2005 Dodge Ram Test Drives

A Truck to Smite Sports Cars

Do you want a truck that can eat Porsches?

Trucks used to be about utility. Throw a dead animal in the bed; and if you needed to, you might even toss one in the cab.

But pickups are no longer cheap. New, they're far from inexpensive. And yet, more than any other kind of vehicle, trucks are the engine of American car-making. They're immensely profitable to sell because there's rarely, if ever, much new technology in them. Ford spent billions redoing its F-150 recently, and Nissan did the same to get its new Titan competing in the U.S. But those are rare occasions in truckdom. And even "new" trucks use ancient technology that has been extant in pickups for at least 60 years.

That doesn't stop Americans from loving trucks and buying more of them each year, while car sales flattened years ago and have been falling ever since.

What's interesting is that, even in the wake of the muscle car, which besides a few examples such as the Mustang is all but dead, muscle trucks have taken hold. First there was the Ford SVT F-150 Lightning. Then the Chevy Silverado SS (considered an also-ran from the start). But now Dodge wants a piece of the action and has come to market with the Ram SRT-10, a 500 horsepower, 8.3-liter, V-10-powered beast (capable of 153 mph) that gets the same motor as the far more expensive Dodge Viper. (The SRT-10 runs $45,795, while the Viper costs $81,795.)

More on the SRT-10 in a moment, but first, why muscle trucks?

Probably because they deliver the raw power and simple setup long gone from muscle cars. That is, with solid rear axles and leaf springs, pickup suspensions and drivelines are actually far more like what you would have bought in a 1970 Camaro than what you'd get if you bought the new Pontiac GTO. Why is that attractive? Smoking tires in burnout starts are what buyers are after, not tight cornering, just as they were when Ford Model Ts were first turned into hot rods.

But don't go thinking that just because it has a refined cabin and smooth steering you've stumbled upon a Mercedes S-Class with a six-foot bed in the back. This is a truck, with all of what that implies. Is that a good or a bad thing?