First Look: 2021 Ram 1500 TRX

Article content

Let’s quickly hit some of the headline numbers: 6.2L supercharged V8, 702 horsepower, 35-inch off-road tires, 11.8 inches of ground clearance, $93,995.

Article content

Heady stuff, right? We think so, too. True off-road gearheads will want to know more but if you’re just here for the barroom stats, thanks for the click and feel free to check out our news roundup later this week.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

First Look: 2021 Ram 1500 TRX Back to video

Now we’ve gotten rid of those dweebs, here’s the real skinny on Ram’s new uber-pickup: according to the company, it’s the fastest, quickest, and most powerful mass-produced truck … in the world.

Most fans of the brand fully expected Ram to eventually take a copy of its half-ton machine and stuff a Hellcat engine up its nose. What most of us didn’t expect was it to result in a truck that manspreads eight inches wider than a stock Ram half-ton and wear significant changes to its sheet metal. Even the wheelbase is different!

Article content

Starting under the hood, we find the familiar 6.2L supercharged V8 that’s turned any number of Challengers and Chargers into terrain-following missiles. In this application, it’s tuned to 702 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, good enough for an unladen zero-to-96 km/h sprint in just 4.5 seconds. The engine is backed by an eight-speed automatic and appears to be hidden under the Shroud of Turin.

Feeding all that snort requires a lot of air, explaining the TRX’s hood scoop which does more than simply serve as a mail slot through which a trio of amber clearance lights peek. A functional unit, 50 per cent of the truck’s air requirements are sucked up by the scoop, sating its desire for 2.38 litres of atmosphere per engine revolution. The other half is hoovered by the grille area, a space which bears a Ram billboard that’s now flow-through and 40 per cent bigger than stock. All this indicates that TRX is capable of inhaling a flock of sheep when travelling at full whack, but we’ll have to wait until we climb behind the wheel to be sure.

Article content

If there was any confusion as to which machine in in the TRX crosshairs, it was cleared up at the beginning of the truck’s introduction when Ram showed the scene from Jurassic Park in which an agitated T-Rex picks up a Raptor by the tail and flings it into a pile of dinosaur bones. Mike Koval, head of Ram, made a couple more references during the 20-minute intro.

You’d expect that gauntlet to mean the TRX is filled to the gunwales with off-road kit, and that’s exactly what Ram’s new truck brings to the table. A new independent front suspension system with active damping uses new 2.5-inch Bilstein Black Hawk e2 shocks to provide fast reaction time and improved heat dissipation for when hammering over harsh terrain at speeds in excess of 161 km/h.

Toggle full screen mode Previous Gallery Image

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

10. 

Next Gallery Image Toggle gallery captions

View All 10 Photos

1 of 10

All 10 Photos for Gallery

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

Function Not Available

Full Screen is not supported on this browser version.

You may use a different browser or device to view this in full screen.

OK

Article content

Out back, you’ll also find those Bilsteins, along with a Dana 60 solid rear axle into which 3.55 ratio gears are stuffed. Full-floating hubs and an axle-hop damper should provide good traction and axle control on rough surfaces. An electronic locking rear diff is standard and the Borg-Warner transfer case features a low range of 2.64:1 for rock crawling duties.

And, yes, the five-link coil suspension remains. Get over it. For those unfamiliar, employing coil springs instead of leaf springs in a pickup truck is like editing a term paper using Faber-Castell correction tape instead of a V8-powered paper shredder. Sometimes, finesse is preferable to wild abandon.

Better than 13 inches of wheel travel is on tap at all four corners, which is over 40 per cent better than the rest of Ram 1500’s lineup. Ground clearance checks in at nearly 12 inches thanks to a two-inch ride height increase over regular Ram trucks. You’re also looking at 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory all-terrain tires on 18-inch wheels, by the way.

Article content

Compared to a stock Ram, the TRX body swells like a anaphylactic who forgot his EpiPen. New integrated composite fender flares add eight inches of body width and feature all-new steel box outers. Koval said the front axle has been moved 20 millimetres forward compared to a standard Ram 1500 in a bid to fit all the gubbins, though that detail goes unmentioned in official propaganda.

Inside, it’ll not go unnoticed that the eight-speed automatic mentioned earlier is controlled by a console-mounted shifter lifted from the Jeep Grand Cherokee. This likely a tacit admission from Ram that the spinny knob found in other Ram pickups doesn’t project the right image for this hairy-chested off-roader. Residing where the shifter used to be are a series of buttons to control the TRX’s myriad of drive and off-road modes, including a tremendous notation for the launch control system.

Article content

Another surprise? The debut of Ram’s Trailer Reverse Steer Control, an answer to Ford’s Pro Trailer Backup Assist managed by a new dial mounted directly underneath the truck’s 12-inch Uconnect infotainment touchscreen which now houses Performance and Off-Road pages. The rest of the interior will look familiar to fans of the brand, save for a few TRX-specific details like badging and ID plates.

Appending copious amounts of off-road kit to a truck generally hampers its ability to tow and haul, thanks to limitations of minor stuff like the laws of physics. Ram has kept this effect to a minimum, rating TRX as capable of towing 8100 pounds and bearing 1310 pounds of payload. In short, you’ll still be able to haul a few toys on a trailer with enough payload left over for you and a couple of buddies.

Ram says customers can plunk down an order for a new TRX starting tomorrow. Canadian pricing starts at $93,995, with the Launch Edition stickered at $114,995.

Article content