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Flight of the Rumble BeeSeptember 22, 2003 Performance West adds sting to latest Dodge Ram concept truck on g-Force T/A® 24s The Dodge Rumble Bee is an ultra pickup with a supercharged, intercooled Hemi V8 powering a short bed, standard cab Dodge Ram. It's a concept vehicle from the southern California shop of Larry Weiner, designed on commission for DaimlerChrysler. The theme of the Rumble Bee is the heavy-breathing excitement of late '60s muscle cars, particularly the '69 Dodge Super Bee Hemi. It's set to debut at the 2003 SEMA show. "It looks modern, but it carries the optional Super Bee graphic on the sides," says Weiner, president and founder of Performance West Group, "to give it the cool muscle car flavor without looking too derivative." To accent the monster Chrysler hemi V8, Performance West created a flat-black liftoff hood with a big scoop in it, which Weiner patterned after the "Six Pack" version of the '69 Super Bee. "The truck is communicating performance, power and excitement. You sit behind the wheel and there's this huge hood scoop on a massive hood. It transmits the message that there's so much motor we had to make the hood bulge." The Rumble Bee inarguably has a lot of motor. Starting with a production 5.7-liter hemi V8, the Rumble Bee benefits from supercharging and intercooling, which pump the horsepower over 500 HP, Weiner says. It rides on 24-inch alloy wheels on 305/35ZR24 BFGoodrich® g-Force T/A®KDW tires - the world's first 24-inch "dub" tires. "BFGoodrich was the only choice for tires," Weiner says. "As much as this truck is historically rooted, we wanted to make a modern version of what was a cutting-edge car in the late '60s. BFG is the cutting edge of high-performance tires, so there was no question. BFG's are beautiful to look at, with an aggressive tread pattern. It had to be the tire for this vehicle from the minute we put pen to paper." |
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