10 Special-Edition ’90s Trucks You Forgot About
These uncommon pickups tantalized buyers with style, features, and stickers.
By the time the 1990s rolled around, pickups were increasingly popular choices as daily drivers. Keen to expand the role of trucks past their traditional status as work rigs, Detroit’s Big Three began to produce as many different special editions and unique models as possible to see what would stick with their new demographics.
Many of those special-edition trucks were put together with performance in mind—but those aren’t the pickups we’re calling out here. Instead, we dug deep to find versions of 1990s trucks that you probably forgot about, models that brought something special to the table in terms of their design, their styling, or their unique approach to the pickup market.
While some of these trucks made an impact in their day, others were doomed to obscurity almost from the moment they rolled off the assembly line. If you come across one of these special-edition '90s trucks today, make sure to take a picture, because chances are good you won’t see one again anytime soon.
1990–1991 Chevrolet S-10 Baja
Compact trucks were the most common target for automakers seeking to make waves with special editions in the 1990s, so it’s fitting that our list kicks off with the Chevrolet S-10 Baja. Originally introduced in 1989, the Baja package was tied to the selection of optional four-wheel drive, which meant it could be combined with nearly any S-10 body style at the time.
On top of its extensive cosmetic updates—including brush guards, tubular bumpers, a light bar, foglights, an available bed-mounted spare tire, and the choice of three colors (Midnight Black, Frost White, and Apple Red)—the Baja also included extensive underbody armor and a rugged suspension package that gave it a leg up on other pickups when heading off-road.
The convertible pickup concept is an uncommon one, and its bloodline dates back to a single production model that debuted at the end of the 1980s and ran into the '90s. The Dodge Dakota Convertible was produced in partnership with ASC, which took a Sport trim version of the regular-cab midsize truck and chopped off the steel roof in favor of a folding fabric top that sat at the front of the cargo bed. A rollbar completed the package.
Dodge decided to go the convertible route with the Dakota after seeing many custom open-air pickups prowling the streets of California. Unfortunately, it seems that the rest of the country had far less of an appetite for a pickup whose main selling point also guaranteed a driver beheading if stopped too quickly with a load in the bed. The company had to extend its contract with ASC an extra year in order to soak up the slow sales and meet its minimum guaranteed purchase from its supplier.
1990–1992 Dodge Dakota Li'l Red Express
Dodge’s other special-edition Dakota from the 1990s took a more conservative approach from a business perspective, if not exactly when it came to styling. Eager to cash in on the cachet of Dodge’s late-'70s Li’l Red Express full-size truck, an aftermarket outfitter called LER Industries put together a similar design for the Dakota, with mixed results.
On the one hand, the angular stepside cargo bed, pinstriped graphics, and towering exhaust stacks perched just behind the cab were certainly evocative of the original’s design. On the other, those stacks were completely cosmetic, and unlike with the original Li’l Red Express, there was no performance advantage to be had in selecting the package. As a result, very few buyers paid the freight for the “upgrade,” which was sold directly through Dodge dealerships.
Remember when we said there was only one factory convertible pickup truck built in the 1990s? The closest Detroit ever came to doubling-up in the category during the decade was the Ford SkyRanger, a proof-of-concept study that trickled onto the streets to help recoup costs for the abandoned program.
As with the Dakota convertible, the SkyRanger was the work of ASC, but the entire effort was done on a much smaller scale, outside Ford’s traditional product line. Only 17 of these models—which also featured an eye-catching body kit that consisted of a swooping rollbar and a fiberglass rear wing, side skirts, and air dam—were built, and of those, very few survive in private hands.
More successful for Ford was the F-150 Nite. Although modern-day automakers offer all-black trim levels seemingly by the dozens, it was a little less common in the 1990s, and the F-150 Nite combined its monochromatic bumpers, paintjob, and trim with a bright teal-and-purple sticker package that consisted of a body-length stripe and the word “NITE” on the rear quarter-panel. Floormats and the dashboard also featured NITE callouts inside the cabin.
You had to order the XLT Lariat edition of the F-150 to bring on the Nite, and while it was restricted to regular-cab trucks when it first arrived on the scene, eventually it expanded to every possible body style in the Ford catalog.
When Ford made the switch from boxy Ranger to curvy Ranger in 1993, it celebrated with a special-edition package called Splash. Like the F-150 Nite, the Ranger Splash went all-in on color-cued bumpers and trim, but this time it offered a palette of much brighter hues to underscore the youthful, fun-oriented imagery used to market the truck.
