Lil’ Red Back from the Dead!

[A12pilot]

Thanks for the replies guys! This will be a fun one. More later on the thoughts shoot what to do with it. You’ll notice that the bed wood in Ryan’s photo shows it was painted red which is correct. The bed wood and slats were all painted red, no polished slats and stained wood. Very common to “over-restore” this since it looks way better done that way.

And the black version was indeed a Warlock package. Unlike the Lil Red, that option was just a sticker package and nothing more. You can only tell you had a Warlock by the option code on the under hood sticker or Broadcast sheet. Lil’ Reds have to have as “S” in the fifth digit for 78/79 which indicates the Express package. So you can tell a fake/tribute right away by looking at the VIN of an Exoress. The Warkock was just a regular truck with the sticker package.

There’s another option too which was called the Midnite Express, notice the spelling. These were not built by Dodge but by Mr. Norm’s dealership. No VIN will tell you and there’s no records about these trucks retained from GS Dodge about how many were made. It was a sticker package and used Lil Red parts, but wasn’t offered by the dealer.

Another cool thing was the first group of LREs were like the GTOs, a batch car. You couldn’t order one with a sales guy until the 79 model year. Dodge just made them and optioned them how they saw fit.

Cheers
Dave