Tag Archives: Ram

NEW CARS

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 Maverick-Sized Daydream Is Real—But Not (Yet) for America

By now you’ve probably seen it: Ram’s Rampage, a tidy little pickup from Latin America that looks like someone shrunk a 1500 in the dryer and forgot to pull it out. It’s rugged, modern, and exactly the kind of compact truck that makes U.S. Maverick buyers wonder why their choices still start and end with Ford. Turns out, Ram’s top brass is wondering the same thing.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis recently admitted what a lot of us have been thinking: the Rampage would make a terrific addition to the American market. Built in Brazil and riding on the same unibody architecture as the Jeep Compass, the Rampage is a city-friendly, lifestyle-focused pickup with just enough toughness to pass the Home Depot test. In other words, it’s precisely the recipe that’s made the Ford Maverick such a runaway hit.

Kuniskis didn’t exactly play hard to get about it. He said he loves the Rampage, he thinks it’s awesome, and yes—he would absolutely love to sell it in the United States. But that enthusiasm came with a corporate-sized asterisk. Liking a truck and launching a truck are two very different things, and Ram has bigger fish to fry first.

Those fish are wearing a familiar name: Dakota. Ram’s long-awaited midsize pickup, now officially confirmed to revive the Dakota badge, is slated to arrive in 2027 as a 2028 model. That truck, importantly, has nothing to do with the current Latin American Ram Dakota, which is based on a Chinese platform and lives in a completely different automotive family tree. This new Dakota will be Ram’s first serious crack at the midsize segment in North America in years—and it’s taking priority over everything else.

There’s also a classic internal-competition problem at play. Compact and midsize trucks tend to blur together once pricing, options, and real-world capability start to overlap. Ram doesn’t want to launch a Rampage only to have it siphon buyers away from its all-important Dakota before that truck even gets a chance to establish itself. As Kuniskis put it, the brand needs to see exactly where the Dakota lands before deciding whether there’s room for something smaller to coexist alongside it.

Even if the business case lined up tomorrow, there’s still the matter of reality—specifically, federal reality. The Brazilian-built Rampage would need to be reengineered to meet U.S. safety, lighting, and crash-test standards, which it doesn’t necessarily do in its current form. That means real money, real development time, and no guarantee that Americans will buy it in numbers big enough to justify the investment.

So while the idea of a Ram-badged Maverick fighter is tantalizingly close to being real, it’s also frustratingly far away. Yes, Ram wants it. Yes, enthusiasts want it. But until the Dakota is firmly in place and the spreadsheets make sense, the Rampage will remain what it is today: a very cool truck you can’t buy here.

In the meantime, if Ford’s Maverick already fits your life and your budget, don’t put that order on hold waiting for Ram to make up its mind. In the auto industry, dreams are easy. Timing is everything.

Source: Ram

NEW CARS

2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX: The Apex Predator Is Back—and It’s Hunting Raptors

Extinction events are usually permanent. Usually. Sixty-five million years after dinosaurs checked out, Ram is resurrecting the T-Rex—and it’s returning with a bigger appetite and a shorter temper. Meet the 2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX, the loud, wide, supercharged declaration that the muscle-truck arms race is very much alive.

This truck matters for more than shock value. It marks the official return of the SRT badge, back on a pickup for the first time since the Viper-powered Ram SRT-10 disappeared into history in 2006. But nostalgia isn’t the point here. Ram wants the new TRX to be remembered as the most powerful street-legal gas-powered half-ton pickup ever built—and on paper, it has the teeth to back that up.

A New Heart, Not a Reheated One

Yes, it’s still a supercharged Hemi V-8. No, Ram didn’t just dust off the old one.

Instead of recycling the outgoing TRX’s 6.2-liter, Ram developed a heavily revised version that now belts out 777 horsepower and 680 lb-ft of torque. That’s a 75-horsepower bump over the 2024 TRX Final Edition and comfortably ahead of Ford’s F-150 Raptor R, whose 5.2-liter supercharged V-8 tops out at 720 horses.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis says the delay in bringing the TRX back was intentional. They could’ve relaunched sooner with the old engine, but this wasn’t about maintaining parity—it was about escalation. This isn’t a tune, he insists, but a serious mechanical upgrade.

