Most modern pickup trucks with a free-breathing V6 engine, like the Nissan Frontier or Ram 1500, have about 300 horsepower. The first trucks offered with 300-plus horsepower needed a few more cylinders to get the job done. We’re about to go on a journey together from the early days of the pickup truck, to the first pickup trucks to break the 100-horsepower barrier, to today’s modern muscle trucks with 1,000 horsepower or more. We’ll be stopping in (roughly) 100-horsepower increments along the way, but before we get things rolling, there are two things you need to understand about the pickup truck’s historical journey from 100 to 1,000 horsepower and beyond.
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