A buddy of mine works in the concept department of chrysler, and the news is that the Ram is coming out, it will have a Viper motor and it will have 500 hp, he says that the whole point of the truck is to be the viper truck so it will have the v-10, they want it to be that powerful and thats the way it will come out, they havent put a price on it yet, he says that it was the cheapest way to make it that powerful, its got the viper motor, viper trans, and the viper exhaust , so thats the way it will come out, now the problem is that the engine is too powerful for the drivetrain, and the drivetrain failed, so the need to improve on it.. thats all i have on it so far..

 

WOW by the time they are done with it could get probably 3 or more lightnings for the price of that truck. When i see it role up next to me at a light then i will believe it lets come back to reality and talk about the baddest pickup on the planet that is real and here now our trucks hehe.
Vin

 

You are right about one thing, the lightning is the baddest pickup on the planet, but the ram is coming out, it is no longer concept, and it will be maybe a lil more than the lightning in price

 

Yeah and the Chevy SS truck should arrive at dealers this spring!!

 

Come on now, we all know that R/T guys have some problems but for you to believe that the Ram is going to come out with a price tag a little over the L's is just plain stupid! Get real and come back to reality brohter!

If they can make a ram with a viper motor, tranny, and exhaust for under 40K, why is the viper 80K. doesn't make sense now does it. I thought so

If that truck comes out with a price tag in the 50K range I'll be suprised at how cheap that is! If not there's going to be allot of pissed off viper owners!

 

CNYELO
A little more in price it supposed have all of the viper parts like you just said correct? Well Vipers are alot more then just little bit more expensive then a lightning. And if i was a nice new Viper owner and just payed a ***** load of cash for one and see a truck coming out with the same parts for lots less i would be real pissed. Same thing like ford with the Harleys with our engines in it they detuned them not to **** of the lightning owners so im guessing they will detune the SRT-10 not to **** off the Viper owners. Personally i hope they do build it but like i said until i see it role up next to me at the light i wont be worried. Besides by then the Gen 3's should be out hehe.
Vin

 

when it does come out im guess twice the L price, if not 50+...



hmmmmm, lets see for 20K what could i do to my truck



jim

 

Is it the Viper motor in the truck, or the truck motor in the Viper? I can never keep that straight. Will they put that in the SSR or Silverado SS? Isn't there a twin turbo Viper powered Trailblazer too? All vaporware...

 

I'm trading my Viper in on that truck and taking home the $ difference in the bed. Yup it's gonna be great

 

Make no mistake about it, every article ever writen on this vehicle says "Concept" or "Show" with a 4 word mention of production "at a later date" . A 5000 lb vehicle with a 6 speed tranny and only 500 ft lb's of tq will not be any competition for a Lightning.
Just as soon as your buddy can get you one, come see me so I can hand you your butt in a tin can "Mayor".
If Dodge is the new mayor in town then the Lightning is the hired gun to see that his stay is short and sweet.

"Out Of Town By Noon"

 

It won't matter what it cost, there will always be people who will buy it. Haven't any of you guys ever been told that you were nuts for paying what you did for a "Pickup".

 

No! Most just want to go for a ride.

 

FYI, its gonna be 55$.

 

I think they'll make every effort to keep the price low. Just because Vipers are priced at $80K retail, it doesn't mean that Vipers cost anywhere near that much to make. It's simply what the market will bear for that type of machine in the current marketplace. Additionally, there is nothing especially special about Viper engines either. It doesn't have some ultra high technology components Dodge is either paying exorbiant amount to license or recouping develpoment costs on. It's not made with some inherently expensive raw materials. It's basically good old fashion displacement. Gobs of it.

I'm not saying that you can simply weld together two V6 engines, lob off two extra cylindars and in effect end up with a Viper engine, since component qualities in engoine and drivetrain are probably superior in a Viper, but it didn't take magic, mumbo-jumbo or technological, to create Viper engines.

Also consider that with sufficient volume, production costs for Viper engines will go down. A lot. Increased production isn't going to increase licensing fees, or incur substantial amount of new development costs. It'll have an effect of lowering the manufacture costs for these engines. It doesn't mean that retail price for crate engines will go down, although it might. But it will surely mean that per unit manufacture costs for these engines will drop, perhaps significantly enough to justify pricing the truck at a point that is competitive to Lightning.

If you look at some recently concept vehicles that are planned for production (like Chrysler Crossfire), you'll notice that these cars are assembled with a lot of off-the-shelf components, in Crossfire's case, from Mercedes, no less. At the same time, Crossfire will be priced about $20,000 less that Mercedes SLK, from which it gets the engine, tranny, brakes, substantial part of suspension, chasis, and electronics (stability program and tractoin control). And to that mix, they threw in some upgraded tires and wheels. (check out March issue of Automobile) So aprts sharing can make the transition from concept to production not only faster but cheaper.

So all I'm saying is it can be done. I don't know how much it costs Mercedes to make a SLK, or Dodge to make a Viper. Just because Chrysler could lob off about $20K from SLK price to get to Crossfire doesn't mean that Dodge could also lob off $20K. Dodge could lob off more for all I know, enough to make the price competitive with Lightning. Or maybe not. But since we don't have an idea on the production costs (not retail costs or invoice costs) for these vehicles, we can't know for sure until they truck rolls off the line. At least, I expect the parts sharing to be a lot easier at Dodge than at Daimler-Chrysler where corporate cultures still have pockets of resistance.

I don't think Viper trucks will erode Viper market either. Demographics are different. People who are wealthy enough to buy a Viper may buy a Viper truck to gawk at. And people who always wanted a Viper but couldn't afford it might buy the Viper truck, but I don't think there'll be a wholesale defection of Viper owners to Viper trucks. If anything, IF Dodge delivers as promised on all points, I think there might be a wholesale defection of L drivers to Viper trucks. Same demographic, you know...

 

Only 500hp and a 6 speed manual huh, the ram weighs as much as the L if not maybe a very lil bit more, and thats 120 more hp than the L, it runs 12.9, i dont think they would throw out false numbers..