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The giant Dodge Ram Mega Cab, which promises the biggest cab in the industry, is aimed squarely at Ford F-Series lovers.New DCX pickup cures big-cabin fever
The Dodge Ram Mega Cab should dwarf other trucks in passenger space.
Keep on truckin’
Complete the following sentence: What America needs is a full-size truck with …
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The concept of less is more does not apply in the world of full-size pickups. When it comes to trucks, big is always better.
That's why DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group will one-up the competition this summer with a new Dodge pickup that boasts the industry's largest passenger cabin.
The four-door Dodge Ram Mega Cab has a bigger backseat and more interior storage space than the current title-holder -- Ford's F-250 Crew Cab -- and is squarely aimed at customers who want to be able to haul both a pile of lumber and a family.
Chrysler is expected to take the wraps off Mega Cab at the Chicago Auto Show next week. The carmaker has added spin-offs to the Dodge Ram lineup in recent years to sustain buzz about the model, which accounts for about one in five of Chrysler's U.S. sales. Even so, Ram sales slumped last year amid stronger overall demand for full-size trucks.
With few big trucks set to debut this year that could steal its thunder, the timing could be right for Mega Cab, analysts said. American consumers are showing a penchant for pickups with larger and more comfortable interiors. Mega Cab also gives Chrysler more ammunition to battle Japanese manufacturers entering the highly-profitable big pickup segment dominated by Detroit automakers.
"What they're doing with Mega Cab," said Jim Sanfilippo, an auto analyst with AMCI Inc. in Detroit, "is running like hell and not looking back because the Japanese are coming."
Joe Eberhardt, Chrysler's executive vice president of marketing, confirmed in an interview last month at the Detroit auto show that Mega Cab would be launched this year, but declined to provide details about the truck.
Chrysler dealers who got a first look at Mega Cab at meetings in November say the pickup's exterior is similar to the four-door Dodge Ram Quad-Cab on the market today and has a list price of around $33,000, but with a longer cabin that cuts deeper into the truck's bed.
"If you're looking at the truck, you know you've got at least 6 more inches of cab space in legroom alone," said Robert Barben, general manager of Waco Dodge Hyundai in Texas. "The doors are just that much wider on the back end."
Mega Cab is based on the heavy-duty Ram 2500 series underbody, and is expected to be available with a 345-horsepower V-8 Hemi engine and a rear-seat DVD player. It will be marketed as the biggest cab in the industry, beating the Ford F-250 Crew Cab, which has 133 cubic feet of interior cabin volume.
Joe Ricci, owner of Joe Ricci Dodge in Dearborn, believes one of Mega Cab's biggest selling points will be its more spacious backseat, which reclines and has storage space behind the seat.
"You can put stuff behind there, which you couldn't do before because the angle of the backseat really made you sit straight up," he said.
At a meeting this fall with dealers in Texas -- the nation's biggest market for full-size trucks -- Chrysler said it was planning to build 70,000 Mega Cab pickups a year, but dealers told the company they could sell that many and more.
"Consumers have been demanding something like this for 10 years," Barben said.
"We need something to give people a reason to trade," and Mega Cab could be it, said Steven Wolf, general manager of Helfman Dodge in Houston.
With demand falling for large SUVs such as the Chevrolet Tahoe and Ford Expedition, some industry watchers have suggested that Americans are starting to have their fill of big gas-guzzling trucks and are shifting to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. But big pickup sales are growing, bucking the trend.
"Full-size truck drivers and big SUV drivers are different customers," AMCI's Sanfilippo said.
While SUV buyers are more family-oriented and place a high value on safety and comfort, full-size truck buyers are more apt to shop for power and utility, he said. A vehicle such as Mega Cab could appeal to both kinds of customers and give Dodge an edge in the full-size truck category.
"There are some high stakes involved in the full-size truck market," said Michael Robinet, an automotive analyst with CSM Worldwide in Farmington Hills. "Any advantage you can gain, even for a short period of time, can be valuable."
Dodge Ram sales fell 5.1 percent last year as new entries such as the Nissan Titan and a redesigned Ford F-150 won buyers and helped lift full-size truck sales 7.8 percent, according to Autodata Corp.
With Mega Cab, Dodge has an opportunity to breathe new life into the Ram lineup, said Rebecca Lindland, an industry analyst with Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.
"They can really spin it as a Dodge Ram that you have to have," Lindland said. "And when you consider all the competition, from the Ford F-150 especially, they need a resurgence of interest in this vehicle."
In addition to Mega Cab, the only other new full-size truck debuting this year is Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln Mark LT, an upscale pickup based on the Ford F-150 that went on sale this month.
The standard Dodge Ram, which debuted in 2001, will also get a refresh this fall, but a totally redesigned model is not expected until 2008, Lindland said.
Next year, the redesigned Toyota Tundra pickup and replacements for General Motors Corp.'s Chevrolet Silver-ado and GMC Sierra pickups will be launched.
And consumers are likely to see bigger cabin options in future full-size trucks, Robinet said. The crew cab body style, with four passenger doors, already represents about 30 percent to 50 percent of full-size pickup trucks sales and is gaining popularity as customers demand trucks with more comfort and space.
In an ongoing quest to capture a bigger chunk of the U.S. car and truck market, Chrysler has touted its nine model launches last year and its plans to introduce at least five vehicles this year, including the Dodge Charger sedan, Jeep Commander SUV, a coupe version of the Dodge Viper sports car and high-performance versions of the Chrysler 300 sedan and Dodge Magnum wagon.
Mega Cab, meanwhile, has been shrouded in secrecy.
The earliest hint that a big Dodge truck was on the way came in October, when Chrysler said it would invest $210 million to prepare its Ram pickup plant in Saltillo, Mexico, for upcoming model launches. Mexican President Vicente Fox at the time said Chrysler would begin building a new four-door, crew cab pickup in August.
Chrysler dealers say they were told they would have Mega Cab in showrooms by August or September.
Chrysler spokesman Jason Vines would not comment on Mega Cab, hinting only that all questions will be answered very soon.
"Just wait," he said, "'til Chicago."
"They can really spin it as a Dodge
Ram that you have to have ... when you
consider all the competition,
they need a resurgence of interest in (the Mega Cab)."
You can reach Brett Clanton at (313) 222-2612 or bclanton@detnews.com.
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