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If there’s an American equivalent of the flashy Italian or German supercar, it would have to be the high-performance pickup. While the U.S. produces no shortage of muscle cars ready to tear up a quarter mile, there’s something uniquely American about the massive, off-road-ready super trucks. They might not be practical for every driver, but the bold automotive creations you can find at your New Jersey Ram 1500 dealership have carved out a loyal following among those looking to push the very limits of power and performance.
Modern super trucks like the Ram 1500 TRX (known as the T-Rex to fans) are not only some of the most powerful vehicles on today’s market; they’re also carefully styled to deliver an imposing facade that lives up to their alpha predator namesake. Of course, just like in the animal kingdom, not all predators are created equal. With Ford maintaining a strong presence in the category with the Raptor super truck, Ram decided to up the ante, making a bold entry into the segment with an impressive offering that’s ready to eat its competitors for lunch. With aggressive styling, unparalleled performance, and a supercharged V8 under the hood, Ram is on a mission to prove why the TRX is the best high-performance truck on the market.
A New Challenger
As we all learned from the closing scenes of a certain prehistoric 90’s blockbuster, there’s only one way to take down a Raptor, and that’s with a T-Rex. While it’s a lot more fun to ascribe the TRX name to an inside joke between rivals – Ram has embraced the coincidence and even showed scenes from Jurassic Park during the truck’s unveiling – the moniker is actually lifted from a previous generation of limited production offerings from the manufacturer. Since Ram already owned the rights to the TRX name, the choice was largely a matter of convenience as the production team raced to meet an extremely tight deadline. “I’d love to claim we came up with that, that we were that clever, but honestly we were going so fast that we probably didn’t quite make the connection,” says Mike Gillam, the TRX’s exterior-design lead.
What the team did come up with was a truck unlike any other. Ram had long eyed the luxury/performance truck sector as an intriguing area for growth given the presence of only one major competitor in today’s market. But to simply label the Ram 1500 TRX a high-performance super-truck would be doing it a disservice. With a full complement of cutting-edge features and sophisticated styling throughout, the TRX is as much a luxury vehicle as anything else, albeit one that rides on 35-inch all-terrain tires. This unique blend of power and refinement speaks to a new generation of truck enthusiasts who aren’t content to choose between the two and are happy to pony up $70,000 for a pickup that can do both.
Comparisons between the Ram 1500 TRX and Ford Raptor are inevitable, though, on closer inspection, they’re both offering something slightly different. Inspired by the Baja 1000 desert race, the Raptor is an off-roader through and through; tuned to perform in sandy, rocky conditions, the Ford is some 700 pounds lighter than the Ram. The TRX, on the other hand, might be most at home on the pavement, laying down rubber and smoking other cars off the line with an ease that speaks to the muscle car engine under the hood. That’s not to say the TRX doesn’t hold its own away from the asphalt; an enhanced suspension offers 12 inches of travel, creates almost a foot of ground clearance, and allows the truck to ford up to 32 inches of water. The super truck also offers underbody plating, an electronic-locking rear differential, and 15-inch front brakes, rounding out an ample suite of off-road features.
Sports Car Performance Meets Pickup Brawn
While super trucks are nothing new, advancements in automotive technology have made them a more practical endeavor in recent decades. By integrating forced induction methods like turbocharging into this new generation of vehicles, engineers were able to evolve the workaday pickup into something entirely new. The GMC Syclone and Ford F-150 SVT Lightning were among the first to explore the concept, with Ram launching its own bid in 2004 with the Dodge Ram SRT-10. Featuring an 8.3-liter V10 engine swiped from a Dodge Viper, the SRT-10 provided a formula for what was to come with the TRX: take one of the most powerful engines in your lineup, ignore the fact it came out of a sports car, and throw it into the largest chassis you can find. The SRT-10 posted an impressive 500 horsepower and 525 lb-ft of torque, but it still pales in comparison to the TRX’s stats.
With 702 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, the TRX posts a 4.5-second zero-to-sixty time that would leave many sports cars in the dust: no small feat for a truck weighing in at more than 6,000 pounds. These blistering figures are little coincidence considering the lineage of the TRX’s powertrain. While not branded as such, the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 is a Hellcat in everything but name. Usually found under the hood of Dodge’s rubber-burning Challenger and Charger muscle cars, its inclusion here gives the pickup unprecedented pep and a trademark supercharger whine under heavy acceleration.
The sporty similarities don’t stop there, with the TRX featuring a launch control feature that one rarely sees outside of high-performance cars. Essentially a more sophisticated version of brake boosting your truck, this system revs the engine to the optimal level before releasing the brakes to deliver a consistent level of acceleration when you put the pedal to the floor. So much available power always brings more risk, but with an array of speed sensors to aid in preventing wheel hop, the TRX ensures that energy is routed through the vehicle in a measured and safe way.
Tech and Styling Elevate Luxury
At nearly 7-feet tall and 7.3-feet wide, the TRX makes quite the impression from the outside, but it’s the interior that truly sets this pickup apart and earns it the vaunted luxury tag. While the interior’s upholstery and equipment are based on the Ram 1500 Rebel, everything has been taken up a notch with the TRX. On the seating and styling end, this means leather, microsuede, and carbon fiber throughout. This provides an unquestionably premium feel, but these features are quickly eclipsed by a futuristic, tech-heavy dashboard that includes a heads-up display, digital rearview mirror, and colossal 12-inch touchscreen display.
The vertically aligned display works in tandem with a 7-inch driver’s gauge cluster and can be configured to show a number of different windows at once, allowing drivers and passengers to monitor the vehicle’s performance, display turn-by-turn navigation, and stream media simultaneously. The display’s Off-Road Pages gives drivers the ability to track ride height, transfer case position, and pitch and roll, providing real-time feedback that will help you keep the TRX working its best… and staying upright. A 360-degree Surround View Camera system provides drivers with a comprehensive look at what’s around them, stitching together video feeds to provide a birds-eye-view image that will make parallel parking and backing into spots a hassle-free exercise, even in this behemoth.
The Uconnect infotainment system includes all the connectivity options drivers have come to expect – including Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and SiriusXM 360L. There are also a few innovative additions, such as a 4G Wi-Fi hotspot and remote unlock, start and navigation through the Uconnect mobile app. Of course, all the entertainment options in the world mean nothing if you can’t hear them, but the TRX has this well covered with an impressive Harmon Kardon sound system that turns the TRX into a concert hall on wheels with its 19 speakers, 900-watt amplifier, active noise cancellation, and 10-inch subwoofer.
Meet the New King of the Trails
The TRX is a truck unlike any other, but all the research in the world is no substitute for even a short ride in this class-defying super truck. Here at Spirit CDJR, we have a wide selection of Ram trucks to choose from, including the all-new 2021 Ram 1500 TRX. Are you looking for another option in the rugged 4×4 category? Then come browse our full inventory of new Ram and Jeep models, fresh off the factory floor and ready for adventure. Whether you’re looking for new or used vehicles, we’ve always got you covered. Stop by today and discover your new favorite vehicle at Spirit CDJR.
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