The fastest
production pickup truck in the
world. Take a standard
Ford F-150, let Ford's in-house
tuner Special Vehicle Team (better known as
SVT) turn it into a high-performance "
sports truck", and the result is the
Lightning. This beast of a pickup is more than capable of dispatching most
sports cars with little
effort.
The Lightning, first introduced in 1992 for the 1993 model year, uses the same 5.4-liter, SOHC Triton V8 from the top of the line Ford F-150 SuperCrew, normally producing a good 260 horsepower at 4500 rpm -- but SVT throws in an Eaton supercharger and tweaks the output up to a very impressive 380 hp and 450 lbs.ft. of torque -- the Lightning earns its name thanks to this, jumping from zero to sixty mph in around five and a half seconds. Unfortunately, since it only uses a four-speed transmission (and an automatic, at that), it tops out at a mere 142 mph. Still an extremely quick ride.
The 2003 Lightning has an MSRP of only $33,255 -- pretty good, considering it's almost as powerful as the $38,265 Mustang Cobra.