The new Dodge Ram truck gets "get-out-of-the-way" front end styling

and will offer a new 5.7-liter Hemi V8 good for 380-horsepower and 404 lb-ft of torque. ...........

2009 Ford and Dodge trucks -- Bad Timing?

By Ron Amadon, MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:00 AM ET Jan 19, 2008

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The Ram continues its "get-out-of-the-way" front end styling, as Dodge puts it. But the headlights are more swept back into the fenders than before. In the Crew Cab, there will be lockable, illuminated, and drainable storage binds built into the bed rails. Proving that Dodge has its priorities straight, it says the RamBox bins hold up to 10 cases of 12-ounce beverages.

Dodge tells us buckaroos that it will offer its first Crew Cab, and a new 5.7-liter Hemi V8 good for 380-horsepower and 404 lb-ft of torque. It claims fuel efficiency will be up about 4% and zero to sixty can be achieved in under 7 seconds. Other options, power-wise, include a 210-horsepower six and a 310-horsepower 4.7-liter V8. Like Ford, a diesel is coming.

http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/myway-com/news-story.asp?guid={FDC9E938-57F5-4B19-B8ED-B8128828A43A}

WOW Big Whoop....From 10 MPG to 10.4 MPG. That will show them gas station rip offs...

A huge waste of gas, taxes for highway also bad environmental impact etc-meanwhile supports oil dependency from our real Jihad friends in the "Kingdom"

"Waaaah! Nobody's buying these overpriced behemoths! Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, and Yugo are all kicking our asses! Give us more subsidies!"

And like show ponies, you never see these things on a job, doing actual work. But you do get to see the grill up close and personal in your rear-view mirror on city streets and interstate highways.

Yeeehaaa.

Got to keep the stereo turned way down or you don't hear or know the rear tires are breaking loose unless you happen to notice the speedometer is indicating you are going a hundred miles an hour when you are actually just barely creeping forward.

Can't be lackadaisical while driving one. Thats for sure.

Don

The Fall of 1957 was also the start of the worse recession between the Great Depression and Reagan's 1981 Recession. Into this recession three new cars were introduced, the Rambler (The Rambler was just re-designed in 1957, it had been on the market since 1950, it was a compact car) the Edsel (the Edsel was NOT only a whole new car but a new Car division for Ford) and a new version of the Chrysler's DeSoto (Like the Rambler just a whole new design, but of "Mid-Size" car like the Edsel not a Compact). By 1961 both the Edsel and the DeSoto was finished but the Rambler was a run away success. This just confirmed the old adage, Compact cars ALWAYS do better in Recessions, large cars sales always FALL during Recessions. Thus during a Recession you introduce compact or smaller cars and hold back full size cars till after the recession is long over.

More on the Rambler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambler_%28automobile%29

More on the Edsel:
http://www.edsel.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edsel

From the Wikipedia Edsel Article:
One of the external forces working against the Edsel that Ford had no control over was the onset of the recession in late 1957.

When the Edsel was in its planning stages in the early and mid-1950s, the American economy was robust and growing. However, in the years that spanned the planning to its introduction, an economic recession hit, and American consumers not only shifted their idea of what an ideal car should be; in prior economic downturns, buyers flocked to the lower price marques like Plymouth, Chevrolet, and Ford. But in 1958, even these cars were perceived by some as unnecessarily large, and while the compact Rambler saw itself shoot to the third best selling make, none of the Big Three had anything compact to sell except their European cars built for Vauxhall, Simca, and Opel. The compacts introduced by the Big Three in 1960 were the direct result of the recession of 1958.

The DeSoto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeSoto_%28automobile%29

One last comment, when Mitt Romney's father was asked about the success of the Rambler as he was head of AMC, he called it a combination of skill and luck that permitted him to make AMC a Success. Romney resigned to become Governor of Michigan and his successor moved AMC in larger car production ending the Rambler by the late 1960s (and also took over Kaiser-Jeep which what kept AMC alive during the 1970s and 1980s till Chrysler took them over in the early 1990s).