Ram 1500 2014 Overview
I'm in Los Angeles and I drive an American pickup truck with a Maserati engine.
Don't look for a powerful V8 under the huge hood of this Ram pickup. Diesel engine, manufactured by the Italian company VM Motori. It is also used with a different software setting in luxury Maserati models such as the Quttroporte and Ghibli, as well as Jeep's Grand Cherokee.
In the Ram line in the US, the engine is fitted to a model called the Ecodiesel. These two words are not usually associated with pickup trucks, but the world is changing. Still, it's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this giant car I'm driving through the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles can be described as environmentally friendly.
Despite this, its average consumption is only 7.8 l / 100 km on the highway to Twentynine Palms and back - 450 km round trip. This is remarkable for such a large ship, especially with the aerodynamics of a giant cruise ship.
A few days later, consumption jumped to 8.4L/100km after a few stops and starts around town, but remains impressive considering the Ram weighs around 2100kg.
Pickup truck buyers are more fuel-conscious than expected, with nearly half of Ford F-150 buyers now opting for a turbocharged EcoBoost V6 over the longtime V8.
But customers still primarily choose gasoline engines, although some heavy-duty vehicles may be equipped with powerful but untreated Cummins engines. Diesel is indeed still a dirty word in the US, but the Ram Ecodiesel may change some minds.
It is very quiet both at idle and on the road. So much so that a friend I'm visiting calls his wife over to the Ram to listen to this amazingly quiet diesel. "It's a diesel," he says, surprised. “They are usually very noisy,” he adds, to explain his excitement.
Here in the US, it's not uncommon to hear loud pickup trucks. I hear a few of them over the next few days, but they're gas V8s with big exhausts, loads of chrome, and often suspension lift kits.
The base Ram 1500 pickup costs between $27,700 and $35,300. Throw in a diesel, a smooth-shifting eight-speed automatic transmission, a flawless Bluetooth audio system, huge mirrors, and a shipping fee from the dealer, and we've got up to $XNUMX in Australian money.
Many of us can only dream of getting that many trucks for that kind of money. Dream on, because Fiat Chrysler has no plans to bring Ram here at any cost.
