#tbt 1989 - In this vintage KTLA News segment of The Car Guys, Gale showed off his latest concept beast, the “Banks 502”. The 502 was a C1500 SS454 truck with a 1,300 hp twin-turbo 502 big block sporting a massive rear wing meant for speeds over 200 mph. The truck roared loud enough to set off all of the car alarms on the backlot as it comes into view. This truck was part of a larger racing effort with GM in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

History buffs will recall that Banks set World Records for GMC with our Project Syclone in 1989 and 1990. In the early days, Gale had different ideas regarding what he wanted to build. He planned a regular-cab short-bed truck with all-wheel drive, armed with one of his massive racing engines tuned for the rigors of Bonneville. GM execs weighed in, Chevy said that if anyone was going to do something in a big truck it was going to be them, and that’s how we got the 454 SS truck. GMC stipulated that Bonneville should be raced with the S-15 Jimmy mini-truck, which neither had all-wheel drive nor turbos. They told him it’d have to be naturally aspirated because “We don’t sell turbocharged trucks."

One only wonders what this 502 concept truck would have done at the Salt Flats, and just how many street-legal versions would have been picking fights with hot rods, even today. Eventually, GMC actually DID end up selling a turbocharged, all-wheel-drive truck called the Syclone. That truck was followed up with the turbo, all-wheel drive Typhoon. Hmmm... wonder where they got that idea from?


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