Road Test
Way back when, people who needed trucks-farmers, ranchers, delivery guys, construction workers, linemen-drove trucks. Then something weird happened: Pickups got cool. Everybody wanted to drive one. Suddenly, F-150s and C/Ks sprouted up like Starbucks coffee houses across the suburban landscape. These new drivers liked the "tough" style statement and defended the purchase by making two trips a year to Home Depot. Carrying nothing but air in their beds 99 percent of the time, the truck's capabilities were wasted. Damn poseurs.

The world needs more tires that look cool and still last a long time. We admit it: We'll often choose a tire that's better suited for the dirt than the highway just because it looks aggressive. We know a lot of you out there think just like we do, otherwise there wouldn't be so many pavement-pounding sport trucks running around on mud-terrain rubber. The truth is we spend most of our time on-road and very little time mobbin' through the dirt or mud. In the past, it was tough to find a long-lasting and aggressive tread design that could satisfy our sense of cool and our bank account. Well, Nitto has the answer.

Not too long ago, we acquired a new test truck from Nissan Motor Corp. We ordered a new Frontier to see what changes were made over its predecessor and to drive it for a year while testing as many aftermarket parts as possible. We've put a few thousand miles on the Nissan so far and tested a new air intake from Stillen. So meet Sport Truck's newest test vehicle, and be sure to check out the rendering of how the Frontier could look lifted or lowered.

If you're looking for a new truck and have the customizing jones going on, think about Dodge's new '08 Dakota. You might be surprised at what you find in this heavily improved truck. From the angle of driving something different, with the Dakota, you're already out in front. With the littler Ram, you're a lot less likely to see yourself coming and going-Dodge sells six times as many fullsize Rams as Dakotas. And compared to the numbers Chevy and Ford sell, the Dakota comes out seeming like a limited-production vehicle, which is not a bad starting point for somebody wanting to have a ride that stands out in a crowd.

Our test fleet recently grew by two, and this is an introduction to our latest acquisition. We ordered a new Tundra from Toyota Motor Corp., using its bitchen website, www.toyota.com, and plan to flog this thing for a year, while testing as many bolt-on mods as possible. Along the way, we'll review parts that make the 5.7L V-8 run harder, slap on new suspension pieces that'll make it look and handle better, and try out a few new products that will create an extremely user-friendly fullsize truck.

Just the idle of the 403hp 6.2L V-8 is enough to make you fall in love. The cam gives it a mildly lumpy burble that's tuned to resonate like the low notes of some Gothic organ. Matching this sound perfectly is deep piano-black paint. It's classy but a bit menacing. Meet the '08 GMC Sierra Denali. It's the most expensive light truck to wear the GMC name, and the most powerful, too. Optioned out, this truck stickers for almost $48,000.

As far as the eye can see, there's nothing friendly about South Dakota's Badlands. The size of an ocean, it stretches across the horizon. There is only rock that God Himself sculpted into canyons with mazes and lots of ways in but seemingly no way out. Legend has it that even the tough Native Americans of the region stayed out of this place.

We got a call awhile back from Anthony Stephenson, one of the head honchos at Big 3 Performance in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He told us the shop had just finished its version of an Escalade V that clicks off low 13-second quarter-mile times. He offered us the keys if we came down, so we sent Ben Wolkomir out there to flog the hefty SUV. What follows is his impression of the pumped-up Caddy.

So, you need something with more guts than a light-duty pickup but not quite as much as a Kenworth or Peterbilt? Ford has what you're looking for. It's called the Super Duty, and it can be found at a Ford dealer near you. These are the trucks you go to when you max out what a light-duty can deliver. Have a trailer that weighs more than 10,000 pounds? Need to haul more than 3,000 pounds in the box? Start thinking Super Duty. Compared to its little brother, the F-150 (or any other light-duty truck), the new Super Duty F-Series delivers around 2-1/2 times the maximum trailering power and twice the maximum payload. That means you can carry 3 tons in the bed or tow 12-1/4 tons behind you. That's 24,500 pounds! Do you have anything that weighs that much? If you do, it's probably a damn-big travel trailer, horse hauler, or boat.

