Holy West Newton!
Birmo’s pet phrase I’d first heard in Osterville when he flattened the throttle in my 1970 Firebird Trans Am – Ram Air III, 4-speed Hurst – escaped my lips the other day when I did the same thing in Chris Roth, Junior’s Chevy Silverado 3500… forty-five years later! In a truck!
I simply had NO idea!
I was visiting my friends at Roth Boat Builders in Massachusetts last week as part of our renewed marketing efforts for the company. While riding shotgun I casually asked Chris, Senior whether his 2021 Silverado had a V6 or a V8. The legendary boat builder and former 911 owner reckoned it was a V8 but in 46,000 miles he’d never opened the hood so he didn’t know for sure. The next day I ran some errands and inadvertently chirped the rears leaving the boat yard. Impressive indeed but it sure didn’t sound like a V8 with the windows open. When I got back to the office I went online to check the specs. I saw several engine options but no V6. It couldn’t possibly be that 305 hp, 2.7 liter turbo four, could it? I had to pop the hood to confirm but sure enough it was the four, paired beautifully with an 8-speed automatic.
Overall, the truck felt nimble with quick, responsive steering and was easy to place through busy, fast, multi-lane traffic in the booming suburbs south of Boston once I got the large mirrors adjusted. I found the side-to-side pitching body movements less than satisfying but I figured, well, it IS a truck.
Then Junior rolled up in his new rig and my entire outlook on automobilia changed:
My earliest truck memory involves my Uncle Merrill Ficket in Cherryfield, Maine – my mother’s home town – when he showed up to give me a ride in his new 1960 Ford F-100. I was fascinated, watching him work the clutch and three-on-the-tree while telling me that this would probably be his last truck… the first time the concept of mortality presented itself to me. From Buddy L and Tonka through my first real truck, a 1994 V6, 5-speed, 4WD Tacoma (a couple of years before Toyota started calling them that) trucks represented useful conveyances to me, nothing more.
That is, until I began towing 16' Nantucket Skiffs to customers all over the country behind a 1998 F-150 4.6 V8 from Marshfield where they were built. That blue short cab with 180,000 miles on it in 2009 took me to San Francisco; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Naples, Florida and on shorter jaunts around New England, turning particularly frisky deadheading home as a cleverly disguised Mustang GT.
Of course, I also towed with larger trucks when customers were moving entire households along with their Nantucket Skiffs, in this case behind the wheel of an International 4300.
So when it came time for a company truck to promote the Roth-Bilt brand in Florida I picked up an immaculate ‘98 Flareside for $4,600, one local owner for the past twenty years, rust-free, antique plate-eligible, showing a mere 143,000 miles, sacrificing only the V8 sound for the newer 4.2 V6, which produces just 5 hp less from two fewer cylinders. It’s lovely little conveyance, which I pretend is a Lightning.
Like I said, I thought I knew trucks. Uh, uh… not even close.
Granted, the fastest vehicles I’ve owned in decades were a pair of VR6 Jettas, relying instead on momentum in nimble VWs and BMWs to make time. And of course I’d seen enough in-car videos of ZL1 1LE Camaros and such attacking the Nordschleife to entertain the thought of once again experiencing the thrust of that Trans Am. I just never expected it come in the form of a gigantic pickup truck requiring a running board to mount. Listen to these specs! Engine: 6.6L Duramax Turbo-Diesel V8 with 445 hp and 910 foot pounds of torque! Transmission: Allison 10-speed automatic! And a dashboard the likes of which car nut Steve Jobs could never have imagined when he introduced the last product he personally championed, the iPad.
What impressed me most, however, was how small the larger-cabin truck drove compared to the 2021, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. The gigantic two-part mirrors afforded complete certainty as to one’s surroundings while dispatching adjacent traffic. The brakes were right-now effective. And the steering seemed crisper than that of the turbo four’s, the body exhibiting none of the lateral roll of the older truck. Naturally, some of that impression might have been due to the 3500’s newness (or its pudgy, leather-wrapped wheel) but even so the truck felt far more poised than its older sibling. And that punch! You see a gap, punch it and you’re there!
There’s also a gas V8 available but in for a penny, in for a pound. I’m told diesels hold their value better than gas pickups and there’s always the matter of turbo engines’ longevity, which would concern me even more hauling around an actual work truck. So other than the 85K price tag, why wouldn’t you go for the oil burner?
ADDENDUM: The downside of trucks in the salty, slushy northern tundra, and I don’t mean the Toyota of the same name. Here’s a relatively recent Silverado belonging to a company in the next bay from RBB with its bed removed.
Instead of the usual musical interlude, how about a little tour around Brant Rock in the 2021 turbo four Silverado?