The Dodge Ram Mega Cab: A Living Room On Wheels
The Age
Saturday September 24, 2005
The all-new 2006 Dodge Ram Mega Cab has the biggest pickup cabin Dodge have ever done.
In fact they say it's got more living room inside that any crew cab in the "full-size" pickup class, and it includes the largest second-row leg room, and the first-ever reclining rear seats To get all this luxury rolling, the Mega Cab is offered with a 5.7-litre petrol V8 or a 5.9 Cummins turbodiesel. It's arriving at US dealerships right now, smack in the face of a fuel shortage, and homes hungry for winter heating oil. But there is some fuel-saving innovation. The Hemi petrol V8 gets lean and mean by switching from eight cylinders to four when less power is needed. Generally, when highway cruising, a vehicle does not need much more than 10 per cent of its total power. The Ram leaves the valves shut on four cylinders, locking out power losses from sucking unnecessary air into the engine, then pushing it out down a twisty exhaust pipe. But the smart money would have to be on the turbodiesel. It's a straight six, conventional OHV design, but has 24 valves, with fuel delivered at high pressure through a common rail for finer droplets. And it has the legs of a six-speed manual overdrive. The Dodge RAM is not for sale here. But it's good to know what the big boys are up to. And to admire some awesome size and style. The body is still a genuine ladder-chassis, with coil springs up front and beefy leaves at the rear. The turning diameter of an Aussie six sedan is around 11 metres, kerb to kerb. The Ram Mega Cab takes 16 metres, so you'd want to keep moving in a forward direction, and avoid dead-ends in tight streets and car parks. But imagine the larger-than-life interior, as Dodge call it. Width alone says three people fit across each seating row. Then, in length, the Mega Cab adds 20 inches (half a metre), all splurged on rear seat legroom. The overall vehicle length stays at 247.7 inches (6.3 metres). To do that, the boys at Dodge replaced an 8 ft-long cargo tub with a 6 ft 3 incher. (Let's keep talking in imperial measure here.) It's over 4 ft wide between wheel arches, so you have the dimensions of a 6ft x 4ft trailer perched over the rear wheels. But with much higher walls, at 20 inches. Now it's time to tow something, like a very big boat. With the turbodiesel as standard, the heaviest ("3500") model, fitted with 4x4, can tow a trailer weight of just under 7 tonnes. A 4 x 2 version, with its lighter tare weight, tops 7 tonnes. The all up running weight of this rig is 10.45 tonnes. Imagine the roar as the Cummins "610" Turbo Diesel opens up with a class-leading 610 foot pounds (827Nm) of torque at just 1600rpm, or the sound of 325 horsepower (242kW) at 2900rpm. For petrolheads, the factory 5.7-litre HEMI petrol V8 hammers out 345 horsepower (257kW) at 5400rpm (class leader) and 375 foot pounds (508Nm) of torque at 4200 rpm. Interestingly Ram Mega Cab offers two different steering systems: a responsive rack and pinion for 4x2 and the older, tougher, recirculating ball for 4x4. The 4x4 also replaces IFS (Independent Front Suspension) with a rigid-beam front axle that delivers greater articulation (more vertical travel for one front wheel to, say, crawl over a big rock on that side.) Mega stopping power is assured with brake rotors more than a foot in diameter (13.9 inches, or 353mm). The driver gets the comfort of a pedal set that is power-adjusted to leg length. Rear seat passengers will love limousine-like leg room, and the first-ever reclining rear seats offered in a pickup. The 60/40 split seats fold down and move forward, to create no less than 71 cubic feet of storage volume that you can lock up and leave. -- scoop1@optusnet.com.au
© 2005 The Age
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