The fact that today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Chevy S-10 has a 500 CID Caddy V8 in back means that the only thing it'll haul is ass. Does its price however, mean a buyer would also be taking it, well, you know where?
Confession time, I was trolling with yesterday's freaky custom Alfa GTV for fifty large. Of course you weren't having it, and to the likely disappointment of that car's seller, 99% of you rightfully sent it down in a record Crack Pipe loss. Of course, that leaves 1% of you whose acuity is now called into question. I'm keeping my eye on you.
For the rest, I promise, no more trolling - hey look, it's an '87 Chevy S-10 with a Caddy motor. . . in the bed! Okay, so this is yet another modded vehicle, but unlike yesterday's Alfatastrophe, this is both bewitching and won't get you banned from any marque events.
It used to be that mini pickups were not just smaller than their full-sized brethren, they were also more genteel, carrying names like the Courier and Chevy's own lovely LUV. Everybody loved the LUV, but eventually everything has to grow up, and when GM made the switch from import to domestic production for their smaller hauler they also cast off the hippy-dippy LUV name for the more industrial S-10 moniker.
Thus butched up and a bit bigger in its britches than its Isuzu-sourced predecessor, the early 1980's S-10's biggest failing was its selection of powertrains, starting with an enemic 84-horse four from the Cavalier, and topping out with a 125-pony edition of the 2.8-litre V6. Later trucks solved the power problem with a liberal application of Vortec, but this '87 goes one better by adopting a 500-CID big block from a Caddy.
Now, the engine bay of an S-10 is not sufficiently sized to fit so massive a motor, and so to, apparently, is the bed. The builder of this machine has not only dropped the Caddy mill in the back, but has also fitted around it the step-side bed from a larger C/K-series truck. As an added bonus, the bed tilts like it's a tempurPedic.
Cadillac first introduced the 500 CID V8 in 1970 as an exclusive option for the Eldorado. At that time it pumped out a claimed 400 horses, but saw that dwindle over the years to a smog-control constrained 190 by 1975. This one is probably unfettered by such power-robbing limitations. It does however tip the scales - factory - at around 625-lbs, and that exceeds the S-10's original ¼-ton payload capacity. Hopefully the springs and axle have been suitably upgraded.
Gaining a whopping big engine in back makes whatever motivational speaker residing under the hood unnecessary and so it, as you might expect, has been given the heave-ho. That's replaced by a fuel cell to make up for the lack of an under-bed gas tank that was removed to fit the Caddy V8. Wow, circle of life!
The seller claims that the truck is being sold incomplete, but doesn't detail what's left to make it whole. He does say that it runs and moves under its own power, and it appears that much of the heavy lifting has already been done, making this a potentially viable project to carry on.
To do so however, you would need to bring $3,200 to the party. The list of V8-powered mid engine'd rides for that kind of cash is shorter than the list of living black folk at any one time on the Walking Dead, so potentially that's a deal. Of course that's up to you to decide. What do you think, is this crazy Caddy-powered S-10 worth that kind of scratch? Or, is this tilt-bed truck's price topsy turvy?
You decide!
Rockford Files or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Caleb for the hookup!
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