Ram TRX Review – The Truck With The Hellcat Motor & Mercedes Interior
Difficult to start this conversation with anything other then the engine and power figures because this was the first time Stellantis put the 6.2L supercharged hellcat engine under the hood of a pickup, at least from the factory.
Horsepower comes in at 702 with 650 lb/ft of torque
0-60 in 4.5 seconds
Power goes through a ZF 8 speed automatic gearbox to all 4 wheels through an automatic 4wd system which is something a lot of modern trucks are switching to, this thing is not able to be driven in 2WD.
However, this is still 100% an offroad truck because you still have body on frame construction and a 4HI and 4LO range transfer case
But that’s not all. There’s a whole lot going on under the truck and we’ll make a separate studio video going into a lot of the complexities, but the highlights are this.
From the ground up you have:
All terrain tires which is great for trail riding and dirt roads but not so much for grip on the streets.
You have 17 inch beadlock capable wheels
And then you have Bilstein Blackhawk e2 shocks
The most sophisticated shocks ever fitted to a truck
This means no leaf springs so better ride quality, better articulation, and better control….as long as your tires grip.
And what that all results in is a truck that’s built for Baja, but behaves very well on the street.
The ride is comfortable, the cabin is nice and quiet when you’re not on the throttle, and it’s a really really nice truck
But the star of the show is the engine. It’s not the fancy dampers or the snappy gearbox, it’s the v8, the power, and the noise
I mean let’s think about this for a second. Over 700 hp, 650 lbft
You can go into the performance settings and set your RPM for launch control
You can launch all the way up at 4500 rpm! I mean the thing redlines at 6500!
You can also track your reaction time, quarter mile time, and a bunch of other stuff
So RAM says this is a Baja truck, but it’s not lost its SRT Dragstrp ways
This truck is overwhelming. It’s the perfect embodiment of America. It’s just power and noise and ridiculousness and its incredible
Paolo’s covered everything this truck is on paper, but I wanted to spend some time with you to really talk through this thing on another level.
When you think of this thing you have to really zoom out and think about it for what it is and what it represents.
You also have to think about this in terms of the era in which it’s arrived.
This supercharged v8 monster truck arrives on the scene within the same 12 months that Europe mandates full EV lineups, California mandates full EV lineups, and half of manufacturers have announced their own.
So you really have to think of this as the last hoorah or kind of the final frontier of ICE engines.
So what this represents is kind of the high water mark for the pickup truck.
This thing is quintessentially American in the sense that it’s massive, it’s loud, it’s unapologetic, and more than anything excessive in every sense of the word.
This is peak American truck….
Well at least until Ford come out with their Raptor R next year.
That battle will burn bright and die off young but it will leave us with a bang.
Neil Young originally wrote “it’s better to burn out than fade away” and that’s really where we are societally with big V8 power.
We know these types of trucks will be gone soon so rather than slowly fade away, Ford and RAM are giving us an Encore of their greatest hits.
Sure, when it comes to this TRX, it gets 7 mpg and reliability has been a concern so far, but think about what you’re buying. If this was reliable it would be a Tundra and it wouldn’t be exciting.
So whether you’re a RAM person, a Ford Person, or a GM person you have to respect and appreciate that some manufacturers are still willing to throw logic and finance to the wind and give us something incredible like a 700 hp monster truck for the street
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