If you’re looking for a pickup truck that nobody else has, look no further than this 1990 Chevy Silverado SS. This is one of the first-ever performance pickup trucks, beating even GM’s own GMC Syclone pickup that debuted in 1991. It’s also wildly rare — and most people have never even heard of it.
Here are the basics: The Silverado SS — technically, at that time, just the C1500 SS, as the Chevy truck didn’t adopt the Silverado name until the late 1990s — was a sport-oriented version of the Chevy pickup. It was offered only with 2-wheel drive, and it used a massive 7.4-liter V8 — though it made just 230 horsepower, along with a respectable 385 lb-ft of torque. Every C1500 SS was painted black with a red interior, and they all received the "454" graphics you see here, indicating the engine size in cubic inches.
Although Chevy made about 16,000 of these "SS 454" pickups in the early 1990s, this particular SS 454 is undoubtedly one of the nicest ones left. Offered by Private Collection Motors in Orange County, California, this SS 454 has traveled just 7,000 miles from new — and the interior looks brand new, like the perfectly preserved time capsule this truck is. It’s an incredible example of a truck that most people forgot.
Not surprisingly, the pricing reflects this truck’s condition: It’s offered for $39,888. That’s a lot of money, but finding another SS 454 in this shape will be tremendously difficult. Plus, this truck has some significance in the car world, as it kicked off the "performance pickup" trend that continues today, with later performance trucks including the Dodge Ram SRT-10, the Ford F-150 SVT Lightning, the GMC Syclone and a later version of the Chevy Silverado SS.
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Great truck! Sorry I have to question that mileage due to how easy it is to roll that speedo. So its my understanding you could get this truck in any color you wanted as long as you ordered black. A few red ones were put out but I have no number. A red one with this mileage would be worth it’s weight in gold!
7.4L and it manages to squeeze out two less HP than the 1.3L in my Mazda RX-8.
What’s the torque number on your 13b? Sure it has 454hp, but its a truck engine through and through. Not to mention its from an era where they weren’t doing a great job extracting HP from displacement. We’ve gotten spoiled on performance.