FIAT ad. And when they talk about what happened when they slammed on the brakes in the Thunderbird.


I daresay the scary Plymouth Fury pursuit cars, with their 255 horsepower 440s, could probably keep pace as well.
 
Great read, @Tornado, thanks for sharing! It's really quite incredible how slow cars of that era were. The fact that they found it hard to find cars that would do 110 mph is laughable when compared to today's cars. It's a real testament to how much better today's cars are.
 
Beeblebrox237
Great read, @Tornado, thanks for sharing! It's really quite incredible how slow cars of that era were. The fact that they found it hard to find cars that would do 110 mph is laughable when compared to today's cars. It's a real testament to how much better today's cars are.
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Todays cars might be better (ok, they are better) but 100mph in those old cars sure is thrilling. You feel everything, where as today's cars the same effect doesn't come about until up to double that in some cases. The lack of refinement makes it much more exciting.
 
Slash
Todays cars might be better (ok, they are better) but 100mph in those old cars sure is thrilling. You feel everything, where as today's cars the same effect doesn't come about until up to double that in some cases. The lack of refinement makes it much more exciting.
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Very similar to the wooden vs steel roller coaster type of thing I guess.
 
Slash
Todays cars might be better (ok, they are better) but 100mph in those old cars sure is thrilling. You feel everything, where as today's cars the same effect doesn't come about until up to double that in some cases. The lack of refinement makes it much more exciting.
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I totally agree; older cars offer a much more mechanical experience, and the added noise, vibration, and general level of feedback makes them seem busier at speed compared to a modern car. I certainly would rather have an older car to drive for fun than something brand new. Of course, that same level of NVH makes older cars much worse as daily drivers or for long journeys. In the article Tornado posted, the Little Red Express was considered unpleasant at a 55 mph cruise even in its day.

That said, I think you're overestimating the speed ratios a bit. 200 mph in a modern car is definitely far, far more intense than 100 mph in a 40 year old car. I'd say, based on some quick maths, that the excitement equivalency ratio is probably about Vo^(1.08) = Vn where Vo is the speed of the older car and Vn is the speed of the newer car. Of course, it's as much car dependent as age dependent. A 70's Merc will feel far more refined at 70 than an Alfa 4C.
 
Tornado
I think it would be a fascinating experience to take a 4500 pound car with the suspension of a waterbed to 111.


Though clearly stopping one is another matter.
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I once did 160 km/h in my 5600lbs pickup.

Even though I have double ventilated discs on the front, it took some time before they started working.
 
It's the Tim Tebow* of vehicles**: It doesn't fit, looks out of place, acts weird, and yet...temporarily put up skewed numbers on paper when asked and is hard to hate.

Dumb Cool.

* Go Gators
** Yes, it's older than Tebow, but stupid comparisons are best comparisons.
 
Adamgp
Quite possibly the first factory muscle truck, built to circumvent emissions regulations and offer some level of performance.

Also part of Dodge's seemingly sexist 'Adult Toys' campaign of the 1970's.

Sub Zero.
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I am pretty sure that makes it SU...
 

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