QOTD: A Truck by Any Other Name?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

We’re playing a name game today, and as luck would have it, there’s no wrong answer to this question. As we’ve told you before, Ram has a midsize model on the way, ready to (eventually) do battle with Chevrolet’s Colorado and Toyota’s Tacoma and Ford’s long-awaited-but-not-really-new Ranger. Yes, there’s other midsizers to contend with, too.

Plenty of mystery still surrounding this vehicle, but it’ll apparently appear in roughly two years’ time, suppliers say, and it’ll sport a frame, not a platform. What it doesn’t have right now is a name, or at least one that Fiat Chrysler’s willing to reveal. That’s where you come in.

Just a word of warning about one potential name, though…

If any of you wish to see a return of the truly awesome “Ramcharger” name, we regret to inform you that FCA US LLC just trademarked that moniker for use on an in-vehicle wireless phone charging device. It seems the automaker isn’t above using heritage model names on unlikely creations. Obviously, someone in Auburn Hills was hanging around with a bad influence from Ford.

Anyway, there’s a truck in need of a name here. Something rugged, something Manley manly, and something not so Southwestern in origin that people think it’s a Hyundai, sight unseen. “Dakota” remains an obvious choice — it’s rooted in Chrysler Corp truck history, never mind that the truck behind the script was a Dodge. But maybe Ram’s progressed too far as a brand to have that happen.

Dakota reminds people not only of a non-Ram brand, but of a model that withered, dried up, and blew away in the immediate aftermath of the recession. And, as we saw during the recent 2019 Ram 1500/Martin Luther King, Jr. ad kerfuffle, too many people still assume Ram is a model produced by Dodge, not a standalone brand. Resurrecting the Dakota name could just add more confusion. The move away from the signature crosshair grille was Ram’s way of severing the visual ties to its Dodge past and striking out on its own.

No, Dakota seems wrong, despite name recognition making it seem so right. (If you’re curious, FCA renewed the Dakota trademark in 2009, and the earliest it can file for another renewal is November 7th of this year. The latest it can file is May 7th, 2020.)

Can’t say I find the removal of a zero from the Ram 1500’s name appropriate, either. Sure, the Ram 150 was a model designation once upon a time, but it resided on a full-size model. A Dodge model, to be sure. The full-sizer is now the 1500, and adding a 150 line, though numerically proper given the 1500’s larger size, would again create confusion — only this time among the Ram ranks.

What to do? For once, I’m at a loss for ideas. Can’t come up with a single name, though I’m sure if I looked at a map of the Great Plains long enough, I’d see a few knockouts.

So, it’s time to hand the levers of power and all the naming decisions that come with it to you, B&B. What should Ram call this truck?

[Image: ©2016 Murilee Martin/TTAC]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • JohnTaurus JohnTaurus on Sep 18, 2018

    I like Ram 1200, Ram Rebel, and Ram Fargo. Rebel would obviously need to be dropped as a package on the full-size trucks were it applied to the smaller truck. Ford has successfully transferred many names that were formerly trim packages into models, including Ranger, Villager, Explorer and Edge.

  • Taco Tuesday Taco Tuesday on Sep 19, 2018

    Ram Mule Ram Trail Chief I really like previous suggestion of Ram Fargo

  • Wolfwagen Is it me or have auto shows just turned to meh? To me, there isn't much excitement anymore. it's like we have hit a second malaise era. Every new vehicle is some cookie-cutter CUV. No cutting-edge designs. No talk of any great powertrains, or technological achievements. It's sort of expected with the push to EVs but there is no news on that front either. No new battery tech, no new charging tech. Nothing.
  • 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.
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