Coal: A Brutish Blown Callaway Tahoe

When I attended the Callaway Cars open house earlier this month, I was really impressed by the Callaway Corvettes that this boutique builder is famous for. But nothing prepared me for this huge black Tahoe with the COAL nameplate on the grille. This beast was packing an Eaton-supercharged 6.2L V8, all very clean and tidy. So at first I was thinking that all Callaway did was drop in one of their highly engineered, blown Corvette V8’s into a stock Tahoe for novelty effect. More…

My perception changed in an instant when I got a look at the driver’s compartment. This wasn’t any prissy "luxury" Tahoe at all—it had absolutely no leather anywhere in the interior, it wasn’t equipped with a rear-seat DVD or any of the bells and whistles. What made this stripped-down Tahoe special appeared under the steering column: a clutch pedal! The I spotted the stick shift, mounted in a custom-fabricated center console that looked like it was designed by GM engineers. This is a six-speed T56, the same transmission used for the Viper, only co-developed by Callaway and TTC with specific gear ratios and component preparation for this specific application. Why all this development for the transmission? To handle the power that the 6.2L V-8 releases, all of 623 HP, and 670 Lb-Ft Torque. This is monster power, for what is in reality a monster truck. I was told that it’ll do 4 wheel burnouts—yes, the all wheel drive components are still in place. And this is the essence of this truck: all power, no bullshit.

So, will this be a new offering from Callaway Cars? One would hope, but according to Reeve Callaway himself, the Tahoe is purely an engineering exercise, commissioned by a close and personal friend. However, the ever resourceful Callaway has all the specific hardware (clutch, transfer case, linkage, exhaust system, braking system, even the exclusive Callaway floormats) in place if they ever want to offer this package in the future. It’s a shame that fuel prices are what they are today, because this is a beautiful and well-engineered packeage that might otherwise find quite a few buyers who are looking for a true all-out performance full-size SUV.