The headline hardware includes a 2.4-liter twin-screw supercharger and a dual-path induction system that pulls cool outside air from both the grille and a center-mounted hood scoop. The air streams merge at a radial filter designed to maximize flow and durability. Translation: more oxygen, more boom, fewer excuses.

Brutally Fast, Shockingly Controlled

All that power flows through an uprated eight-speed automatic with full manual control and a full-time active transfer case offering Auto, High, and Low settings. Six drive modes—Auto, Sport, Snow, Tow, Mud, and Baja—round out the toolkit.

Put your foot down, and the TRX lunges to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds. That’s supercar-quick in something tall enough to cast a shadow over traffic. Keep pushing, and it’ll hit a best-in-class 118 mph, which is both impressive and mildly terrifying in a 6,000-plus-pound pickup.

Wide, Mean, and Unapologetic

You don’t need a spec sheet to know this thing means business. The TRX wears a unique SRT grille with a Flame Red RAM logo and a flow-through design, flanked by LED headlights with Satin Black bezels. The performance hood gets LED marker lights, because subtlety died somewhere around the third horsepower digit.

Down low, there’s a steel front bumper with an integrated skid plate, Flame Red tow hooks, and sweptback fog lights. The truck is 6.8 inches wider than a standard Ram 1500 thanks to swollen fenders and composite flares, giving it the stance of something that probably shouldn’t be tailgated.

Optional hood and bedside graphics add extra menace, while Mopar rock rails and aluminum running boards let you climb aboard without embarrassing yourself in public.

Out back, the design is cleaner but still purposeful, with a steel bumper, darkened LED taillights, more red tow hooks, a T-Rex tailgate badge, and a sport-tuned dual exhaust capped with black five-inch tips.

Suspension That Can Actually Use the Power

Unlike some high-horsepower pickups, the TRX doesn’t rely on brute force alone. Underneath, it gets forged aluminum control arms, unique spring rates, and Bilstein Black Hawk e2 adaptive performance shocks. Electronic locking front and rear differentials are standard and can be engaged at the push of a button.

Eighteen-inch wheels wrapped in 35-inch tires deliver 11.8 inches of ground clearance, while suspension travel measures a legit 13 inches up front and 14 inches in the rear. Approach, departure, and breakover angles—31.0, 25.2, and 16.8 degrees—confirm this isn’t just a mall crawler with a loud exhaust.

A Cabin That Knows What It Is

Inside, the TRX blends luxury with performance theater. Black Natura Plus leather seats with perforated suede inserts dominate the space, accented by red bolsters, red TRX embroidery, and Ruby Red seatbelts. The front buckets offer 12-way power adjustment, heating, ventilation, and massage—because apparently even apex predators get sore backs.

Carbon fiber trim, a suede headliner, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel with red stitching reinforce the performance vibe. Tech is equally serious, with a 12.3-inch digital cluster, a massive 14.5-inch Uconnect 5 touchscreen, and a 10-inch head-up display. A 19-speaker Harman Kardon audio system, dual wireless phone charging, and heated and ventilated rear seats round out the spec sheet.

High Tech, Even Off-Road

The TRX comes standard with Ram’s Hands-Free Active Drive Assist, a Level 2+ system that allows hands-free driving on compatible highways. Ram is quick to point out that no other automaker offers this tech on a high-performance, gas-powered off-road pickup.

The rest of the driver-assist roster is exhaustive, including adaptive cruise control, lane management, traffic sign recognition, evasive steer assist, intersection collision warning, parking assist, and blind-spot monitoring with trailer coverage.

The Price of Dominance

The 2027 Ram 1500 SRT TRX arrives in the second half of 2026 with a starting price of $99,995, plus a $2,595 destination fee. That undercuts the Ford F-150 Raptor R by nearly $11,000—and does so while delivering more power, faster acceleration, and a broader tech package.

In this corner of the truck world, extinction comes quickly. And with the T-Rex back on the hunt, the Raptor R suddenly looks a lot less like the apex predator.

Nature is healing. And it sounds incredible.

Source: Stellantis