Given how new vehicle shoppers have gravitated toward the Ford Maverick in throes, it’s somewhat surprising that at the moment, the compact pickup only has one direct rival – the Hyundai Santa Cruz. However, rumors of other potential foes surfacing have swirled for some time now, and that includes a report from the summer of 2023 indicating that the Ram Rampage – a compact pickup sold in South America currently – was destined for the U.S. market as well. Now, Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis is hinting that such a model may in fact be in the works, too.
“We’re a truck brand and we don’t have a compact, we don’t have a mid-size. Kinda disingenuous to call me a truck brand, isn’t it?” Kuniskis told Road & Track in a recent interview. “So yeah, I need that. I want that, I need that. I’m not telling you that I am going to have it in six months, but I desperately want it, and there is a market for it. If I look at Toyota, they’re doing over 200,000 Tacomas a year. Ford’s doing close to 200,000 between the Maverick and the Ranger. GM’s doing around 140,000 between GMC and Chevy. There’s a clear, obvious market there that I want to go after. That’s just plus business to [Ram dealers] since they haven’t had that since Dakota.”
As Ford Authority previously reported, Ram has long been working on adding a mid-size pickup back to its lineup, which was slated to be built at the Belvidere Assembly plant in Illinois. After agreeing to reopen that facility and built a mid-size pickup and the next-generation Dodge Durango there in its latest master contract with the United Auto Workers (UAW), Stellantis tried to backtrack, but wound up agreeing to stick to the plan of beginning production there in 2027.
This is one of several changes that is taking place at Stellantis following the resignation of much-maligned former CEO Carlos Tavares last year, as the automaker has put some planned layoffs on hold, delayed the launch of the all-electric Ram 1500 REV from the first half of 2025 to 2026, and it’s also considering adding a V8 engine option back to the Ram 1500 lineup after nixing it for the 2025 model year.
Comments
About time.
My brother works at a jeep Dodge ram store. He was a little pissed when i bought my Maverick. I just told him to produce something similar from Ram and i would happily purchase it.
Little Maverick overpriced cheapy pick up, started at 19 now with taxes close to 31k.