As I was driving along the parkway, taking the scenic route to my sister’s abode, a looming form caught my eye. I immediately set my course for it and turned into the Wirth Chalet parking lot for the Theo Wirth Golf course to gain a closer view of the mountain on wheels that had erupted from the lot’s automotive topography of luxury sedans and sporty toys. Imposing isn't the word for the towering four-wheeled thing I found. This hulking vehicle that cast its shadow over the lot was tremendously intimidating, and, considering that it was being used to tote a golf bag or two to the Chalet; ridiculously over-sized.
This Elephantine personal vehicle we see today is, by my estimation, a Monroe Truck Equipment upfitted GMC Topkick. I say it’s an estimation, because that’s what the thing looks like to me, but since it is devoid of any badges, I don’t have confirmation on that beyond what my own eyes can recognize.
The GMC Topkick is the mechanical twin to the Chevy Kodiak. Both are medium duty commercial trucks that are more often seen being used as dump trucks or shuttle buses. The president’s car, Cadillac One, uses a Kodiak/Topkick as the basis on which it exists as an armored Cadillac limousine, which is a pretty high rise in prestige for a vehicle that was designed for dump truck duty, if you think about it. A similar Ford offering, the F-550 is the basis of the law enforcement darling, the Lenco Bearcat that was discussed in an earlier post, so a Topkick or Kodiak would have also been a suitable armored tactical vehicle if somebody wanted to base such a creation on its chassis.
Today’s Topkick is being used as somebody’s personal luxury monster truck. It’s a dually rig that belongs on a construction site that’s been outfitted with luxury accommodations and typically, completely ridiculous entertainment systems. This is a trend that became popular in the early and mid 2000’s, when the Hummer H2 was new and hot. Because there are still plenty of folks who ascribe to the notion of “bigger is always better”, even a mammoth like the H2 didn’t quite fill the niche that apparently existed. If you want to know who’s responsible for this commercial grade personal dump truck turned luxury big-rig fiasco, you can blame International. In 2005, International introduced their RXT (Recreatoinal Extreme Truck) at the Chicago Auto Show. It looks pretty similar to our Topkick here, and came with a 360 cu. in. diesel V8 with 300 HP, and a 40 gallon fuel tank. The following year, Chevy followed suit and showed a Kodiak C4500 designed and outfitted with luxo accommodations to compete with the RXT.
Monroe Truck Equipment in Monroe, Wisconsin took these commercial trucks, the Kodiak and the Topkick, and customized them into flashy, gargantuan luxury vehicles. They add things like leather seating, metal or faux wood appliqué accenting the interior, air bladder suspensions to the LaZboy-like seats, entertainment systems, and dual exhaust stacks like a big rig truck would have Buyers could chose between the 6.6L turbo diesel with 300 HP and 520 lb-ft of torque, or the 8.1L gas V8 with 325HP and 450 lb ft of torque. Regardless of which power plant is chosen, top speed is 75MPH thanks to limitations set in the vehicle‘s computer to keep the behemoth from becoming the automotive equivalent of a bull in a china shop on the roadways… All starting at $70,000 on up to over $100,000 depending on what stuff you had done to it. The Topkick can be outfitted to accommodate several legit uses for its capability, offering packages like the 5th wheel trailer upfit, a horse trailer upfit, racing trailer upfitting, goosneck trailer upfit, and a boat trailer upfit.
Of course, today’s car wasn't doing any hard work to justify its use when I found it. It was sitting and resting in the parking lot after performing a task that an itty bitty electric golf cart could have handled: hauling golf clubs. I’ll be fair and admit that I have no idea how big or how many golf clubs this walloping whale on wheel’s owner totes around with him or her, though something tells me that the golf set won’t even come close to maxing out the 5,500 lb capacity for the truck box, or the 6,500 lb towing capacity. At just over 22 feet long, almost 8 feet wide, 8 feet tall, and weighing in at 11,300 lbs, you can understand why reviewers of this truck only managed to squeeze out around 7 MPG on their test runs. I feel guilty enough sometimes knowing that I drive a V8, and to atone, I’ll ride my bike when the weather and time permits, but I cannot imagine what type of environmental karma the driver of this Topkick has racked up over the years.
Speaking of years, it’s worth noting that the Chevy Kodiak and the GMC Topkick ceased production in 2009, so Monroe can‘t offer them new anymore. Still, there are plenty left in the world. If you want one, count on paying around $40,000 or so for a used one. They obviously don’t go up in value, but the capability and utility that the vehicle can offer is of value to buyers who may have an eye for putting a vehicle like this to work rather than rumbling the streets of the suburbs with it, so it has dual appeal to folks who want to be seen in a lumbering giant of a vehicle and to people who actually have work to do with it to go along with those dual rear wheels. The Topkick will always maintain some value on that basis long after it‘s no longer cool to be seen driving one.
Topkicks like today’s luxury personal big rig are the type of vehicle owned by somebody wanting to make a statement, and that statement is probably something along the lines of “up yours, mother nature!” In this day and age of hybrids, and performance that outpaces displacement (cubic inches) via turbos and superchargers and manages to pull down decent MPGs while whipping up a storm of road dust and tire smoke, a rig like the luxury truck Topkick doesn’t really seem so great anymore.
While it’s probably fun for a little while to drive a truck that has you looking down on everybody around you -even folks in huge SUVs like the Hummer H2, it would seem that once the novelty wears off, one might find it embarrassing to be making such a gas guzzling, road-hogging spectacle of one’s self behind the wheel of this type of vehicle. I don’t know who owns this one, but it’s the type of vehicle that I associate with professional athletes who come into millions of dollars when they’re quite young and start buying toys like this because they can, not because they’ve actually thought it through very much. I’m sure this vehicle can accommodate big, tall people, but for God’s sake! You’re driving a luxury dump truck to go golfing!
That said, I wouldn’t turn down a ride or a drive in one. Back when I was in the car biz, the dealership I worked for did a fair amount of buying, building and selling vehicles that were essentially high powered toys like Saleen Mustangs, souped up coupes, Cobras, the Ford GT, and a slew of big luxury sedans including a Maybach back when they were flaming hot as an alternative to big Benzes. On the less speed oriented and luxury oriented end of the spectrum, we had a lot of lift trucks on our lot that we built via a customizing firm that we contracted with. These were typically F-250-350’s, though we went through a few F-150 lifts, too. They were huge, barely street legal, and usually decked out with custom paint jobs and very expensive wheels and tires. These trucks were like beacons, summoning people into the lot to gawk at them. Though they rode very rough with those jacked up suspensions, they were a blast to drive up until you had to refill the gas tank. I can guarantee you that the one thing I NEVER heard fall from the lips of a lift truck owner or buyer was the following: “This rig will work great for toting my golf clubs!”
So, while it was a treat to see the Wirth Chalet Topkick that day, I can’t approve of owning such a thing these days unless there is actually a necessity for towing or hauling stuff with it. Then again, I doubt the owner of this truck cares much about my approval, or anybody else’s for that matter. After all, this thing could squash my Mustang like a bug and drive the rest of the way home from the country club without even noticing the remnants of flattened Mustang dangling from its mud flaps.
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