Fiat Chrysler unveiled Hellcat pickup of 702 hp

Fiat Chrysler has just unveiled a new pickup – the Ram 1500 TRX, a performance truck with a V8 Hellcat engine and more than 700 horsepower.

The pickup is expected to go on sale by the end of the year – starting at $ 71,690 – as a new halo car for the market in an attempt to differentiate Ram from Chevrolet and Ford, the sector’s truck leaders by sales.

“The all-new Ram 1500 TRX is by far the fastest, fastest, most powerful truck in the world,” said Mike Koval, head of Ram for Fiat Chrysler North America.

Apart from its performance, the pickup has a more aggressive exterior design than its regular stackers, including a large functioning hood dome with LED lights integrated into the car’s hood. On the interior, the car comes standard with a 12-inch vertical touchscreen and 7-inch driver information cluster.

A limited “Launch Edition” will start at around $ 92,000. All prices include an order tax of $ 1,695.

The company’s 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8 engine, better known as the Hellcat engine for Fiat Chrysler’s Dodge brand, is capable of 702 horsepower and 650 feet of torque. The top speed is 118 mph (limited by its off-road tires) and can reach 60 mph within 4.5 seconds. It has an eight-speed automatic transmission.

“We designed this truck bolt by bolt to significantly overcome any other truck,” Koval said.

The company expects the pickup to bring new buyers to the market, and helps with the company’s highly profitable pickup sales, Koval said. He declined to discuss sales expectations for the car.

While sales of pickup trucks have outperformed other segments of cars during the coronavirus pandemic, sales of the Ram 1500 were down 17.8% through the first half of the year as the health crisis caused that many dealerships shook and consumers remained in their homes.

The Ram 1500 TRX is the fourth car to include the motorist’s Hellcat engine. The first were the Dodge Challenger and Charger muscle cars, followed by a performance variant of the Jeep Grand Cherokee called the Trackhawk.

The 2021 Ram 1500 TRX is aimed at the Ford Raptor, a highly regarded performance version of the F-150 pickup. The Ford truck has a 3.5-liter V6 twin-turbo engine, rated at 450 horsepower and 510 foot-pounds of torque. A similar four-door model to the TRX starts at around $ 58,000.

Koval repeatedly referred to the Ram 1500 TRX as the “apex predator” of the freight market, and took a shot at Ford’s Raptor.

“To put it bluntly in the Jura, the T. rex is destroying raptors and it’s exactly what you would expect from a company that would commit to being America’s off-road truck leader,” he said.

Ryan Nagode, chief interior designer for Ram, said that “the truck’s mission was to create a halo product for this brand. Something that would truly be the top dog in our trim lineup.”

He described the interior as combining the ruggedness of an off-road pickup with the performance styling of a muscle car.