2021 Ram 1500 Big Horn/lone Star on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Chrysler flooded with over 8,000 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel orders in 3 days

The diesel, half-ton pickup has long been a Holy Grail to many truck fans, largely because of its potential to achieve both high payload and great fuel economy. Strange, then, that auto companies have seemingly been slow to react. However, Chrysler is finally wading into the pool for the 2014 model year with a version of its Ram 1500 pickup, and early claimed returns are showing the advantage of being first on the market. The Auburn Hills automaker has just revealed that its initial allocation of 8,000 EcoDiesel trucks has been filled by dealers in just three days.
That flood of orders came from February 7-10, and that strong surge of interest apparently amounts to a new Ram record for the number of customer orders placed for a vehicle in such a short period of time. In fact, EcoDiesel models accounted for over half of Ram 1500 orders over that period, despite the fact that the diesel option costs several thousand dollars more than a comparable gasoline-engined model. That impressive total did not come entirely as a shock to Ram officials, however: "We knew customers have been asking for it," Nick Cappa, Ram Truck communications officer, tells Autoblog.
The 2014 Ram 1500 with its 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6 and standard eight-speed TorqueFlight automatic makes 240 horsepower and 420 pound-feet - a combination good for 9,200 pounds of towing. Despite that pulling power, its fuel economy is rated at 28 miles per gallon highway (the best among trucks in its class), 20 mpg city and 23 mpg combined. Four-wheel drive variants gives up a single mpg in all categories.

Chrysler uses Super Bowl spots to honor troops, farmers

How do you follow up such revered and successful ads as Chrysler's last two Super Bowl commercials? Imported from Detroit and Halftime in America should be given credit for giving the automaker's public perception a complete overhaul after its rescue from the brink with taxpayer money. What next, then?
We just found out during Super Bowl XLVII. This year Chrysler went with two commercials, one for Jeep and the other Ram. The two-minute-long Jeep commercial, called Whole Again, is narrated by Oprah Winfrey and presented as an open letter to the service men and women of America, simply expressing admiration for what they do - poignant message coming from a company whose history is so entwined with that of the military's.
The Ram commercial, called Farmer, honors the agricultural backbone of this country. Its soundtrack is a speech entitled "So God Made a Farmer" given by the famous radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, which plays over a slideshow of original photography commissioned by Ram. The images, of course, focus on farming and the people who do it for a living, and there's a few Ram trucks in there, as well.

Toy, hauler | 2017 Ram Power Wagon Video Review

When you're bouncing along in a 2017 Ram 2500 Power wagon over the washboard silt roads of the Valley of Fire, just outside of Las Vegas, it's a bit of a shock to realize how comfortable you are. We'd driven a convoy of brand new Ram Power Wagons out from a city improbably emerging from the scrub into a land of red rocks and sand. Inhospitable territory full of thrill-seekers in Jeeps and four-seat ATVs, flinging sand and bouncing their tall signal flags about. The varied terrain, transitioning from hard-packed silt to rocky paths to deep sand at any point, provided the perfect environment to see if the Power Wagon can live up to its billing – check out the video above to see how it handled the gnarly stuff. Back in 1945, the Power Wagon and comfort were not really thought of together. Like the Jeep, these thoroughly mil-spec trucks were heading home from overseas, where they'd served as weapon carriers and utility rigs. The all-business truck was a bit like a heavy-duty Willys Jeep with a bed, and instead of the convertible military cab, Dodge bolted on a pre-war civilian cab. They had more amenities than a tractor (windows! A roof!), but no one would call 'em coddling. The advertising of the day shows them digging ditches, plowing fields, erecting utility poles. You could use the rear power take-off to run a portable sawmill – pure denim and dust work. The brief has clearly evolved a bit – the PTOs disappeared as the truck evolved from a dedicated platform for serious work to more of a heavy-duty trim on Ram's conventional pickups, and then disappeared for a quarter-century until reemerging in 2005. To put it succinctly, the latest 2500 Power Wagon has off-road chops that pass the laugh test, and real working payload and towing capabilities, all in one package. We didn't tow or haul with the Power Wagon on this trip, but we really didn't have to. The Power Wagon is mostly standard 2500 fare: solid axles front and rear, taking power from the familiar truck-spec 6.4-liter Hemi V8. It'll haul up to 1,510 pounds in the bed, and tow up to 10,030 pounds. We know these trucks; they do this kind of work easily and without complaint. What's surprising is how well it does the work without much compromise. As you can see in the video above, the ride's as stiff as on a normal 2500 pickup, maybe a hair stiffer, but plenty tolerable for a long haul on the interstate.