Trucks are not what they used to be. Growing up, it was cemented in my head: a truck was a work tool and a car was for everything else, and if I must be honest, I haven’t gotten past that mentality. I’ve owned two actual pickups (2001 Dodge Ram 1500 and a 1984 Dodge D-150) and they were used as trucks more than anything else. But if current trends and opinions of others counts, then I’m a very minor segment of the population. Today the pickup truck is, roughly, a four-door ute that is big enough to induce intimidation to lesser drivers, tall enough to clear a moderately-sized animal (or really, really tall curb) and roomy enough that five large adults can fit without becoming intimate by accident. I’d rant about coupe utilities, the loss of the standard-cab truck, the end of the full-size sedan and more, but that’d fall upon deaf ears, so I’ll do what my grandmother always told me to do: make lemons out of lemonade.

If you’ve got the cash to spend, you can walk into a dealership and walk out with a truck that has obnoxious power, an interior that would walk tall with luxury cars, and a price tag that can turn hair shock white. Or, you can be smart with the options list, stay out of unneeded opulence, and find a great balance between work truck, fast car, and people-mover. With that goal in mind, I approached Martin Dodge in Bowling Green and asked for the cheapest V8-powered truck they had on the lot. Now, to be honest, what I was really hoping to get was a stripped-0ut Tradesman level pickup, but what I got was this: an Express Quad Cab, finished in white, with eight miles on the odometer. Hm. Not quite a full stripper, but given the goals, let’s see how it stacks up.

As a truck…

We aren’t questioning the Ram’s usefulness as a truck, even in half-ton form. The six-foot-four bed is plenty useable for 99.5% of whatever you will ever use a truck for in a daily-driver role, though we wish that the bedliner was sprayed-on instead of a plastic slip-in style. The LED lights in the bed are an interesting touch…I’m sure there are fans, but from where I sit, that would be an option not checked off.

The 5.7L V8, here at 395 horsepower and 410 ft/lbs of torque, is a good fit and the TorqueFlite 8 eight-speed automatic transmission has plenty of praise coming to it from testers. The Express sported a trailer brake controller ($280), a Class IV receiver hitch ($345) and a rear back-up camera/auto dimming mirror combination ($245). The rotary dial shift knob that Chad wishes would burn in the fires of Hell is present, and after driving the Express, I find that I don’t have much against the rotary knob. It opens up the front bench area, allows for a sizable storage drawer below the audio system and HVAC controls and allows three-abreast seating. My bitch is directed at the manual shifting controls, like the one in Chad’s rant: 

FCA, everybody and their mother offers up paddle shifters. Or, let the automatic transmission do it’s freaking job without input from the driver…you know, automatically? Ok, rant over, moving on…

As A Hot Rod…

395 horsepower and 410 ft/lbs of torque isn’t anything to bitch about, especially when power is hooked to 3.92 gears. The Hemi makes a nice noise from the pipes, and the TorqueFlite 8’s solid reputation holds here (with barely any miles on the clock, I suspect that the transmission in the Express was still in it’s learning curve mode.) Drive it gently, and the Ram cruises along, with only a bit more spring to the suspension than an LX sedan. Put your foot on the loud pedal and you get noise and momentum…but you have to remember that you are hauling around over two and a half tons of truck with it, and you have to account for the weight of those 20″ wheels ($1,400). We’ve seen this generation Ram whipped up into fast shop trucks, so yes, as a kind of hidden hot rod, the Ram works.

As a people-mover…

That’s the Quad Cab with the driver’s seat set all the way back. If you need more room than that, step up to the Crew Cab. If you need more room than that, go hunt for a used Mega Cab. Our Express is fitted with FCA’s Uconnect 5.0 system, and here’s all we have to say about that: as a sound system goes, it thumps. It’s also a $465 option, but there’s so much more to the system (Bluetooth connectivity, Sirius XM, voice commands, etc) that I didn’t get into that are starting to become needs instead of just wants. The 40/20/40 cloth bench seat is just fine and comfortable enough, the air conditioning works beautifully (a godsend on a hot, humid day) and just to make sure that I wasn’t being too judgemental, I added in an extra test: I introduced the Express to my mother in law, who thought that I might have ditched our project Chrysler for a pickup truck. Does that mean she approves? Maybe we will skip that test from now on…

Summary

Despite the design that dates back to 2009, the Ram pickup is still a great option. If you aren’t holding out for the Next Big Thing, it should be on your radar. The engines are proven, the transmission is a peach, the chassis is durable, and even in lower rent form, the interior is a pretty nice place to be. So, let’s check one final issue: the price point. According to the Maroney, the base price is $33,995…not too bad. The total price, with options, is $42,335. Where did ten grand come from? “Customer Preferred Package 27J”, the asthetics package, comes in at $1,700. “Popular Equipment Group” (cloth seat and remote keyless entry) is $595. The 5.7L, 8HP70 transmission, and 3.92 axle tacks on $1,845, then you have the wheels, the backup camera and the towing equipment. We asked how this would compare next to a Tradesman with the engine and towing options, and it might save two grand at the most. The Ram 1500 Express is a well-optioned truck, but two things will help ease the pain of that final price: being careful with the options list and looking for rebates and incentives, which are out there.