From the May 1994 issue of Car and Driver.
You won’t get this advice from “Donahue,” guys, so listen up: size matters.
Face it, Pee-wee, Rosey Grier didn’t make the Pro Bowl because he learned how to cross-stitch. Wilford Brimley doesn’t work the commercial circuit because he’s a clotheshorse. And King Kong didn’t get lucky with Fay Wray because he had a hairy back.
Granted, Dodge’s new Ram pickup can’t climb the Empire State Building, except maybe in the service elevator. But it is larger than life. And its size plays a big part in putting it at the top of the full-sized pickup class.
The Ram’s immense measurements make their first impression when you open the door, because it requires a little leap to vault into the driver’s seat. Once you’re settled in, the echo of your low whistle will take a minute to quiet down. That’s because the Ram sports the biggest cab available on a full-size pickup. Headroom is about the same as in the Ford F150 and the Chevy C/K 1500, but the Ram boasts a 5.1-inch advantage in hiproom over the Chevy and a 3.6-inch edge over the Ford. (An early proposal, in fact, called for a fourth seatbelt on bench-seated models.) In overall length, the Ram also takes the crown. It’s 7.0 inches longer than the Ford and 10.2 inches longer than the Chevy. The short-bed Ram’s pickup box, however, is marginally smaller than those of the competition.
To fence in this real estate, the Chrysler styling team looked no further than the Unocal 76 rest stop for their inspiration. The designers at Freightliner must be impressed with the Dodge knockoff of their big rigs, maybe as and Rolex are with their imitators. In profile, the Ram’s fenders and the immense chrome grille look a little awkward—like a full-sizer trying to swallow a compact truck—but in the rear-view mirror the Ram looks as menacing as an 18-wheeler bearing down on your bumper.
This kind of stage presence is guaranteed to draw a crowd at Fingerle’s lumberyard. But the Ram’s sheer mass does create some unique problems in situations where, say, a Nissan Altima would do the job. Addressing someone in the passenger seat over the somewhat hoarse powertrain might be better accomplished with a nine-digit zip code. You’ll need friends who know semaphore for parallel parking downtown, where they’ll flag you down into a space that could otherwise be occupied by two Ford Festivas.
Otherwise, the Ram’s gargantuan girth doesn’t prevent it from performing like a pleasant mid-priced sedan. With the optional 5.2-liter V-8, the Ram we sampled would make any armchair trucker froth with envy. When coupled to a four-speed automatic with electric overdrive, the 220-horsepower V-8 sends the Ram scurrying to 60 mph in 8.7 seconds and forging on to a top speed of 113 mph. If you’re comparing apples to kiwi fruit, that’s the same top speed as a base Dodge Intrepid.
The Ram also looks the family-sedan part, at least from the inside. Its simple dash contains all the gauges properly placed and clearly labeled. Two cupholders slide out from the dash above the radio. The rotary climate-control dials for temperature and fan speed are painlessly simple to use. And the largish steering wheel contains an airbag, a first in the class. Add the Laramie SLT trim package, which gooses the sticker on the short-bed truck with the V-8 and an automatically shifted gearbox from $14,984 to $18,694, and the Ram gets the full-boat sedan treatment: a cloth interior, power windows and locks, and an AM/FM cassette radio. For construction foremen and anal-retentive urban cowboys, there’s a handy set of movable bins and netting behind the seats, plus storage space for a laptop computer in the fold-down center armrest.
Anti-lock control is also included, but braking is nonetheless a sore point. Dodge claims best-in-class stopping distances and fade resistance, but we noted heavy fade during testing and recorded a mediocre stopping distance from 70 mph to standstill of 214 feet. Still, the Ram does corner in the car-like range at 0.73 g with minimal understeer, and the rigid body shell and live-rear-axle suspension with longitudinal leaf springs handle all but the largest pavement pits without stepping sideways.
So, don’t point and snicker at it because it buys from the big-and-tall rack. The Ram doesn’t carry its weight around its middle like its aging circle of full-sized friends. In size, look, and feel, the Ram is a barrel-chested gorilla of a truck, with enough muscle to elbow aside the chubby chimps at the top.
Specifications
Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