There's no question that the Porsche Cayenne Turbo is one badass SUV. With performance that rivals many dedicated sports cars, plus plenty of room for five adults and their luggage, it's one all-around formidable package. But, at more than $90,000, it's also unfortunately out of reach for the majority of us Average Joes out there. But, you're not completely SOL if you want an SUV with all the spice of the Cayenne turbo, for a price that doesn't give you heartburn. Introducing the latest thing in performance SUVs, the Grand Cherokee SRT8. Starting around $40,000, you can have an SUV packing a 6.1L high-output Hemi sportin' 420 eager ponies, all-wheel drive, and enough raw power to blow almost any SUV and most other cars into the weeds.

This month, we have to say goodbye to the Toyota Tacoma X-Runner, and we do it with heavy hearts. The truck won our last Sport Truck of the Year competition, pulling top honors over some tough contenders like the Dodge SRT-10 Ram. The X is a well-balanced total package of a truck, not just a quarter-mile screamer. It is able to out-corner most cars on the road and still haul a load. The 4.0L V-6 has good power throughout the rpm range, but really shines when the needle gets above 3,200. The six-speed manual transmission shifts very easily and lets you make great use of the motor.

So, your buddy's got a Ram Mega Cab, your other buddy has a Ford F-350 dualie, and that other guy that freeloads and drinks all your beer at your football parties and brags about everything he has and does has a lifted H2. They all think they have the prize when it comes to bigness. But, if you're just hell-bent on being the biggest, there's an ace in the hole that'll trump all of them, soundly. Enter the GMC TopKick pickup from Monroe Truck Equipment. This bad mamma-jamma literally and figuratively trounces all of the above in the bigness department. With a stout curb weight of 11,300 pounds, it weighs roughly as much as two Suburbans, easily 3,000 pounds heftier than any of the big dualies from Ford, Dodge, or the regular Chevys or GMCs. The bed payload is 5,000 pounds, more than the towing capacity of most midsize SUVs. At 14,300 pounds, the towing capacity is capable but not earth-shattering.

Sport Truck readers already know that trucks are great. The broader automotive world is about to be reminded of this fact, when General Motors puts its next generation of pickups on sale during the fourth quarter of 2006. Meet the all-new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra.

Ford still uses its "Built Ford Tough" slogan in radio and television commercials to advertise its pickups. The company even prints the mantra at the top of the window sticker of these same trucks so that no matter what you do, you will know that the truck you are about to buy is tough as nails. The trouble is that you can take this statement in several ways, a couple of which don't sound too good. Some of the truck's we've driven in this market segment are indeed tough; tough on your butt on long trips, tough to park, and tough to justify paying for once you factor in fuel and insurance costs. The F-250 Amarillo Edition SD Crew Cab is a welcome exception.

Few vehicles in recent memory have had as significant of an impact on American automotive culture than the Cadillac Escalade. Whether you're a fan of its in-your-face style or not, there's no disputing that it has made its mark in the fullsize truck and SUV scene. Almost single-handedly, this vehicle is responsible for the beginnings of Cadillac's image makeover from a stale, stodgy luxury brand coveted by Florida retirees to something that people younger than 70 might actually want. Yes, you could say the groundwork was laid with the '92 STS, but without question, it's the 'Slade that indisputably put Caddy on the coolness map again.

Nearly every family has one - the one misfit character who dances to the beat of his own drummer - you know, the middle brother who has embraced the Goth look with white face makeup, black nail polish and lipstick, a monochromatic black wardrobe, and angry speed-metal. But, more often than not, the misfit sibling grows out of their "weird" stage and becomes somewhat more mainstream. Maybe they still have a few unique quirks but by external appearances are relatively "normal."

Super Sport. It's Chevy's vaunted designation for its sportiest, most powerful models. Over the years, it's been applied to vehicles rightly deserving and some not quite as deserving. But, through it all, it has still has emerged as a coveted and desirable nameplate by enthusiasts. In the early '90s, the idea of a genuinely high-performance SUV seemed strange. Indeed, when GMC came out with the Typhoon in the early '90s, it was considered an oddball vehicle by many enthusiasts. Here was an SUV with zero towing capacity and very little payload. So, the utility portion of the sport-utility equation was essentially AWOL. Today's SUV buyers and enthusiasts are far less forgiving of one-trick ponies. They want room, comfort, performance, and of course, all the capability of mainstream SUVs.

It's no secret that Mitsubishi is not having the best of times right now. Aside from the rally-star Lancer Evolution and the swoopy new Eclipse, its overall lineup trails the larger Japanese manufacturers in terms of breadth and newness. One gap long left unfilled since the demise of the Mighty Max was a pickup. Although not quite as chummy as it once was with DaimlerChrysler since the sale of its stake in Mitsubishi, the companies had a good enough relationship to collaborate on coming up with Mitsubishi's new truck, the Raider. It just happened to coincide nicely with Dodge's introduction of an all-new Dakota.

