A Hybrid That Works

By PAUL DEAN

Nov. 26, 1993 12 AM PT

Americans are on a Tonka binge, buying a million full-size trucks last year, which implies that we have become a nation of plumbers, cowhands and haulers of plywood.

What we really have become is a wiser population voting with its checkbooks against high prices and collective styling. We’re canny buyers buttoning white collars around a red-necked image for the satisfaction of spending an average $18,000 on tough, reliable, undeniably Yankee transportation.

Therein even hangs a mode. With the correct combination of expensive sunglasses and Gap grungies, a suburban trucker in a GMC Sierra now is welcome at the trendiest dinner spots. For the domestic industry--particularly Ford and Chevrolet and their linebacker pickups that currently are the top-selling vehicles in the United States--pickups are an impressive, unchallenged business of $22 billion a year and growing.

For Dodge--outsold 5-1 by Ford and Chevrolet and ever the bridesmaid among those married to pickups--the market was a goad to build a bolder, brawnier truck with a duality serving serious haulers of steel piping and carriers of weekend geraniums.

The versatile, radical 1994 Dodge Ram is its best shot.

This truck offers more engines than a big city chop shop, six in all ranging from a 3.9-liter V-6 to a 8.0-liter V-10 (available this spring) that appears in the extraordinary Dodge Viper sports car. In between, there are light- and heavy-duty versions of a 5.9-liter V-8. Also a Cummins Turbo-Diesel with enough pull--300 muscle-bound horsepower generating 450 foot-pounds of torque--to tow Cuba.

There are short beds and long beds at this Dodge souk. You can order two-wheel or four-wheel drive. Capacities are one ton through 3/4 ton to 1/2 ton. Drivetrain selection offers more than a hundred combinations, plus six transmissions and several dozen wheel and axle permutations. A crew cab is on the way.

So much for catering to worker bees.

For those who labor in downtown apiaries, wear blazers and snort Maalox, Dodge’s predicted bestseller (and our test vehicle)--the V-8-powered Ram 1500 Laramie SLT--can be equipped with much the same equipment as a Lexus.

That includes a standard driver-side air bag and optional anti-lock brakes, a double first for any full-size truck. Cruise control, power windows and mirrors, a six-speaker audio system with graphic equalizer and other convenience options.

Externally, this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Dodge would never be mistaken for anything but a working stiff. Running boards. Sixteen-inch chrome wheels with optional OWL sod crunchers. Enough distance between ground and chassis to clear a St. Bernard sleeping in your driveway.

The truck stands 6 feet tall. There’s enough cab room to seat four construction workers across, and it’s high enough for everyone to wear Stetsons.

The hood is pure artisan. It is huge, flat, slab-sided and the front drops vertically like a chrome cliff. As a styling statement, it says one word: Peterbilt.

Inside, we’re back to Wall Street with good carpeting and a satin finish on control knobs and dashboard plastics. There are two cigarette lighters but not to double the risk of lung cancer: Use one to power a fax machine or inventory computer, the other for a cellular phone.

If that suggests an on-site office for architects or visiting investors, the console armrest will clinch it. It’s a small sofa-cum-desk-cum-briefcase about 18 inches across. Beneath the lid there’s room and separators for calculator, Filofax, recorder, Powerbook, Victoria’s Secret catalogue and other accouterments of the rolling executive suite.

On the bulkhead behind the bench seat, there’s a nifty arrangement of storage trays and nets, whether your daily portables be theodolite stand or fly rod. More important, seat latches and hinges provide full access, easily and immediately.

While competitors still go for interiors that feel more like a construction shack, Dodge has created sedan softness in the Ram. The steering wheel, dashboard and rotary controls are styled for aesthetics first, utility second. Although meaty door handles still fill a fist.

Everything inside that can be lined or covered is hidden beneath quality fabrics. In short, nothing about this truck shows bare metal or suggests the bare essentials.

The two available beds range from 6 1/2 feet to 8 feet, with volume from 57 to 72 cubic feet. Widths are 64 1/2 inches--with 50 inches between wheel wells--for all models.

Depending on model and powertrain combination, the Ram offers more hauling and towing capability than the competition. Payloads start at 1,700 pounds and top out at 5,500.

The ride--at least that of our 4x4 Laramie with shift-on-the-fly and a standard bed--was a little marshy. Steering was equally floppy. Both are standard flaws for vehicles with long traveling suspensions tuned for on- and off-road travel, but without finding optimum for either.

The engine was a 5.2-liter V-8 grinding out 220 horsepower and 300 foot-pounds of torque. It has that rushing roar of purposeful progress, and 0-60 m.p.h. acceleration times of 10.6 seconds certainly live up to its noise. Although improved insulation--including double door seals--does much to keep wind, road, engine and traffic noise from the cabin.

Do not, however, expect the delicacies of even a Dodge Shadow with the Dodge Ram. Entering the cab is a climb for the short of shank. Exiting stirs every whiskery caveat about the first step being a killer.

Although large and marginally ponderous, the Ram does a confident job of butting through traffic. This, however, could be more a matter of everybody getting out of its way. Face it, seeing that chrome portcullis of a grille filling your rearview mirror usually suggests intimidation be the better part of valor.

Large of girth, unfortunately, means heavy of thirst.

Forget EPA averages. In the real world between off-ramps, the Laramie drinks about $22 worth of gas every 250 miles--numbers from the ‘70s and a pre-embargo mind-set.

Still, there seems little doubt that by reshaping its mission, by setting driving feel and safety features closer to office worker than farm worker, Dodge has produced a truck for younger buyers who work sitting down.

“It’s an excellent concept, magnificently executed,” one auto executive enthused. “The interior is simply the best on the market.”

Understandably, the executive must remain anonymous.

He works for General Motors.

1994 Dodge Ram 1500 Laramie SLT

Cost

* Base: $17,226.

* As tested, $22,756. (Includes driver’s side air bag, anti-lock brakes, four-speed automatic, six-speaker sound system, OWL tires, air conditioning, cruise control, tachometer, chrome wheels, chrome front and rear bumpers. Also $1,600 Dodge Discount.)

Engine

* 5.2-liter V-8 producing 220 horsepower.

Type

* Rear-drive, three-passenger, full-size truck.

Performance

* 0-60 m.p.h., with automatic, 10.6 seconds.

* Top speed, track tested, 110 m.p.h.

* Fuel consumption, EPA city and highway, 12 and 16 m.p.g.

Curb Weight

* 4,517 pounds.

The Good

* Designed for suburban and urban purposes.