Muscle Trucks Are the New Muscle Cars

Muscle cars may be as American as apple pie, but pickup trucks are the kings of the road. That gave the people running Ram an idea.“What if we merged the everyday functionality of a truck with the performance and attitude of a muscle car,” Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis said this week as he revealed a lineup of Ram 1500 Rumble Bee “muscle trucks” that he said was born purely from passion.“There is no market research that’s going to tell you what we’re doing is a good thing, it’s not even a safe bet,” Mr. Kuniskis said. “This is absolutely a ‘hold my beer, watch this, push the chips in’ moment.”Ram is offering the Rumble Bee with the choice of three increasingly powerful engines. RamRam already sells several performance off-road pickups, but it has been two decades since it tried to sell a performance street model and it didn’t have much success when it did.A large part of the problem, Mr. Kuniskis believes, is that the previous trucks were all two-door designs, which limited their appeal. Today, two-door models account for only 3% of all full-size pickup sales.This time around, Ram combined a four-door quad cab body — which is smaller than its largest crew cabs — with a short bed to find a middle ground that splits the difference between optimum performance and usability.It is a configuration Ram doesn’t otherwise offer on any trucks and, along with a set of wide fenders that give it a classic Coke bottle shape, creates the kind of head-turning presence that is key to the muscle car aura while keeping it relatively light and nimble.“This is a 1000% intentional move, we could’ve done it way cheaper and way faster had we not gone with the quad cab and the short box,” Mr. Kuniskis explained.“Shorter, wider, lower — it just looks muscular,” he said, adding that the extra doors and rear seats “ensure the spousal alibi” when making the argument to purchase one. The Rumble Bee features a four-door quad cab body with a short pickup bed and wide fenders. RamThe trucks will be available with the choice of three V8 engines. The entry level option is a 395-horsepower 5.7-liter V8 that creates a truck that’s more about style than speed and will make up the most sales. The Rumble Bee 392 is next up with a 470-horsepower 6.4-liter V8, while the top-of-the-line Rumble Bee SRT is equipped with a 777-horsepower supercharged 6.2-liter V8 that is the most powerful V8 ever offered in a pickup.All of the trims have all-wheel-drive systems that can be locked into a rear-wheel-drive mode for the express purpose of doing burnouts and donuts, and the Rumble Bee SRT also has an air suspension system that can lower the truck’s ride height to improve its aerodynamic profile and help it reach a top speed of 170 mph, which is a record for pickup trucks. It doesn’t shirk its traditional truck duties entirely, however, and is rated to tow up to 8,890 pounds.Pricing will be announced closer to when they go on sale late this year, but do not expect them to offer cheap speed, even if gas prices drop by then. Ram’s V8-powered work trucks start at $50,000, and the off-road TRX that is powered by the 777-horsepower V8 is more than $100,000.The Ford F-150 Lobo is a V8-powered street performance version of the popular pickup. FordThey also won’t be entirely without competition. Ford has already dipped its toes into the segment with the new F-150 Lobo. The $60,000 model has a standard crew cab body, a 400-horsepower V8 and plenty of street style, but is not quite as extreme as the Rumble Bees.I recently tested one and can confirm that it adds a level of fun you don’t find in a standard F-150. If you’d like to reach another, Ford will gladly sell you a supercharger kit that increases the engine’s output to 700 horsepower, but it doesn’t sell a street truck like that straight from the factory. At least not yet.

Muscle Trucks Are the New Muscle Cars

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