General Motors needs some good news. Its corporate bonds have been relegated to junk status, and its staggering debt and pension obligations have been the ongoing grist of the financial talk shows. If there's one area where the General still shines, however, it's in fullsize trucks and SUVs. But, it doesn't dominate the category like it once did. Not only does GM have to keep an eye on Ford in its rearview mirror, but Nissan now has the Armada, and Toyota has had the Sequoia for several years now. Even the king-size Suburban has a 1/2-ton competitor now with the new Ford Expedition EL. So, needless to say, it was imperative that GM stay on the ball with this one.

China's living large, India's the new call-center capital of the world, and Venezuela's dictator is bosom buddies with Fidel Castro. You're probably wondering why this story is opening with a summary of current geopolitics. The bottom line is that all these seemingly unrelated trends have a direct impact on the price you pay at the pump for gas.

It's no secret that Mitsubishi is not having the best of times right now. Aside from the rally-star Lancer Evolution and the swoopy new Eclipse, its overall lineup trails the larger Japanese manufacturers in terms of breadth and newness. One gap long left unfilled since the demise of the Mighty Max was a pickup. Although not quite as chummy as it once was with DaimlerChrysler since the sale of its stake in Mitsubishi, the companies had a good enough relationship to collaborate on coming up with Mitsubishi's new truck, the Raider. It just happened to coincide nicely with Dodge's introduction of an all-new Dakota.

Hybrids currently probably rank right above a Chevy Aveo on the average Sport Truck enthusiast's excitement meter. After all, what do fun-loving, party-going, rubber-laying guys have in common with the pointy-headed tree-huggers that drive Priuses? Well, the Ford Escape Hybrid may not rank as high as the late, great F-150 Lightning in the performance department, but based on its specs, it's far from a gutless dog. We were curious about what this cute 'ute was like to live with, so we decided we'd give it a real-world shakedown.

The recently introduced Cooper Zeon XST targets the performance-minded Sport Truck enthusiast, who's more limited on budget than desire. After spending some time with the tire, we found it to be a great-looking tire, and given the very reasonable price point for the 255/55R18s, it's a good value. Here are the details.

Imagine for just a moment what your dream truck would be. Now imagine that an engineer from Lincoln is standing in front of you jotting down all the ideas that are the makeup of that dream truck. Seem a little unreal? A few years ago, it was happening in cities all over America.

The ’02 Lincoln Blackwood is a promise that Lincoln delivered on…American luxury. The design team at Lincoln was charged with building a hybrid truck—some might call it a pickup or SUV. The development stage included a swarm of engineers closely listening to drivers and developing a truck that delivered style and catered to 100 percent of their wildest dreams.

Although it shares styling cues with the existing Navigator, the Blackwood is a new design and concept in trucks from the ground up. From the get-go, Lincoln was out to design a luxury truck that could be used just as any other pickup and deliver the comfort and style Lincoln customers expect. This meant a full luxury package from the tires to the key fob. The Blackwood uses an integrated rigid frame for a solid foundation on which to build. An engineering challenge that had to be dealt with was how to give superior ride quality, aggressive performance, and functionality, all with minimal road noise. In essence it was solved by developing independent systems to tackle each obstacle. For starters, understand that all noise inside a cab is either generated by the cab itself or is transmitted from the road through suspension and frame components. Lincoln put a gap in noise and vibration transmission by developing micro-cellular urethane body mounts. The idea is that with this new material, most vibrations transmitted to the frame will stop and not traverse into the passenger cabin by way of the sheetmetal.

With road noise insulated by the bushings, next came handling. What most Lincoln customers didn’t like about trucks was that they drove and felt like a lumbering beast skipping across the pavement. The conclusion was that the Blackwood had to handle like a car. A new dual-stage steering system was developed to give a lot at low speeds and stiffen at freeway speeds. Using specially designed shocks in combination with specifically designed tires ensured the truck sticks to the ground. To improve on handling, the Blackwood has a near perfect 50/50-weight distribution. To accommodate load variances, the Blackwood uses air springs in combination with monoleaf springs. The concept is for the leaf springs to carry the weight of the vehicle while the air springs inflate/deflate to accommodate the specific load. The self-leveling air spring system is computer-controlled and ensures the same trim level no matter how much load is in or being towed by the Blackwood.