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The Ram Dakota Is Back

For more than a decade, Ram has been glaring at the booming midsize pickup market from the sidelines, watching rivals cash checks while the Dakota nameplate gathered dust. That drought is finally coming to an end. At a closed-door dealer showcase during this year’s NADA Show in Las Vegas, Stellantis pulled the cover off a new Dakota—one slated to hit showrooms in 2028—and the early word from the people who actually sell these trucks is loud and clear: Ram might be back in a big way.

Official specs are still locked in Stellantis’ vault, but dealers who saw the truck came away impressed by what they did get to see. According to Automotive News, several described the new Dakota’s styling as “rough” and “aggressive”—two adjectives that fit Ram’s blue-collar image like a well-worn pair of work gloves.

Jason Feldman, a Houston-area dealer manager, said the proportions look spot-on for going toe-to-toe with the Toyota Tacoma and Ford Ranger. “As long as the pricing is in line, it’s going to be a huge hit,” he noted. That’s not faint praise in a segment where every inch of bed length and every dollar of sticker price is a battlefield.

Others were even more bullish. Adrian Gonzalez, general manager of Payne Edinburg Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in south Texas, didn’t mince words: “It really did look nice. Toyota better be careful—we’re going to start competing with them when it comes to the Tacoma.” Ralph Mahalak Jr., who owns six Stellantis dealerships across three states, went so far as to call the Dakota a “game changer.”

Importantly, this Dakota isn’t the one Ram sells in South America. That truck, launched in late 2025, rides on a Chinese-sourced platform and uses a Fiat-derived diesel—hardly the recipe for a red-white-and-blue workhorse. The North American Dakota will be a different beast altogether, built on a ladder-frame chassis and powered by a combustion engine. So much for the unibody EV concept teased back in 2021.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis has been clear about the mission: this Dakota has to be a real truck, with the towing and payload numbers to prove it. A V-8 is off the table, but a hybrid powertrain is very much in the cards, a nod to both emissions realities and where the market is heading.

Production plans have also shifted. Instead of Illinois’ Belvidere plant, the Dakota will now be built at the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, alongside the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator. That move is part of Stellantis’ $13-billion push to modernize U.S. manufacturing—and, presumably, to ensure the Dakota is built with the scale and quality a volume player needs.

And volume is exactly what Ram is after. As Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa recently admitted, Ram is a “huge, strong pickup maker that is missing a midsize pickup truck.” The Jeep Gladiator may technically live in the same segment, but its off-road-first personality leaves a wide-open lane for a more conventional, utility-focused Ram.

By the time the Dakota arrives in 2028, the midsize truck field—Tacoma, Colorado, Canyon, Ranger, Frontier—will all be on their next turns of the product cycle. Ram is betting that showing up a little late, but with the right hardware and the right attitude, is better than not showing up at all.

If the early dealer buzz is anything to go by, the Dakota won’t just be back—it might finally be ready to fight.

Source: Ram

News

Ram’s Great Comeback: The Dakota Rides Again… Eventually

Well, would you look at that — after a decade and a half of sitting on the sidelines, Ram has finally remembered it used to make a mid-size pickup. Yes, the Dakota — that charmingly brutish, V8-snorting little truck that went out of production in 2011 — is coming back. Sort of. In 2028.

Better late than never, right?

Ram’s parent company, Stellantis, has announced a $13 billion investment in the United States, and tucked among all the corporate optimism is confirmation that a new mid-size Ram pickup is coming. It’ll be built in Toledo, Ohio, the same plant that currently churns out Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators. That means one thing: body-on-frame toughness. No soft-road, latte-fetching unibody nonsense here. This thing’s coming for the Ford Ranger, Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon, and Toyota Tacoma — the Mount Rushmore of proper trucks.

The original plan was to build it at Stellantis’s Belvidere, Illinois, plant, but that facility’s now being resurrected for a new Jeep Cherokee and Compass duo. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Stellantis will also roll out a big new SUV (somewhere between “internal combustion” and “range-extended EV,” whatever that marketing soup means), and Detroit’s getting a fresh Dodge Durango by 2029.

All this is part of CEO Antonio Filosa’s big “let’s fix Stellantis” initiative. He’s promising American jobs, expanded choices, and a grand return to giving customers what they actually want — which, translated from PR-ese, means “V8s, noise, and vehicles with a pulse.”

And to be fair, he’s off to a good start. Filosa’s undoing years of… shall we say, Tavares-ian minimalism. Under the previous boss, Stellantis went full monk — ditching V8s, fumbling the EV rollout, and trying to make Jeep posh. Spoiler: it didn’t work.

Now, the tide’s turning. The Ram 1500 V8 is back. Jeep’s getting its mojo again. Dodge still makes things that frighten small children and delight adults. The vibes are good.

But here’s the rub: 2028. That’s when this mysterious mid-size Ram finally shows up. Which means it’ll hit the market just in time to battle the next generation of Rangers, Colorados, and Tacomas — trucks that will have already evolved, maybe sprouted solar panels or learned to talk.

So yes, Ram’s back in the game. It’s just taking the scenic route — at 45 mph, with the blinker on.

Still, if the new Dakota (or whatever they call it) really is a tough, Wrangler-sibling bruiser with proper off-road cred and some American brawn under the hood, then maybe, just maybe, the wait will be worth it.

Until then, we’ll keep watching from the sidelines, polishing our old V8 Dakotas and muttering: “You could’ve been here years ago, mate.”

Source: Ram