Report: Ram Won't Bring Us A Sport Truck With A Hemi
Our friends over at The Drive interviewed Ram boss Tim Kuniskis last week and asked about the possibility of Ram producing a single-cab 1500 sport truck powered by the 6.4-liter Hemi V8.
The answer? No. No way. Nuh uh. Not gonna happen.
Why won't it happen? Well, according to Kuniskis, the market for it, outside of day-dreaming enthusiasts, is small.
Here's what he told The Drive:
“The new thing now is, everybody, everywhere I go, when are you going to do a regular cab sport truck? Do you know what the market is for a regular cab sport truck? It’s just tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, little sliver. It’s like the wagon with the manual that everybody used to ask for. Now they’re asking for the manual single-cab truck. And, of course, they want it with a manual transmission. They want it with a 6.4.”
The 6.4 would fit, Kuniskis said, but there would be a positioning problem.
Kuniskis also told the outlet that he's not sure how long the new Ram TRX will stick around -- it's up to regulation and policy out of Washington, and those things are in state of flux. Not only is the current administration unpredictable, it's also tough to predict what will happen politically when president Donald Trump's term ends. Does another Republican administration follow? If so, does it have the same approach as Trump or is it more environmentally friendly -- or even less interested in regulation? Or does a Democrat win the White House and push for tighter pollution and fuel-economy regs?
We won't know the answer for several years. But we do know we're not going to get a modern-day Ram SRT10 truck anytime soon. Boo.
[Image: Stellantis/Ram]
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
More by Tim Healey
Comments
Join the conversation
price and mileage are an issue. people are making less money now than ever before balanced to the cost of rent and medical. so the market is ''people who can afford 6000$ a year in gas'' and ''people who actually want one for real '' ... so there is ZERO business sense to build one given the auto industries slow death spiral AND economic lies spun my washington.
I like to picture Tim Kuniskis reading through a page of TTAC comments about Stellantis, and I just imagine the look he would get on his face. 🙂