RAM News

The GMC Yukon Denali is the latest arrival in a continuing US vehicular invasion of Australia. Imported here as left-hand drive and then converted to a right-hander, the Denali is a big 4WD wagon with eight seats, a petrol V8 engine and a standard features list as long as LeBron James’s arm.Brought to our shores by General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV), the Denali is a premium-style vehicle; massive, comfortable and, as an eight-seat 4WD wagon, it has few rivals in the Aussie market. But it lacks a competitive warranty, its price-tag puts it way out of reach of a lot of 4WD buyers, and for a few distinct reasons it is a sterling example why US wagons and utes don’t belong in Australia.It’s too big.It’s big. Even the signature Denali grille – with LED headlights and chrome accents – is the size of a tiny house. The 2025 Denali is 5337mm long (with a 3071mm wheelbase), 2378mm wide, 1943mm high, and it has a kerb weight of 2813kg.The interior is great because it is big, roomy and occupant friendly, but the Denali’s gargantuan exterior dimensions simply mean it’s a beast of burden in busy city or suburban streets, and even on bush tracks, which can be quite narrow.The Denali demands to be driven with supreme consideration – and even more patience, more skill, and more experience than smaller four-wheel drives require – in order to avoid city- or bush-related damage, incidental or otherwise.Also, worth remembering is that fact that no matter how good a driver you are, there’s always a shopping trolley, key-wielding person who hates big vehicles, or someone who only parks their car by ‘touching’ the vehicle nearest to them out there, waiting to ding/scratch/dent your US behemoth. You’ve been warned.It’s not built for Australian conditions.The Denali is imported to Australia as a left-hand drive vehicle and then Walkinshaw's subsidiary company Premoso remanufactures the US 4WD wagons to right-hand drive at their facility in Clayton, Victoria. But the problems aren’t with Premoso’s work – they’ve done an impressive job – the flaws are in the vehicle’s original design and build.For one, as mentioned, it’s big. If you aren't used to steering a tank-sized 4WD around town then driving the Denali is going to be a very steep – and possibly very expensive – learning curve.Two, it’s built for open-road cruising on US freeways; it’s not engineered to cope with our punishing dirt-road corrugations of Australia, or our extreme heat, or our poorly maintained backroads and bush tracks.Thirdly, the Denali lacks the prestige fit and finish and build quality usually showcased in something at this price-point. Instead, there is hard plastic throughout, storage receptacles with flimsy lids, and lacklustre fit and finish.Also, this Denali is on 24-inch rims and paper-thin Bridgestone all-season tyres (285/40R24), which is not a wheel-and-tyre package suited to anything other than driving on the blacktop. These tyres don’t offer the grip of a decent all-terrain tyre and you can’t drop air pressures because there isn’t enough tyre there.The Denali has a naturally-aspirated 6.2-litre V8 petrol engine – producing 313kW and 624Nm – and that’s matched to a 10-speed automatic transmission.This is a great vehicle to drive on-road for general day-to-day driving duties – settled and composed – and it’s close to flawless on the open road, smooth and refined, but that big V8 – as great as it sounds – has the potential to drink … a lot.The Denali’s air suspension – which aims to level out even major imperfections in the road or track surface – and its special dampers aren’t as effective or as seamless a system as the Patrol/Patrol Warrior’s Hydraulic Body Motion Control, which acts as a sway bar and sway bar disconnect equivalent and is very impressive. Official fuel consumption is listed as 12.8L/100km (on a combined cycle), but on my most recent test of it, I recorded 16.2L/100km. Not too bad, all things considered, but you have to remember that I didn’t have much weight onboard and I wasn’t towing anything.The Denali has a 91L fuel tank so, going by my on-test fuel-consumption figure, you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 560km from a full tank. Once loaded up with real-world burdens (e.g kids, dogs, camping gear etc) then you’ll soon see the Denali’s fuel use climb.It’s expensive.The Denali has a price tag of $174,990 (excluding on-road costs), making it a lot more expensive than most vehicles that could be considered rivals in the Aussie market.Until now, if you’d been looking for an eight-seat 4WD wagon with a petrol V8 engine, you'd be limited to considering something like a Nissan Patrol or a Land Rover Defender 130, but at least the Patrol is almost half the price of a Denali.Another thing, as mentioned earlier, the Denali does not have the high quality of fit and finish and build quality usually associated with vehicles that cost this much – that’s disappointing.And maximum braked towing capacity in the Denali is listed as 3628kg (when it has a 70mm ball and weight-distribution hitch) – which isn’t that much more than other large 4WD wagons or utes in Australia offer (3500kg maximum braked towing capacity).US utes and wagons are big, bloated, overpriced and underdone – and they should go back from whence they came.Cue the hate mail...

