First Drive Review
If you’re lookin’ for a manly ride, it gets no manlier than the Dodge Ram. And for 2009, Dodge steps up the macho with bossy new sheetmetal and a more powerful Hemi V-8. But during a brief preview spin, we discovered that the Ram 1500 also has been tamed by heaps of refinement.
That’s right, refinement. A complete interior overhaul brings sophisticated gauges, soft-touch materials, and plenty of brightwork to the cabin. A new crew-cab model was added to supplement the shorter Quad Cab model, offering a rear seat with a proper seatback angle as well as standard in-floor storage bins. As such, even the base Ram is no torture chamber, and the Laramie has as much top-stitched, chrome-dipped dressiness as the now dead Lincoln Mark LT.
Of course, a pickup’s primary job is to carry, not coddle. Storage spaces abound: under the rear seats; in the doors, the center console, and the dual glove boxes; and within the new drainable, lockable “RamBox” bins in the bed walls.
Should you ever end up using the bed itself, you may put the new coil-spring rear suspension to the test only to find that Dodge indeed did its homework here: Payload capacity is retained, but ride quality is vastly improved. There is still some steering-wheel shimmy over rough patches, but next to the Ram’s competitors—examples of each were brought along for brief comparison drives—it’s the lamb of the group, so to speak.
Underhood, improved breathing helps raise the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8’s output to 390 horsepower (from 345) and 407 pound-feet of torque (from 375). Thus equipped, it accelerates forcefully and pulls race or boat trailers easily. Meanwhile, cylinder deactivation allows the Hemi’s fuel economy to match that of the mid-level 310-hp, 4.7-liter V-8 and come within 10 percent of the base 215-hp, 3.7-liter V-6.
Certainly, this isn’t an easy time to launch a full-size pickup. But the way Dodge spins it, to sell trucks in this market, it’s best to have the freshest one around. Put that way, we suppose the 2009 Ram is right on time.
