Ram Rebel TRX Concept: Fiat Chrysler Floats a Raptor Fighter


It looks like the media attention heaped on Ford’s newly improved 2017 F-150 Raptor has made Fiat Chrysler Automobiles a little jealous.
The automaker unveiled a brash off-road truck concept at the Texas State Fair today, testing the waters for a possible production version. Think of the Ram Rebel TRX as a Hellcat 1500.
From a distance, the pickup resembles a Ram Rebel or Power Wagon, as the concept steals both of those models’ appearance cues. Draw closer, and it’s clear this pickup has put on some girth.

To accommodate a set of massive 37-inch tires, FCA widened the Ram’s body by six inches. Wheel travel grows to 13 inches on each corner, an increase of 40 percent. Underneath, heavy-duty axle components and an upgraded suspension awaits punishment not only from uneven ground, but from the vehicle’s boosted engine power.
Compared to its would-be rival, the Rebel TRX beats Ford by 125 horsepower, thanks to a 575 hp supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8. If the description sounds familiar, you might want to look under the hood of a Dodge Challenger (or Charger) Hellcat, where the same displacement makes 707 hp.

An eight-speed Torqueflight automatic with recalibrated shift points put the power to the wheels. For those off-road jaunts — and FCA does envision this thing galloping across the desert at 100 miles per hour — Ram’s 4×4 Performance Control System (and BorgWarner 44-45 transfer case) offers four driving modes, including “Baja.”
FCA describes the vehicle as an “engineering, design and consumer-interest study for an extreme performance half-ton pickup,” giving many hope that a Raptor-challenging production version could be just over the horizon. If fans show enough enthusiasm for the Rebel TRX concept, the desert could get a lot louder.
[Images: © 2016 Matthew Guy/The Truth About Cars]
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- Ajla No accounting for taste but I hate the interior a lot. Motor Trend had real photos and it looks like something that would get slagged if it was in a Trax or base Maverick.
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- VX1NG My understanding is that by removing analog AM capabilities it will force the AM industry to transition to either analog FM or digital radio broadcasts. Both of which use radio bandwidth much more efficiently than analog AM. The downside with switching to digital radio broadcasts is, just like we saw with the analog to digital OTA TV transition; you either receive the signal or you don’t. Whereas analog FM does not have that same downside. The downside with switching to analog FM or digital FM is the coverage area is significantly smaller than AM.Phasing out analog AM would free up a large chunk of radio bandwidth and could allow for newer technologies to utilize the bandwidth.
- Bill 80% of people do not know how to or check the condition/ status of air pressure in thier tires let alone the condition of thier tires. Periodic safety inspections ensures vehicle are safe to be on the roads. I sure would like to be confident the vehicles around me are safe because they passed a objective inspection. The cause for suspicion in the US is most safety inspection programs are subjective and do not use technology to make the determination if the vehicle is safe or not. Countries that that use technology for annual vehicle inspections have a fairly high failure rate. I live in California a state without safety inspections and the freeways are litter ed with tire fragments and parts of cars. Every time it rains the roads are congested from accidents. Instagram is full of videos of vehicles with the wheels coming of while driving on the freeway. Just hope you won't be on of the casualties that could have been prevented if the vehicle owner had spend $7-$20 for a periodic safety inspection.
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God help me, but I want that thing.
Whatever happened to sport trucks? Everything is a desert runner now and Ford seems to have that theme wrapped up well. I would like to see a Canyon Syclone with the ATS-V engine or a Silverado SS with the 6.2SC or a return of the Ram SRT or Lightning.