Honestly, most people don't really need a modern day 1500-series pickup truck. Most of us don't tow large boats or campers, most of us aren't into construction, or anything that really requires the use of a full size 1500-series truck. A mid-size truck like a Ranger, Tacoma, Canyon/Colorado would pretty much take care of about 75% of non-commercial truck owners while the 1500 and up sized pickup trucks taking up most of the remaining 25%. Bring out a mid-size STLA frame Dakota with the Hurricane-6 engines and leave the Hemis for the 1500 trucks. Make the Dakota slightly larger than the Ranger and the Canyon, put the hurricane-6 engines in it (both of them) have the 3.6L Hybrid as the base powertrain and literally just make it a smaller Ram 1500 truck with all of the features and trim packages of its larger V8 powered brother but with the Hurricane-6 engines. Simple and profitable. The powertrains and platforms are already in place, retool the US plants for everything Mopar and move forward Tariff free and make vehicles that work.
I think one of the biggest things in the American market is that everything is over sized and over powered and we wonder why things are so overpriced. For one, the lack of diversity in the Mopar brands causes everything to be over priced because nothing is spread out. Everything is condensed into a few models and since the selling volume isn't high, the prices are. Right now Dodge has three vehicles, the Charger EV, the Durango and the Hornet. The only one selling right now is the age-old Durango. If Dodge had a bigger portfolio, it could offset those losses better and it would help drive costs down. Granted this setup was done by Carlos Tavares who intentionally tried to destroy the American brands so that they could be replaced by european brands but the point remains, Each of the Mopar brands needs more vehicle options in each of their lineups. Dodge needs about seven STLA:Large platform vehicles with Longitudinally mounted powertrains including a new 4-door Dart hatchback/fastback, a 4-door only Charger, a Coronet 2-row performance wagon, the 3-row Durango SUV, a Dodge Grand Caravan redesign more SUV-like, a Dodge Journey 2-row SUV and the return of the Jeep-like Dodge Nitro SUV. Ram needs to fall back under the Dodge umbrella and have everything STLA frame from the Dakota all the way up to the Ram HD trucks. One brand, one mission. US Market domination. Let Jeep go to Africa since is really big there and let Chrysler go to Australia and return to the old days of Inline-6 performance glory on the STLA Large platform. Have a Dodge-Latin American market with the Dodge Hornet, the Dodge Rampage, and the Dodge Attitude all on the STLA Medium frame, dumping the other brands like Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Maserati back on Europe with their other weird cars like Peugot and Citroen and whatever else they have. Let the European market focus on EVs and the STLA Small and STLA Medium platform as they have no need for anything else. Let them focus on 1.3L Turbo hybrids and full electric vehicles. Let that be the bulk of the so called "Clean energy" movement. Focus the US Market on Pentastar V6 Hybrid, Hurricane-6 and updated Hemi powertrains, Dumping the 5.7L Hemi for a more robust & Modern 425hp/450tq 6.1L Hemi that can sit below a 445hp/480tq 3.0L S/O Hurricane, a 520hp/500tq 6.4L Hemi, a 550hp/531tq 3.0 Hurricane H/O and beyond. Have a base engine of a worthwhile upgraded 3.6L Pentastar hybrid making 395hp and 430lb-ft of torque. That's what the American Market needs, just one good badass American brand. DODGE! No FWD nonsense, no transaxles, none of that, just vehicles with engines mounted in the correct way, everything with AWD and everything made the way it is supposed to be. Right here in the USA. If we need another brand or two, bring back Plymouth and AMC. The AMC brand allows us to keep the Wrangler and then bring out vehicles like the AMC Eagle, AMC Wrangler, AMC Wagoneer and a bare bones basic AMC J-10 midsize pickup similar to the Gladiator but different. Plymouth would return to give us a true Mustang-destroying Barracuda fastback with AWD and Hurricane power, A Plymouth GTX 4-door luxury muscle gran-coupe a Bronco-destroying Trailduster SUV and a Plymouth Voyager SUV-like minivan, all on the STLA Large platform. Time to Make American Vehicles Great Again!
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