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Whispers of a single-cab sport truck from Ram have been running rampant since the father of the Hellcats, Tim Kuniskis, came out of retirement and returned to the truck brand’s CEO seat. Cries for the truck maker to shove the 6.4-liter Hemi V8 into the 1500 light-duty truck are even louder. The Drive can now exclusively report neither of these things are going to happen.
During a one-on-one interview with The Drive Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis said, “you’re not getting a single-cab sport truck 6.4.”
“I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Kuniskis said when asked if the automaker will put the 6.4-liter Hemi V8 into the 1500 or a regular cab sport truck is in the works.
“That’s like a YouTube thing. Everybody, give me the 6.4. By the way, I love this,” Kuniskis said.
The executive who grew up on the streets of Detroit watching his dad drag race equated the current situation to that of a station wagon and enthusiasts. “Used to be back in the day, all the journalists would say, you should build a station wagon with a manual transmission, and I’d be like, come on, man. For you. Yeah, for you and the six other friends of yours that want to buy it,” Kuniskis said.
Kuniskis continued, “The new thing now is, everybody, everywhere I go, when are you going to do a regular cab sport truck? Do you know what the market is for a regular cab sport truck? It’s just tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, little sliver. It’s like the wagon with the manual that everybody used to ask for. Now they’re asking for the manual single-cab truck. And, of course, they want it with a manual transmission. They want it with a 6.4.”
When asked if the 6.4-liter V8 will fit in the 1500 Kuniskis said, “Of course it fits in the truck. 5.7, fits in truck. So of course the 6.4 fits in the truck.”
The issue? According to Kuniskis, “where do you put it?” It’s a positioning issue, according to the CEO.
Kuniskis equated the choice between the standard-output turbo-six in the 1500 with 440 horsepower and the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 with 395 hp to the Pepsi Challenge. “Do you want old school technology? You want the instantaneous torque, no turbo lag, and the great sound? Or do you want the high-tech fuel economy efficiency? Amazing torque,” Kuniskis quipped.
The high-output turbo-six with 550 hp simply out guns the 6.4-liter Hemi and “you don’t have a Pepsi challenge,” Kuniskis said. “Now you got this kind of weird …. Did I just do it because I could? Or was there really a market for it, or was I reading comments on YouTube?” he continued.
“That’s a much tougher equation than the 5.7,” Kuniskis said.
“Tell me where you put the 6.4 that makes sense. And I don’t mean ego. I mean, just business sense. Tell me where to put the 6.4 in the current light duty lineup,” Kuniskis asked as if in front of a business class.
“Can you do it? Sure. But just ’cause you can, should you?” Kuniskis ended.
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As Director of Content and Product, Joel draws on over 15 years of newsroom experience and inability to actually stop working to help ensure The Drive shapes the future of automotive media. He’s also a World Car Award juror.
