Ram still wants to take on Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux in Australia

Ram may have narrowly lost the US pickup sales crown to Chevrolet in Australia last year, but the Ram 1500 remains the nation’s most popular full-size dual-cab and its long-awaited – and potentially much bigger-selling – smaller sibling remains on the horizon Down Under.

Speaking at the launch of the updated 2025 Ram 1500, Ram Trucks Australia general manager Jeff Barber told CarExpert the US truck brand’s hotly anticipated global mid-size dual-cab would be a perfect fit in this market – if it gets the green light.

“We’ve always had our hand up for that and we hope in the future we do get it,” said Mr Barber.

“Would we love to have a mid-size ute? Absolutely. The market’s huge. And a Ram-branded one would be awesome.”

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Ram’s local chief has long said a smaller Ram pickup would have enormous sales potential in Australia’s huge ute market, which ranks as one of the world’s largest, with the Ford Ranger remaining the country’s best-selling new vehicle last year.

But he cautioned that such a vehicle, which has been coined the Ram ‘Dakota’, is yet to be officially announced for production, let alone confirmed for local release.

“I’m not going to speculate and I can’t talk on behalf of Stellantis. [But] If it’s offered to us and the business case stacks up then, yes, we’d love to do it,” said Mr Barber.

“We’ve never walked away from the fact that we’ve always said if it was available we want it. But there’s no update at this stage.”

Ram hasn’t offered a model in the mid-size pickup segment in North America since it ceased production of the Dakota in 2011.

However, it has talked about a global mid-size pickup for at least five years, and Ram teased what appeared to be a Ranger-sized ute with an electric powertrain back in 2021, riding on Stellantis’ STLA Large architecture.

In April 2023, then-Ram CEO Mike Koval Jr told CarExpert that the concept received rave reviews at a North American dealer meeting in Las Vegas earlier that year and would almost certainly be produced in right-hand drive (RHD) for international markets including Australia – and not just with an electric powertrain.

And when he toured the Walkinshaw Automotive facility that converts Ram trucks to RHD for Australia just prior to that, Ram Trucks International chief Bob Graczyk indicated the ‘Dakota’ would become available in Australia whether it was remanufactured here or not.

Last November, Chris Feuell – the CEO of the Chrysler brand and, from June to December of 2024, Ram – told Motor Trend that the model is still in the works and will be offered globally, saying: “It will be brought to market”.

Ms Feuell said Ram had considered a couple of different platform options before arriving at a decision that she says will surprise.

Whether that means Ram will eschew a traditional ladder-frame construction for monocoque underpinnings like the Ford Maverick or its own Rampage, which was launched in Brazil last year and could donate exterior design elements to the ‘Dakota’, remains unclear.

Motor Trend says more details will be revealed this year and that multiple powertrains will be available, but a concept version may take time to appear.

In January this year, Ram’s global CEO Tim Kuniskis, who retired last May then returned in December, said he wanted a “mid-size truck so bad” and that it would be vital for the American truck brand following the axing of the cut-price DS-series Ram 1500 Classic.

“Everything is more expensive. Trucks are way more expensive – bread goes up, you still got to eat, right? Trucks go up, you start looking for alternatives,” he said.

“I used to have a price point alternative with the Ram Classic. I don’t have that anymore.”

Little more than a week later, Automotive News uncovered a Stellantis memo that said the all-new ute will be built at the company’s mothballed Belvidere factory in Illinois, and the United Auto Workers union said in a statement that production will start sometime in 2027.

Last year UAW members protested against Stellantis for the delay in reopening the Belvidere plant, which was closed in early 2023, when the union said Stellantis had plans to build a mid-size pickup at the facility.

After long-running disputes with the UAW and the inauguration of US President Donald Trump, Stellantis also said in January that it would build the next-generation Dodge Durango at its Detroit factory and invest in its Jeep facilities in Ohio.

“After meeting with the company for the last several months, last night we resolved our grievances concerning the Dodge Durango and the reopening of Belvidere,” said the UAW in a statement.

Mid-size utes are the second most popular new vehicle type in Australia and the segment continues to grow in North America, where it’s led by the Toyota Tacoma.

But Ram continues to be without a rival for the Tacoma and the Australian-developed Ranger, which is sold globally, while GM competes in various markets with the Chevrolet Colorado, the S10 and the GMC Canyon.

However, Ram has offered mid-size dual-cab models in various overseas markets, including the car-based (monocoque) Rampage dual-cab currently sold in Latin American markets with four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines.

Stellantis also sells the Changan F70-based, ladder-frame Ram 1200, a nameplate previously worn by a rebadged Mitsubishi Triton, in other non-Western markets including Mexico, as well as the closely related Peugeot Landtrek in Africa and the Fiat Titano in Europe.

Fellow Stellantis brand Jeep also has its off-road-focused, Wrangler-based Gladiator ute.

The big question remains which platform Ram’s first global mid-size pickup will be based on. In a press release further detailing the STLA Large platform last year, Stellantis made no mention of the Ram brand, though it said the platform could support combustion, hybrid and electric powertrains.

Alternatively, the upcoming Ram ute could be underpinned by the STLA Medium platform, or the STLA Frame platform that forms the basis of the all-electric Ram 1500 REV and the range-extender Ramcharger, which is under consideration for Australia.

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