Corporate mea culpas are an exceptionally rare phenomenon, but recently installed RAM CEO Tim Kuniskis has come up with one for the ages.

The boss wants it, the punters want it, so it’s a red hot chance to be the real deal. We’re talking about the Ram Dakota, the little brother to the butch Ram 1500, and more akin to our favourite dual-cabs the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux.

It’s EOFY time again!

Stellantis has already pushed back the launch of Ram’s first all-electric pick-up, the 1500 REV, and it has reportedly delayed it further as part of a product strategy shuffle.

The popularity of one the most controversial vehicles types in Australia has plummeted so far in 2025, with sales of American-style jumbo trucks like the Ford F-150, Toyota Tundra and Ram 1500 driving off a cliff.Loved by those who buy them, but ridiculed by plenty who don't, the big trucks have been accused of being "big, dumb utes" that exploit tax loopholes by The Australia Institute, been threatened with higher parking charges, and been flagged by some MPs as candidates for higher registration fees.And now sales are hurting. Some 640 examples of the Toyota Tundra, Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Silverado HD, Ford F150, Ram 1500, Ram 2500 and Ram 3500 were sold across Australia in April, bringing the group's year-to-date tally to 3010.That's down 26.2 per cent on the single month result in April 2024 (867 sales), while the year to date total has fallen 13.8 per cent, from 3490 over the first four months of 2024.But because, at this time last year, Toyota was delivering very few Tundras as part of a customer testing program, their results (up 171.4 per cent month-on-month and 99.3 per cent year to date) are actually propping up the segment's percentages. Remove the Tundra sales, and the segment for the remaining brands has actually fallen 32.7 per cent month on month, and 18.8 per cent year to date.Interestingly, the numbers in 2025 are even smaller than in 2023 (787 month and 3043 year to date), despite there only being four models in market then, compared to the seven being sold today.It spells hard news for all brands, with significant remanufacturing investment required to convert the models from left- to right-hand drive, but perhaps none more so than Toyota, who – after a six-year program to develop the vehicle for Australia – only put the Tundra on sale in November last year.At the time, media was told production was being ramped up to five vehicles per day, or up to 110 per month and 1300 vehicles annually. Last month, just 76 found homes, pushing the year-to-date tally to 299 vehicles - an average of 74 per month, or 888 annually, should the trend continue all year.We asked Toyota about the Tundra's slow start in February, and the brand told us "It’s very early days, but we are pleased with the response to Tundra since its official launch in the middle of November. Our forward orders are in line with our forecasts and we look forward to expanding the line up with the introduction of a new premium grade in Q2 2025."Clearly it's not just Toyota struggling to move the big trucks at the moment. The most popular Ram, the 1500, was down 18.1 per cent for the month and 24.9 per cent year to date, the Chevrolet Silverado was done 18.3 per cent for the month (but is up six per cent for the year), the Ford F-150 is down 69.9 per cent for the month and 35.9 per cent for the year.

You might not be too late for a Ram V8 - but you better be quick and your options might be limited.

It may be faster and more powerful than the ‘Hemi’ V8-powered model it replaces but the big question is whether the in-line six-cylinder MY25 Ram 1500 maintains its well-established ‘tough truck' aura with two fewer cylinders under the bonnet.

News this week broke that Standards Australia have begun a push to have our parking spaces enlarged to better fit the giant, mostly American vehicles now crowding our roads.

The beefed up V8-powered Ram 1500 TRX exited stage left in 2024.Now reports from the US claim it is making a comeback and will be more powerful and pumped up than ever before.US publication, Mopar Insiders, said the Ram TRX will make a comeback in 2026 with V8 power rather than the twin-turbo inline six-cylinder grunt in the new 1500.The outlet reported it could use a reworked version of its former 6.4-litre Hemi Hellcat V8 that ups power to 535kW or it could possibly get the uprated Hellcat Redeye engine that pushes power to a whopping 594kW.The report stems from a leaked email from a Dodge dealer in the US, which also showed the 5.7-litre V8 would be returning to the line-up. That engine made 291kW and 556Nm in the previous generation 1500.The move to re-install the Hemi V8 in the fast selling American pick-up truck is washing away one of the changes enacted by controversial former Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares.Stellantis is in a world of hurt as sales dip in most major markets and a return to its old ways is believed to be the way out of the hole Ram and Jeep find themselves in. Ram’s new boss Tim Kuniskis has been very open about his desire for a new product and a return to the glory years.Kuniskis said he wants a smaller ute to rival the Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux. It is likely it’ll be called the Dakota.It is likely that the new mid-size ‘Dakota’ would be made exclusively in left-hand-drive, but local factory-backed 'remanufactured' conversion is now very popular. RAM Trucks Australia General Manager Jeff Barber previously said, "A mid-size ute is on our wish list for RAM in Australia. We think it would be a great fit for Australia."