Here are some of the fastest pickup trucks ever built

The idea of a fast pickup has been around since the Model T (100mph 1910 or 1920s Roadster Pickup, anyone?); humans have the innate need to make things faster, whether they warrant the attention or not. So here’s a few of the fastest pickups ever to have graced a DIY Superstore carpark… 

Let’s start by accepting that the game has changed. With the advent of electric horsepower, you can motivate pretty much anything to accelerate like a horse with its tail on fire. They might not have the top speed, but you can’t fault the sprint. So it’s worth mentioning here the GMC Hummer EV 3X e4WD (0-60mph in 2.8, 103mph), the Tesla Cybertruck Beast (0-60mph in 2.6, 130mph) and the Rivian R1T Quad Motor (0-60mph in 2.5, 130mph). They’re the in-gear generals. But electric energy doesn’t quite fit the Top Gear pickup intellectual aesthetic. So we’re looking for pistons for the pallet-pulling.

We’ll start with the current champ of delivery time crime: the Rumble Bee SRT. It’s a RAM 1500 with 13-inches chopped out of the wheelbase and a ‘Hellcat’ V8 injected into its veins. So that’s a 6.2-litre Hemi with a 2.4-litre supercharger welded to the top, huffing out 13psi of boost. The outputs are suitably muscular, 777bhp and 680lb ft of torque, plus an exhaust note that feels like it should have a scale on the Richter.

The standard sprint to (American) 60mph takes 3.4 seconds, a couple of tenths more to Euro 62mph. But the pointy bit here is the top speed. At 170+mph, the most potent of the Rumble Bee swarm should be the fastest ‘proper’ pickup in the world. Yes, it’s a niche flex, but one that we’re here for. Standard all-wheel drive comes with a rear-drive mode and ‘e-Spool’ lockable rear-diff function for drag starts with launch control, or… uh… scientific burnouts?

The ‘Bee SRT’s immediate predecessor albeit from 2006, and until recently, the fastest pickup. A confirmed top speed of over 154mph, which has stood for two decades - probably because nobody was that bothered, but still. Power comes courtesy of the naturally-aspirated 8.3-litre V10 from the third-gen Viper. That’s 500bhp and 525lb ft of torque, and 0-60mph in 4.9 seconds. At the time, a completely unhinged monster.

What’s more interesting is that the SRT/10 had an auto ‘boxed dual cab and the - record-holding - single-cab, six-speed manual Tremec. We’re talking about a full-size thing that still took just 13.6 seconds to complete the quarter mile. And one of the most mid-2000s interiors possible. Think grey plastic and pleather, plus some silver trim that would make Kit-Kat foil look like structural steel. These days, you’d be more worried about the fuel bill - this is single-digit mpg in truck format. Might as well just set fire directly to your pension.

The idea of a fast pickup isn’t a new one. And for the Lil’ Red Express, we’re heading back to 1978. The ‘Express was a D150 in ‘Canyon’ red that featured exhaust stacks, gold pinstriping and fetching wooden decoration, plus a 350cu (5.7-litre), 225bhp V8 nicked from a lightly-hopped-up police cruiser. Three-speed auto. It’s an interesting one, simply because back in the late ‘70s, it featured in an advertising campaign called ‘Adult Toys’ and was pitched as the fastest American-made vehicle from 0-100mph.

So the fastest muscle car you could get in ’78 was actually a pickup truck. For extra nerd points, it’s only the 1978 model that has the round headlights - the 1979 model got stacked rectangular units. And there’s a version called the ‘Warlock’ that’s the same truck, just painted black - which is much rarer. USA does get the best names, though.

You want a fast pickup that’s speedy across pretty much literally anything you point it at? You need one of the modern craze of off-road - but civilian - supertrucks. The Ford Raptor R is a desert-basher with a 5.2-litre supercharged V8 pushing 720bhp and 640lb ft, enough to propel it to 60mph in 3.6-3.9 seconds, with a limited top speed of 114. The RAM 1500 TRX SRT has the same motor as the Rumble Bee SRT, but hiking boots instead of trainers. So that’s sub-fours. But both of these are canted towards off-road Baja-style capability - the foot of suspension travel doesn’t do them the most favours through a corner. But to be honest, these things don’t need to bother too much with ‘corners’ - they can drive straight and probably lose no speed. 

Built to try and eat the lunch of the 454 SS Chevy (see previous), the Lightning was a light pickup built by Ford’s Special Vehicle Team (SVT), that went for street-beast mode rather than work utility.  So we’re talking lowered suspension, stepside bed, more aggressive styling and lake pipes. Two versions: ’93 to ’95 with a 5.8-litre V8 (240bhp/340lb ft), seven seconds to 60mph. Which was rapid for the day. Gen 2 got a supercharger from ’99 to 2004, 360bhp and 450lb ft, which dropped the sprint to 5.2 seconds and upped the top speed to 145mph in the later variants. Side pipes for the win. 

Another legend from the early 1990s, this one incapable of doing much actual work, unless that ‘work’ involved being very fast in a straight line. And not a V8; the Syclone had a 4.3-litre V6 with big turbo and water-to-air intercooler combo, providing 280bhp and 350lb ft of torque. But with trick all-wheel drive, the Syclone hit 60mph in 4.6 seconds; it got dubbed the ‘Ferrari Killer’ in no time at all. Worth noting that all Syclones from the manufacturer were painted black, and featured a deep front splitter, various aero bits and 16in alloys. Interestingly, it also had an ‘SUV’ sister car called the Typhoon - but we’re only interested in things with beds here.

OK, so it's more of a Ute than a traditional pickup, but a Maloo is always worth a mention. In 2006 Aussie touring car driver Mark Skaife took a production 5.7-litre LS1/340bhp Maloo R8 to 172mph. Which, given the fact that they’re not, let's say 'great' at super high speed stability (don’t ask how we know), is mightily impressive. If you want raw numbers though, there was a more powerful Maloo that never ran a record - the later GTS. That featured an LSA Supercharged 6.2 V8 with a lot more horsepower; 570+bhp and 546lb ft. With that much more power, it would have undoubtedly run faster.

Widely regarded as a 1 April joke in 2011 - which it was - the BMW M3 pickup/ute isn’t actually fake. The first was in 1986 and based on a reinforced E30 320i Cabriolet, later upgraded to a 2.3 a-la-M3. It actually hauled parts around the factory in Munich for some years. The later version was an E92 and had the proper, contemporary M3 4.0-litre V8 and 414bhp. The bed was custom-made aluminium, and BMW leaked ‘spy’ shots of it testing at the Nürburgring for the aforementioned April japes.

But the car wasn’t an AI special (or, more accurately at the time, Photoshop), and acted as a support car for BMW bike teams in its retirement years. Though one suspects that a fully rear-wheel drive M3 with sketchy skeletal rear bodywork might have been a bit of a hindrance when it came to setting lap times.