2016 Ram 1500 Rebel on 2040-cars

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Ram recreates 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' with SI Swimsuit models

America may have been founded on the overthrow of British rule, on revolution against tyranny and the rejection of over-taxation without representation. But these days, you might argue that America is more about things like pickup trucks and swimsuit models. Fortunately you needn't choose between the founding principles and modern obsessions with this latest promo from Ram. Sports Illustrated brought together a coven of its finest (and we do mean finest) swimsuit models and set them adrift upon the frozen Delaware River atop a wooden barge with a Ram 1500 pickup towing a row boat, recreating Emanuel Leutze's famous painting, "Washington Crossing the Delaware." And just why did they go through all the trouble? Because freedom, that's why. (Be forewarned, though, that the video is not strictly safe for work, what with all the scantily clad revolutionaries and what have you.) News Source: Ram via YouTube Celebrities Marketing/Advertising RAM Videos sports illustrated swimsuit edition

Ram to go on a Rampage with new small pickup?

When people look back at today's automotive industry, what do you think they'll remember us for? The emergence of hybrids? Ever more expensive and exotic supercars? The dawn of the self-driving car? All likely scenarios, but so is the blurring of lines between one bodystyle and another, giving rise to hardtop convertible coupes and crossovers of every shape and size. But one bodystyle the North American auto industry has stayed largely away from in the past couple of decades is a car nose and chassis with a pickup bed.
It's a bodystyle immortalized by the Chevrolet El Camino, but with few exceptions, we haven't seen too many of these automotive platypuses in recent years on our turf. Subaru tried with the Baja and the low-volume Honda Ridgeline soldiers along largely unchanged, but the genre's biggest adherents are still Down Under, where ute versions of the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon live. With a few other examples scattered to the four corners of the earth, that's really about it. But if these spy shots are anything to go by, it looks like Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could be working to bring it back.
Spied undergoing testing in Michigan, what we appear to be looking at is a heavily disguised Fiat Strada being prepared - like the Fiat Ducato-based Ram ProMaster and the smaller Doblo-based ProMaster City - for Stateside duty as a Ram product. The Strada, for those unfamiliar, is a product of Fiat Automóveis in Brazil and is based on the Palio economy car. The nameplate has been around South America since 1996 and was originally designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (long before Volkswagen monopolized his talents), and takes a more rugged approach in the form of the Strada Adventure.

Ram 1500 wins Consumer Reports fullsize truck test

Vehicles that perform well in road tests by some of the most popular automotive publications, such as Car and Driver, Motor Trend and Automobile, don't always score well in in Consumer Reports' more regimented, practical test procedures, so the Ram 1500's climb to the top of CR's scoreboard is a boon for the well-received pickup truck, which CR also put on its "recommended" list.
To start off with, the freshened 2013 Ram 1500 has a lighter, stiffer chassis than before, and the four-wheel-drive Crew Cab that CR bought and tested performed flawlessly and achieved class-leading fuel economy (15 miles per gallon) with the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 - the most popular engine choice for the 1500 - and the new eight-speed automatic transmission. The unique-in-its-class rear coil spring setup endowed the truck with "one of the best rides of any pickup," CR reports. That helped it earn its class-leading road-test score of 78, well ahead of the nearest competition still in production, the Toyota Tundra (69) and the Ford F-150 (68). It's worth noting, however, that the Chevrolet Avalanche outscores the 1500 by two points (80), but production of that vehicle ends after the current 2013 model year.
About the only things the publication could find wrong with the truck were a heavy tailgate and a high step up into the cabin. Get ready for the next round later this summer when CR is finished testing the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado, which is doing well so far in the publication's tests.