2014 Ram 1500 on 2040-cars

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Ram shows its trucks are for work and play

There are no shortage of pickup trucks at this year's SEMA Show. The popular platform has been ripe for customization for years, so it should come as no shock that Ford, General Motors and Ram are all showing a fair few trucks in Las Vegas. From the Ram camp, we have two offerings - the Ram Sun Chaser and the Ram Dually Case Work Truck.
The Sun Chaser opts for a beach theme, similar to the Fiat 500 Thalassa. Based on the Ram 1500, the Sun Chaser wears Vibrance Orange Blast and Brilliant Black paint, and sports a Mopar roof rack, while the Ram Box system features a water tank and a shower head allowing beach-goers to rinse off before getting back in the truck. A flip-up, seat-back tailgate makes sitting on the back of the truck a bit more comfortable, and it's the kind of cool feature we can see becoming an optional item in the future.
The Sun Chaser mods are rounded out by 17-inch deadlocked wheels, a two-inch lift kit and a Mopar exhaust for the 5.7-liter Hemi V8. The cabin, meanwhile, sports Katzkin leather seats and even more Vibrance Orange Paint.

China's Geely says it has no plan to buy Fiat Chrysler — as FCA stock leaps

HONG KONG — Chinese carmaker Geely Automobile denied media speculation on Wednesday that it planned to make a takeover bid for Fiat Chryslerk Automobiles (FCA), the world's seventh-largest automaker. Geely was one of several Chinese carmakers cited in by Automotive News, which said representatives of "a well-known Chinese automaker" had made an offer this month for FCA, which has a market value of almost $20 billion. "We don't have such a plan at the moment," Geely executive director Gui Shengyue told reporters at an earnings briefing, when asked if Geely was interested in Fiat. He said a foreign acquisition would be complicated, but he did not elaborate. "But for other (Chinese) brands, it could be a fast track for their development," Gui added. However, a source close to the matter said FCA and Geely Automobile's parent firm, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, had held initial talks late last year, without disclosing their nature. The source confirmed Geely was no longer interested in FCA, noting that the parent company had only three months ago announced its first push into Southeast Asia with the purchase of 49.9 percent of struggling Malaysian carmaker Proton, a deal that also included a stake in Lotus. Geel's denial failed to dent FCA's stock. The price of its Milan-based shares has jumped more than 10 percent to a 19-year high since Automotive News first reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources, that FCA had rejected the Chinese offer as too low. FCA stock on the New York Stock Exchange rose sharply on Monday from $11.60 to $12.38 and on Wednesday was trading at $12.84. FCA declined to comment on Wednesday. FCA Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne has repeatedly called for mergers as a way of sharing the costs of making cleaner, more advanced cars, but he has repeatedly failed to find a partner and retreated from his search for in April, saying FCA would stick to its business plan. He has also spoken of spinning the successful Jeep and Ram divisions off from FCA. Europe's largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and General Motors have both said they are not interested in talks with FCA. On Wednesday, Geely Automobile reported a doubling of first-half profit, above expectations, as cars designed with Sweden's Volvo won over domestic consumers. Volvo is a unit of the Zhejiang Geely group, and has recently announced it will share its technology with Geely.

Raminator sets world record for fastest monster truck [w/video]

Monster trucks are made for a lot of things: crushing jalopies, jumping over jalopies, wowing spectators while crushing and jumping over jalopies, and so on. But powerful as they tend to be, monster trucks are not built for outright speed. Still, one has to be faster than another, and as it turns out, Raminator is the fastest of them all. Alongside Rammunition and the new Mopar Muscle, Raminator is one of three Ram-based monster trucks run by the Hall Brothers Racing Team with support from Chrysler. It's been named Truck of the Year by the Monster Truck Racing Association a record eight times, its driver Mark Hall has been named the association's Driver of the Year nine times and its crew chief Tim Hall its Mechanic of the Year five times. And now Raminator and the Hall Brothers have claimed the Guinness World Record for the fastest monster truck, recording a top speed of 99.10 miles per hour to break the previous record of 96.8 mph. The record was set at the Circuit of the Americas, the 3.4-mile track built on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, to host the United States Grand Prix. Aside from Formula One, the track has hosted endurance racing, touring cars and motorbikes, and while Raminator may not be the fastest vehicle ever to lap the circuit, it's surely one of the biggest. Scope out the video from the record run below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Raminator Monster Truck and Hall Brothers Racing Team Shatter Guinness World Records® Record: Fastest Speed for a Monster Truck America's fastest growing truck brand breaks speed record for monster trucks at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas December 15, 2014 , Auburn Hills, Mich. - Raminator, a monster truck sponsored by the Ram Truck brand, has broken the Guinness World Records® record for the "Fastest Speed for a Monster Truck" at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. Hitting a new record speed of 99.10 miles per hour (mph), Raminator and driver Mark Hall secured the Guinness World Records title at 8:44 a.m. (CT), breaking the previous record of 96.8 mph. As the fastest growing truck brand in America, the Ram Truck brand is a long time sponsor of the fastest Monster Truck, the Raminator. The Ram-sponsored monster truck lineup includes the 2014 Monster Truck Nationals Champion Raminator and Rammunition, sponsored since 2002. In 2014, Mopar also introduced Mopar Muscle; the monster truck it sponsors.