QOTD: Trims to Models and Everything in Between?

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

On Friday, we published our take on the 2019 Ram 1500 pickup. Some of you even read it, for which we thank you. Ram wisely brought a wide range of trims to the event, ranging from the workaday Tradesman to the high-zoot (that one’s for you, commenter MLS) Limited model.

The differences in equipment, capability, and appeal between the different trims on display got me thinking: at what point do we start thinking of these things as distinct models?

In 2017, the Ram brand sold 556,790 units, with the vast majority of those, over 500k, being pickup trucks. Parsing out the vehicle lineup we find only trucks of the 1500 to 5500 variety and a couple of staid work vans.

Over at Jeep, where 828,522 machines hit the road, five models compete for showroom space — six if you count the JK and JL Wrangler as separate models, which this author does. Five models conspired to sell 446,996 vehicles at Dodge. Individually, none of them came even close to 500,000 copies like the Ram pickup did.

If car companies ever started treating individual trim levels as unique models, it would give us a fantastic window into the buying habits of the American public. This is not limited to Ram; an Ace of Base F-150 XL bears little resemblance to a loaded-up Platinum.

After all, in the bad old days, one could argue the early-90s versions of a Chevy Blazer, GMC Jimmy, and Olds Bravada were simply gradually increasing trim levels of the same vehicle, and their sales were reported individually. Yes, there were different marques on their noses, but you get the point.

None of this will ever happen, of course, as I am quite confident manufacturers would be quite happy to give us less information about sales numbers, not more, if they thought they could get away with it.

Makes for an interesting train of thought, though: what trims on what vehicles do you think could be broken down into different models?

Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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