Cayuga 555SP
- There is much going on in the world. the Berlin wall falls. the Tienanmen square protests occur, a Civil war in Angola is stopped by a ceasefire, and much more. For Galt though, it’s the third year of strong Cayuga sales, so to celebrate, they shoehorn in a big engine into the truck/SUV body. a 509 horsepower Naturally Aspirated 9.1L V8 of which the car is named for (9.1L is 555CI). In fact, the engine is so powerful, that the only transmission option that could be engineered on the cheap was to modify a Semi truck Transmission into a standard 4 speed manual. Also, it’s 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds has it rivaling Ferarri’s, and it also earns it the title “Fastest Family SUV on the market” along with “worlds fastest truck” it is remarkably made relatively easily on the standard Cayuga production line, with the engine also being a fairly simple thing to make, simply being a highly tuned Big block V8 from the Truck lineup. this combined allows it to sell for only $10,368.25 new in 1989 (that’s only $20,401.94 today!
or $18060 automation money). As a result of supercar performance at such an affordable price, they sell fast. extremely fast. a total of over 24,000 sell in 1989 alone. so much in fact, that 1989 was the only year of sale, as so many sales was hurting Galt’s CAFE score too much. It was still sold in the usual 3/5 door SUV and 2 door truck bodies, though the 5 door SUV was the rarest, making up only about 5,000 units of the sales. The 555Sp still to this day remains one of the most desirable versions of the Cayuga to this day, with prices having been inflated to nearly $100K for ones in excellent condition.
Now to just wait for this body to get into the unreal version of automation for the late 90’s facelifts…