How Ram Tailors Its Truck Lineup for Canadian Tastes

You might think America is truck territory, but Canada outdoes our neighbours to the south in one important metric: proportionality.

According to Ram’s Mike Szymkiewicz, Senior Manager of Product Strategy and Volume Planning, the Great White North just edges ahead of the U.S., with 17 per cent of new vehicle sales being pickups (both light and heavy duty), while the American market share hovers around 15 per cent.

With modern product planning being what it is, there's plenty of overlap between the two markets’ offerings, from the return of the Hemi to the high-flying TRX. The Canadian team has cooked up some unique offerings for our market, however, and to showcase the breadth of the modern lineup, arranged a day of driving no fewer than 11 variants of the Ram 1500, 2500, and 3500. Call it speed dating for trucks.

The Core Four

My day starts in the Black Express 1500, a value-oriented package that pairs the trusty Pentastar V6 with popular style options such as the 20-inch alloy wheels, sport hood, and blacked-out badging. With the eTorque mild-hybrid system, the 305-horsepower V6 is solidly peppy, with the additional 90 pound-feet of electrically assisted starting shove giving it an old-school V8 delivery. The cabin is mostly black plastic, but it’s sufficiently hearty to the touch and appropriate for a truck that sits in the mid-$60,000s before any incentives. It’s still as useful as always, including the multi-level centre console and its ample storage, the deep shelf ahead of the passenger, four USB ports, and a bevy of genuine physical dials for climate and audio. The cloth seats look and feel good, too. The Black Express reminds you that even one step above a work truck — sorry, a Tradesman — can include nearly all the modern niceties you need.

The next truck shares the blacked-out trim look but is one of two Canada-exclusive trims. The 1500 Sport is a Greatest Hits collection of Canadians’ most-requested features like dual exhaust tips, and accounts for some 40 per cent of all Ram 1500 sales in the country. The smooth inline-six engine is standard, but this one has the optional Hemi ($1,500), adding a more traditional soundtrack to activities. Buyers can tailor the Sport as they desire, and the $95,230 sticker price of this model is just shy of $20,000 over the entry point. For that, buyers get plenty of luxury features without the associated look, including ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, a dual-pane panoramic roof, a wireless charger, a 14.4-inch central screen (plus a passenger screen), and leather bucket seats.

These two trims, plus the Rebel and Big Horn, represent the “Core Four,” a quartet of trims that make up 80 per cent of Ram’s light-duty sales in Canada. A short off-road trail provides a solid demo of the Rebel X’s capabilities, with the locking rear differential providing extra security over logs. A one-inch suspension lift and suitable all-terrain tires, not to mention a smattering of underbody skid plates, ensure the Rebel can conquer milder trails with ease.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Big Horn is the rugged equivalent of the Black Express, a value-focused off-road trim with the Night Edition, Level 1 Equipment Group, and Off-Road Group included as standard, encompassing useful bits such as a locking differential, 20-inch alloys with all-terrain rubber, and a 420-watt inverter. Ram presses this 2027 model into towing duty, where the standard Hurricane engine makes short work of tugging a side-by-side and its trailer. The Big Horn remains unfussed by the additional weight, so it’s time to try something bigger.

Towing and Tungsten

Step forward, Ram 2500 Big Horn. With a Kubota skid steer loader secured on a large trailer, the 2500’s big 6.4-litre V8 is barely bothered. Like its little brother, this Big Horn is about (relative) affordability: its as-tested price of $89,105 is hardly chump change but represents good value for something this large and capable. A modest cabin majors on usefulness, but as it mirrors the design of the light-duty truck, it’s arguably still the most handsome in the class. Still, we need more.

The 3500 Big Horn is the first time I’ve ever driven anything with a gooseneck trailer, or used the integrated exhaust gas brakes that come with the 6.7L Cummins turbodiesel. Considered turning radii aside, it’s remarkably straightforward and newbie-friendly: an auto setting can determine when the added stopping power is truly needed. A faintly ridiculous 1,075 pound-feet of torque ensures starts aren’t any slower than the rest of traffic, though the sheer amount of weight and drag does mean more thought is required to maintain speed.

Ram also gives us some brief seat time in a Laramie with a payload of firewood. The only hint of the extra heft is the view out the rearview mirror or the occasional flap of a securing strap. I’m much more interested in the Laramie’s cowboy cabin, all two-tone brown leather and contrast stitching. Yes, please.

I’m also a big fan of the top-shelf Tungsten, which admittedly skips any towing at the event. Trucks have been edging into luxury territory for years now but this is the most convincing rig yet. The cabin is hush-hush quiet, the materials are miles (er, kilometres) ahead of what else is out there, and the Klipsch sound system is no-reservations excellent. The 24-way adjustable front seats even offer a massage function. The Tungsten is still plenty practical too, with the multi-function tailgate, power retracting side steps, and integrated RamBox bedside storage.

The Beasts

The final quartet of the day includes the aforementioned Rebel alongside the Ram 2500 Power Wagon, plus the 1500 RHO and TRX. The 2500’s extra chunkiness is clear on the trail — it takes some doing to make a Rebel seem dainty — but it also feels unstoppable, maintaining a steady speed no matter the obstacles in front of it. The ride is stiffer, sure, but that’s to account for the 4,808-kilogram towing capacity.

No day can ever be bad when it involves jumping trucks. Being able to put clear air underneath all four of the TRX’s huge all-terrain tires will always be laugh-out-loud fun. The big beast’s unique Bilstein BlackHawk e2 remote reservoir shocks give it incredible compliance up, over, and after each jump, even as the lead-up becomes increasingly rutted. The 777 horsepower ensures any targeted launch speed is hit, and it comes with one of the most hilariously over the top soundtracks on the market.

By comparison the RHO is milder. This is still mostly the same hardware, mind you: the only real difference is the subbing in of the 540-horsepower Hurricane inline-six. Yes, just 540 ponies. The extra weight all comes out of the tall nose, making the Rhino more agile than the T-Rex. It’s easier to throw into each muddy corner; fractionally quicker to change directions.

Final Thoughts

If you’re like me, you can sometimes write off Ram’s truck lineup as smaller than the competition. It doesn’t (yet) offer anything under its full-sizer, after all. This rapid-fire day was a solid reminder that not only does the brand offer something for everyone with its Ram 1500, 2500, and 3500 models, it has zoomed in on the particular wants and needs of Canadians to deliver models distinct from those found in America.