Looking for a good way to tell how long someone has been interested in pickup trucks? Simply see if they still use the word Dodge when talking about Ram Trucks. Amazingly, it's now been over 15 years since Ram's parent company, Stellantis
, formerly known as Chrysler or Fiat Chrysler, decided to spin off its truck line into a separate brand, separate from the Dodge family that it'd long been part of.Despite the decade and a half that's passed since Ram became its own brand, you'll still hear lots
of people refer to modern Ram trucks as Dodge Rams or even just Dodge trucks. After looking at Dodge's long history and association with the Ram logo, it's not hard to see why.
Chrysler formed the current Ram brand in 2009 as part of a restructuring and rebranding process it undertook when emerging from bankruptcy, but both the Ram name and its image were a key part of the Dodge brand identity going as far back as the 1930s.
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Ram History
Dodge automobiles first began using the ram as a hood ornament in the early 1930s, and the ornament continued through various forms until the mid 1950s. But that was just the beginning of the Ram branding for Dodge.
There was the Red Ram V8 Hemi of the 1950s, and then in the 1960s, the Ramchargers racing team would help put Dodge on the map in NHRA competition. Then, in 1974, the Dodge Ramcharger debuted as the brand's first SUV, and a direct rival to the Chevrolet Blazer and Ford Bronco. In 1981, Dodge began officially branding its trucks under the Dodge Ram brand name. This included not just the full-size Ram truck that we know today, but also its passenger and cargo vans, the smaller Mitsubishi-built Ram 50 pickup, and even the front-drive, car-based Dodge Rampage pickup.
As pickup trucks began to make up a larger and larger part of the market, the Dodge Ram continued to evolve. The Cummins diesel arrived in 1989, the groundbreaking, stylish new Ram 1500 debuted in 1994, and the iconic Hemi V8 returned to the Dodge Ram in 2003. Then, in the wake of the economic crash of the late 2000s, Chrysler filed for bankruptcy in the spring of 2009. That fall, as the company began its restructuring process, the decision was made to branch off Ram trucks into its own brand.
Into The Future
Looking back, it's hard to know how much of RAM's spin-off was motivated by strategic sales goals versus a simple change of image following Chrysler's bankruptcy. Brand loyalty is huge in the pickup truck market, and there's always risk involved with rebranding a well-known name. For the most part, Chrysler, and now Stellantis, have done a good job spinning the RAM brand off, balancing a look toward the future without neglecting the past.
The iconic Ram motif remains an important part of the modern brand, from the massive letters that adorn to the tailgates, to the Big Horn trim package. Most recently, the brand's forward-thinking new PHEV pickup is bringing back the storied Ramcharger name, while RAM simultaneously goes old school and brings back the HEMI to the RAM 1500 after a short hiatus. The RAM brand, and Stellantis itself, will also be returning to NASCAR competition beginning in 2026.
In the end, it's impossible to know how much splitting from Dodge has improved the sales of RAM-branded vehicles over the last 15 years. RAM probably won't ever enjoy the same degree of strong, independent image that Stellantis' Jeep brand has developed, but it's also hard for anyone to call RAM's spinoff from Dodge a failure.
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Read the original article on SlashGear.
