Cuda vs. Chevy S10 – Drag Race – Road Test TV

A Plymouth Cuda and a Chevy S10 pickup should not belong in the same drag racing conversation, but both of these builds run genuine 10-second quarter miles at Palm Beach International Raceway. One is a muscle car icon pushed well past factory spec, the other is an unglamorous compact truck turned sleeper. Watch two completely different paths to the same performance number collide on the same night.

A Plymouth Cuda lining up against a Chevy S10 pickup sounds like a mismatch built for laughs, the kind of pairing you’d expect to end in an easy win for the muscle car and a long walk back to the pits for the truck. Except both of these machines are running genuine 10-second quarter-mile times, and once you know that, the whole equation changes. This is not a joke matchup. It is two seriously built machines from opposite ends of the automotive spectrum, meeting in the one place where none of that history matters, the quarter mile.

Two 10-Second Cars, Two Completely Different Starting Points

Road Test TV’s footage documents this pairing at Palm Beach International Raceway, where a Plymouth Cuda and a Chevy S10 pickup, both capable of genuine 10-second elapsed times, line up for a straight drag race. Ten-second quarter miles are a serious benchmark in drag racing, representing a level of built performance well beyond anything either platform left the factory capable of, meaning both of these vehicles have been substantially modified, whether through engine swaps, forced induction, weight reduction, or some combination of all three, to reach this performance tier.

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What a Genuine 10-Second Quarter Mile Actually Means

The Cuda’s side of this equation is more predictable to muscle car fans. Plymouth’s Barracuda-based Cuda came from the factory with engine options ranging from a small-block 318 up through the legendary 426 Hemi, and a 10-second Cuda built for drag racing likely represents a heavily modified example running well beyond any factory rating, whether through a built big block, a stroker small block, or a genuine Hemi conversion. The specific combination under this particular Cuda’s hood is not detailed in the original footage, but reaching 10-second territory on a quarter mile from any Mopar platform of this era requires serious, deliberate engine work well beyond bolt-on parts.

The Cuda Side of the Equation

The S10’s presence in this matchup is the more unusual half of the story. Chevrolet’s S10 compact pickup was never marketed as a performance vehicle, it was a small, practical truck aimed at buyers who wanted basic hauling capability without the size or fuel consumption of a full-size pickup. That lightweight, unassuming platform, however, has quietly become a favorite among drag racing builders precisely because of its low curb weight relative to the engine bay space available, making it a popular candidate for serious V8 or forced-induction small block swaps capable of shockingly quick elapsed times for something that started life as a work truck.

Why a Compact Pickup Became a Drag Racing Sleeper

This pairing captures a specific and enduring theme in grassroots drag racing culture: genuine performance built through modification rather than factory pedigree can close the gap between platforms that have nothing else in common. A stock Cuda would demolish a stock S10 without much drama. A built 10-second Cuda against a built 10-second S10 is a genuinely competitive race between two builders who each found their own path to the same performance number, using completely different starting materials and completely different engineering compromises along the way.

Modification Closes Gaps That Factory Specs Never Could

Palm Beach International Raceway’s role as a recurring backdrop for Road Test TV’s catalog of matchups like this one speaks to a broader truth about grassroots drag racing: the track does not care what platform a car started as. A quarter mile treats a heavily built Cuda and a heavily built S10 exactly the same way, as two vehicles with a starting line, a finish line, and a stopwatch in between, regardless of what either one looked like when it rolled off its respective assembly line decades earlier.

A Track That Does Not Care Where a Car Started

Whatever the actual result of this specific pass turned out to be, its real value is as a reminder that muscle car culture has never been as narrow as just Cudas, Camaros, and Chevelles. It also includes the builders who took an unglamorous compact pickup and turned it into something capable of hanging with a genuine muscle car icon at the same performance level, on the same night, at the same track.

Muscle Car Culture Is Bigger Than the Obvious Names

Compact truck drag racing had a real moment in mainstream motorsport during the 1990s, when the NHRA ran a Pro Stock Truck class built almost entirely around small pickups like the S10, the Ford Ranger, and the Nissan Hardbody, proving on a national stage that a lightweight truck chassis with the right drivetrain could run legitimately quick, professional-grade elapsed times. That class only lasted a handful of seasons before NHRA folded it back into other categories, but it left behind a lasting culture of grassroots builders who kept the compact-truck sleeper concept alive at local tracks long after the factory-backed teams moved on to other projects.

When Compact Trucks Had Their Own NHRA Class

Cuda builds capable of genuine 10-second performance typically fall into a few well-worn categories among Mopar racers: a stroked small block pushed well past its factory displacement, a built big block running aftermarket heads and a serious camshaft, or in rarer cases a real 426 Hemi brought up to modern drag-radial specification. Without more detail on this specific car’s combination, the safest assumption based on the era and the track is that it represents one of these well-established Mopar drag-build paths rather than anything exotic, a testament to how much performance a dedicated home builder could extract from a factory platform using parts and knowledge that have circulated in the Mopar community for decades. That combination of hard-won knowledge and patient parts-swapping, applied equally to a classic Mopar and an unassuming compact truck, is really what this footage is celebrating, whether or not the video ever spells it out directly. Two very different starting points, one shared destination on the stopwatch. Watch closely and decide for yourself which build impresses you more once the tree finally drops.

Watch the full video and tell us what you think, comments are open below.

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