The king of Ram's new street truck lineup isn't just meant to do burnouts along Woodward. The "Brotherhood of Muscle" that has defined Dodge appears to still be alive and well, albeit under a different Stellantis banner at the moment. On Wednesday, Ram unveiled its new lineup of Rumble Bee muscle trucks, each with a different Hemi V-8 engine supplying motivation (and a killer soundtrack). And while we can get excited about the 5.7-liter and 6.4-liter models, it's the Hellcat-powered 777-hp Rumble Bee SRT that's piqued our interest most—and it has little to do with the sheer grunt on tap.
Based on what Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis told us, the SRT promises to be a legit track-capable pickup. Road & Track had a chance to catch up with the Ram and SRT boss during the reveal event for the Rumble Bee lineup at the brand’s Chelsea Proving Grounds in Michigan. The event itself featured plenty of high-speed flybys and smokey drifts by the SRT, but while fun, those shenanigans aren’t great examples of track capability.
View Price on AmazonThat said, when pushed on exactly how much development time was spent on making the Rumble Bee a proper enthusiast runabout, Kuniskis had quite a satisfactory answer. "On that one [the SRT], a ton," Kuniskis told R&T. "If you could see through the sheet metal, there's a massive difference in these trucks. This [Rumble Bee] is a very traditional, steel suspension, coil over suspension, very traditional truck. This [SRT] is a complete new invention: Bilstein suspensions, shocks, but with air bags, so it's gonna be completely different. So, where's our focus? Our focus on this is track, track, track, track, track—get that thing dialed in, get it right. That’s an 11-second truck. I mean, it's a 6000 pound truck—that is a hauling machine right there.
But that's not to say the lower-tier models were left out when it came to development; the company just had a different priority. "This one, though [the base Rumble Bee], is going to be heart of the market," the CEO said. "We spent time on getting the ride and the handling and the feel of it right, but it wasn't the track focus—and that’s why [the base Rumble Bee] is coming out first.”
While the initial response to the Rumble Bee lineup online has been generally positive, Kuniskis admitted the brand leaders felt some anxiety about the decision to step back into the muscle truck scene. While largely loved by hardcore fans, these machines have never truly worked from a sales perspective, be it the original Rumble Bee, the SRT-10, or the Daytona versions of the 1500.
Source: roadandtrack.com
