Hard as it may seem to believe, Ken Block wasn’t
born knowing how to drive straight out of the womb. He had to learn just like
the rest of us. He just picked it up a little better, suffice it to say. And he
learned on a truck similar to this
one.
What you see here is the Hoonitruck – the new set of
old wheels that Block will drive in the forthcoming Gymkhana Ten. It’s based on
a 1977 Ford F-150 like the one his daddy had. But his daddy’s didn’t pack this
much power.
In place of the big old hunk of metal with which
this pickup was built, Detroit Speed dropped in the
3.5-liter twin-turbo EcoBoost V6 from the Ford GT. But not the road-going GT –
this one’s from the Le Mans racer, and produces a massive 914 hp and 952 Nm of torque. That’s nearly four times as much power as
even the biggest engine offered in the sixth-gen F-150, and it’s channeled to
all four of those 20-inch wheels and their Toyo tires through a Sadev six-speed
gearbox.
The body shell was recrafted by hand out of
military-grade aluminum (not unlike the current F-150’s), the suspension
evidently dropped to the tarmac, and there’s a big wing at the back that looks
like it was lifted straight off a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series racer. It
even has a trailer hitch and backup camera, which may itself give us a hint at
what Block has in store for us in his latest project.
Gymkhana Ten is slated to air on Amazon Prime come December
7 before hitting YouTube on the 17th. But visitors to the SEMA show will be
able to see the truck in person at the Toyo Tires booth in a few weeks from
now.