The Ford Ranger Splash also came standard with a flareside cargo bed, can’t-miss-'em SPLASH decals, and a choice between two V-6 engine options. A slight suspension drop gave it visual attitude, and its 15-inch wheels were considered brazen for the period.
To help promote the Splashes sitting in showrooms, Ford also put together a pair of concept trucks—the Sea Splash and the Sky Splash—devoted to water sports and hang gliding, respectively. This pair of one-offs leveraged in-your-face paintjobs and what looked like the entire Ford accessories package to get their point across.
Picking up the torch from the Baja model was the Chevrolet S-10 ZR2, which took the stage in 1994 when the compact truck was completely redesigned. Although the modern edition of the ZR2 package (found on the Chevrolet Colorado) is celebrated for its off-road acumen, the original ZR2 is often forgotten despite representing a big step up from anything the entry-level truck had previously offered.
Key among the S-10 ZR2’s charms were a 3-inch boost in ground clearance, factory-installed 31-inch all-terrain tires (and fender flares to keep them covered), a full complement of skidplates, tougher axles and wheel bearings, a wider overall track, and Bilstein off-road shocks. Although the package remained in the mix all the way into the early 2000s, it remains an uncommon version of Chevy’s smallest pickup.
Even more rare than the S-10 ZR2 was the all-electric S-10 EV. Yes, that’s right: Decades before the Ford Lightning arrived on the scene, and well before the Tesla Cybertruck was even conceived of, Chevrolet had a battery-powered pickup on its order sheet. Borrowing from the EV1, the truck delivered 114 horsepower to the front wheels, making it the only Bowtie-wearing puller pickup in history.
Of course, the lead-acid battery technology of the time meant that the S-10 EV was limited in its capabilities. Buyers could expect about 45 miles of range from a single charge in stop-and-go driving, with the ability to squeak out 60 miles at highway speeds (with a factory limiter of 70 mph in place), although in 1998 the switch to nickel-metal hydride batteries upped combined driving range to a healthy 95 miles. It was also relatively lethargic in terms of its performance (thanks in part to lugging around 1,400 pounds of batteries), but that wasn’t a problem for the fleet buyers who purchased or leased most of the limited number of electric S-10s (less than 500) that were made available to the public.
Ford’s 1998 F-150 NASCAR special-edition truck was something of a mixed bag. On the plus side, it offered a one-inch suspension drop, a mesh grille, and a front air dam, all over black aluminum rims and yellow-letter tires intended to suggest a racing truck look. Unfortunately, even with dual exhaust tips and a restriction to the single cab body style in base XL trim, the NASCAR truck delivered no extra performance, sticking with the standard tune of its 4.6-liter modular V-8 engine, which could be found throughout the F-Series fleet.
At the very least, you could specify a five-speed manual transmission and shift the rig yourself, putting you in some vague proximity to the antics of the NASCAR drivers that Ford was aiming to commemorate. The entire project came about as a result of the 50th anniversary of what was at the time the most popular racing series in America.
The '90s ended with a bang for the Chevrolet S-10, which finally gained an attention-grabbing street truck model of its own. The S-10 Xtreme fully embraced the energy of the period with an extroverted body kit, a lowered sport suspension (featuring an almost 2-inch drop, beefier sway bars, and Bilstein shocks), monochromatic trim, bumpers, and grille, a limited-slip rear differential, and 16-inch aluminum wheels.
The Xtreme did an excellent job of imitating the aftermarket styling trends that had spread through the minitruck and compact pickup segment at the time. It was also available on any version of the pickup as an add-on package, which meant you didn’t have to drop big bucks on the range-topping V-6 in order to look smart and handle better than a standard S-10. The truck continued on into the new millennium until the S-10 was eventually replaced by the Colorado.
Special-Edition ’90s Trucks You Forgot About
- 1990–1991 Chevrolet S-10 Baja
- 1990–1991 Dodge Dakota Convertible
- 1990–1992 Dodge Dakota Li’l Red Express
- 1991 Ford SkyRanger
- 1991–1992 Ford F-150 Nite
- 1993–1997 Ford Ranger Splash
- 1994–1999 Chevrolet S-10 ZR2
- 1997–1998 Chevrolet S-10 EV
- 1998 Ford F-150 NASCAR
- 1999 Chevrolet S-10 Xtreme