There’s a war on for the heart and soul of the American truck buyer

There's a war on for the heart of soul of the American truck buyer
There’s a war on for the heart of soul of the American truck buyer

There are no bullets or bombs but never-the-less there’s a real war being waged today by GM, Ford, Chevy, Toyota and even Nissan for the heart, soul, and checkbook of the American pickup truck buyer.

Ram fired the first round a few years ago when it introduced the new Dodge, no make that Ram 1500 pickup and since that fateful day Ram has been on the offensive with almost yearly new product updates.

Here’s a brief overview of the state of the American truck war by manufacturer.

Ram

There’s no doubt that Ram is on a roll these days. Not only is Fiat, Ram’s big corporate brother, pouring big bucks into the rebranded truck, but there can be no doubt that Ram is the most innovative of the current pickup truck manufacturers. Ram fired three huge new product announcement over the last 12 months that have shaken the light duty pickup truck world to the core.

First, Ram refreshed their light duty 1500 after only a couple of years of production and announced the new truck would be available with factory air suspension. This is a feature that big boy trucks find essential when towing heavy loads. It allows the Ram to not only level itself when a heavy load is added to the bed, but also raise itself on its tippy-toes when going off-road.

Second, a few weeks ago Ram announced that it would be the first light duty manufacturer to bring a diesel engine to the light duty pickup. There was anticipation that Ram would work with their longtime diesel partner Cummins on the new EcoDiesel Ram 1500, but when the smoked cleared the diesel engine of choice was one produced by guess who….that’s right Fiat. Check out the video below as the new EcoDiesel Ram debuts in Michigan.

Third, Ram is the first to bring the new 8 speed transmission to a pickup. More gears mean that the engine can work more efficiently making for more MPGs.

Nissan

You may be wondering what become of  Cummins when Ram went with a Fiat diesel powerplant. The answer is the Titan. In what must be a huge loss for Ram, Nissan pouched Ram’s CEO Fred Diaz to spearhead the long awaited revival of the Titan. It didn’t take very long for Nissan and Diaz to announce that they too were bringing a bigger 5.0L diesel engine powerplant to the light duty war in their new Cummins Titan. Unfortunately, while the announcement is big news, the new 5.0-liter V8 turbocharged diesel Titan is still two years from hitting the showroom floor as a 2015 model. That leaves Nissan with only the antiquated  Frontier and current Titan to soldier on until new Nissan products join the battle.

Toyota

Toyota will tell you that their customers liked the current crop of Tundra powerplants so much that they decided not to mess with success. Instead, Toyota redesigned the new 2014 Tundra both inside and out and introduced not one, but two premium models to the lineup to take advantage of the new premium truck trend. (Please see the TFLtruck first drive review below). We think that Toyota got caught flat-footed and didn’t realize that refreshed Tundra is just too little too late in an all out truck war.

At the press intro of the Tundra we also wondered about such essential towing tools like an integrated brake control that comes standard on the domestic brands, yet is still unavailable in the 2014 Tundra. “Stay-tuned” was always the answer from Toyota when asked about new engines, potential diesel power, and even a spray in bed liner. We suspect that Toyota will be forced to quickly re-engineer the Tundra like Honda re-engineered the Civic. Not because of what journalist write or say, but simply because in an all out truck war, you either attack or get left on the showroom floor.

GM

There’s a new Silverado and Sierra in town and both trucks are much more car-like. Perhaps more importantly GM, unlike Toyota, reworked the trucks powerplants and  came up with some impressive new tech. Perhaps the most striking is the ability of the GM’s V8 truck engines to run on either 4 or 8 cylinders. This means if and when gas prices spike GM will have a sales and marketing tool as well as a truck that can, when not towing, get much better fuel economy.

GM has also added a new top end High Country Silverado model to the Chevy lineup which potentially could compete with the  GMC Sierra Denali,  but will most likely compete with the top Tundra and F-150 models, such as 1794 and King Ranch.

Finally, GM has shoehorned a revised version of the Corvette’s small block V8 engine into their top trucks. This is certainly a winning move. Just think of the all of the truck guys who can now brag that their Silverado has a Stingray engine. This is true, but do they know that the same designer who penned the new Silverado also designed the new Corvette Stingray?

Ford

We once spoke with the former Chief engineer of the Ford F-150 and asked him what it was like to be in charge of America’s most popular vehicle. He told us the job was challenging…not because of the engineering, but because of the pressure to not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The Ford F-150 is hugely popular and hugely profitable. It is the biggest battleship in the truck war and  it is due to be redesigned.

We watched the new Ford Atlas concept debut from the roof ( see below ) and we asked Ford’s CEO Alan Mullally about the potential of a new diesel F-150. The answer was typical. Everything is on the table. What we do know is that Ford took a bold risk by selling a twin turbo-charged EcoBoost V6 F-150 to a loyal group of buyers who have been raised on V8 power. Ford also built what is perhaps the coolest and most striking pickup in the land. We are sure that photos of the Raptor adorn the bedroom walls of many 12-year-old future truck buyers.

The Next Battle 

There can be no doubt that trucks are the new SUVs of our time. People are buying them as family trucksters.

The wealthy are getting the crazy expensive $40K and even $50K or $60K trucks as their new trophy rides. There’s massive pent up demand for small trucks as the Tacoma is almost as expensive to buy used as it is to purchase new. Perhaps one day and soon truck manufacturers will realize that urban buyers are also longing for trucks, but they simply can’t park a half ton truck in the city. Nor can they park the Frontier and Tacoma which are equally  huge, thirsty and out-dated.

In a perfect world we’d love to see the American truck market explode with more options that would include:

  • A small truck option for urban buyers like the Ford Ranger Wildtrack sold in Europe or the VW Amarok.  Ford’s Alan Mullally promised one Ford for the entire world, but apparently not when it comes to trucks.
  • A hybrid Toyota Truck. Why not? When gas reaches $5.00 per gallon dealers would be selling them at 5K over sticker.
  • The return of a small Ram pickup. Fiat already has the  Strada in Europe. Why not rebrand it as a Ram and sell it in the States?
  • The return of the Jeep Scrambler. Jeep already sells a kit to convert a Wrangler to a pickup. With the new 2015 Wrangler just around the corner why not make this a factory option?
  • Direct Injection and more gears. Ram has lead the way with the new ZF 8 Speed automatic transmission but in general trucks still lack the modern engine technology that almost every Hyundai has (such as direct injection) to make them as fuel efficient as possible.

The truck war is on and we’re only sure of one thing….at the end of the day the winner will be today’s and tomorrow’s pickup truck buyer.

Roman Mica
Roman Mica is a columnist, journalist, and author, who spent his early years driving fast on the German autobahn. When he’s not reviewing cars or producing videos, you can find him training for triathlons and writing about endurance sports for EverymanTri.com as our sister blog’s publisher. Mica is a former broadcast reporter with his Master’s Degree in journalism from Northwestern University.