The September/October 2024 issue of the magazine is available in our gift shop now and will be available on newsstands soon. Our cover feature is a 1990 Chevrolet 454 SS pickup. Story by Robert Gabrick • Photos by Brad Bowling

Cover Story | 1990 Chevrolet 454 SS pickup

THE NEW ANTIQUE

This 1990 Chevrolet 454 SS pickup has only traveled 113 miles in 35 years!

Story by Robert Gabrick • Photos by Brad Bowling

“Chevy 454 SS: Young Girls Avert Their Eyes. Weak Men Tremble. Ford Dealers Faint.”

With a bold advertising headline like that, you had to know Chevrolet was selling something out of the ordinary in 1990!

“Somewhere in the darkness, behind its mask of black-out stealth trim, Chevy 454 SS growls with 230 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque,” the dramatic sales pitch continued. “More power than Ford’s 1/2-ton. More power than any sport pickup.”

The Campbell Ewald advertising agency’s copywriter was not finished laying on the superlatives.

“It stalks the night on 11-inch-wide, P275/60 black-letter radials. Leashed to a performance handling package on Bilstein gas shocks. Chevy 454 SS says it loud and clear: Nobody’s winning like The Heartbeat of America.”

The early advertisement also offered striking imagery with the Chevy 454 SS displaying its parking and running lights as a parallel to the fierce eyes of a feral black cat nearly hidden within a dark and foreboding overgrown landscape.

Exciting stuff, but what exactly went into the first Chevrolet to wear “454 SS” badges since Gerald Ford was in the White House?

As we entered the late 1980s, General Motors was eager to make its Chevrolet/GMC truck twins competitive with Ford, having produced the third-generation C/K since 1973. Chevrolet’s rounded, muscular GMT400—or “fourth-generation C/K,” if that’s a more familiar nomenclature—was introduced to great reviews in April 1987. At a glance, its flush-mounted glass, lights, and door handles and lack of drip rails signaled that the GM Truck & Bus group had spent a lot of time refining its new design in the wind tunnel.

To read more about the 1990 Chevy 454 SS, pick up a copy of the September/October 2024 issue of Vintage Truck magazine!

Articles in this issue include:

FEATURES

Drive Your Old Truck Day 2024
Story by Brad Bowling
Depression-Era Dodge
This 1932 Dodge UF-10 pickup hauled a lot of hammers … maybe.
Story by Loren Hoekema, Photos by Brad Bowling
The New Antique
This 1990 Chevrolet 454 SS pickup has only traveled 113 miles in 35 years!
Story by Robert Gabrick, Photos by Brad Bowling
A Passion for People Movers
In Matthew Gaudio’s Ford Quadravan, it is 1974 all over again!
Story by Robert Gabrick, Photos by Al Rogers

DEPARTMENTS

Letter from the Editor
Letters to the Editor
The Road Less Traveled: Locomobile and Riker Trucks
Books in the Bed: Reviews by Robert Gabrick
Aid for the Anxious Amateur: What’s the best oil filter to clean your engine’s blood?
Classifieds
Show Guide
Granny Gear: Life on the Doyle Scale

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