bent hitch pins

Driven: Electric Bremach T-Rex Devours Tough Jobs, Not Gas

Forget about the T-Rex concept, the six-wheel 500-horsepower V-10 Dodge Ram show truck that Chrysler built last century. There’s a new T-Rex coming to town.

It’s the moniker Italian company Bremach applies to its four-wheel-drive truck, and its distributor, Bremach USA, plans to sell it with a variety of powertrains, including gasoline, diesel, compressed natural gas, gasoline-electric hybrid, and full battery electric.

Bremach builds less than 1,000 T-Rex trucks annually, guaranteeing a degree of exclusivity matched only by bespoke truck builders, such as Icon .

Bremach was formed from several companies that originally built aircraft and light-freight vehicles -- really light, like the three- and four-wheeled milk carts pressed into service by Inspector Clouseau.

The Powertrains

Bremach USA qualifies as a California original equipment vehicle manufacturer, which requires different sales paperwork from the Detroit Three, but it still has to work with the California Air Resources Board. As a result, T-Rex pickups that burn gasoline and diesel use a “remanufactured” engine rather than a new crate motor. The gas engine is GM’s 6.0-liter Vortec V-8 that’s similar to that found in GM’s full-size vans. It’s paired with a GM 4L80-E four-speed automatic transmission. With 323 hp (at 4,600 rpm) and 373 pounds-feet of torque (at 4,400 rpm), it’s one of the lower-revving large-displacement gas engines. The CNG version uses a ULEV-spec L96 6.0-liter found in heavy-duty vans, pickups and light chassis cabs from Workhorse, Freightliner and Isuzu.

The diesel T-Rex uses a remanufactured Cummins 5.9-liter six-cylinder 24-valve diesel engine, with output rated at 235 to 325 hp and torque rated at 460 to 610 pounds-feet (@1,600 rpm), depending on the truck’s specification.

The hybrid T-Rex under development will function like the range-extended Chevy Volt instead of the two-mode Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. It’s a series hybrid pairing a GM four-cylinder Ecotec engine and a 100-kilowatt-hour generator with a 40-kwh lithium-ion battery pack (made up of 32 cells, each roughly the size of a carton of cigarettes). The electric motor that does motor/generator/regen chores is shared with the battery-electric version. Less than 10 inches in diameter, the motor is rated at 200 kwh peak and 100 kwh continuous output. Torque is rated at least 265 pounds-feet from zero rpm beyond 4,000 rpm. (Generator ratings are 150 kwh peak and 100 kwh continuous.) The hybrid is said to be able to travel 30 to 60 miles on battery power alone before the Ecotec kicks in to recharge the power pack.

Bent, the play

Hitch

Bent

Pins, a novel

Hitch-22, A Memoir