Ram CEO Hints At A New Compact Commercial Van Is Coming

bill burke · Saturday at 6:24 AM

Any suggestion by some folks, although at times it looks critically pessimistic, that our beloved domestic brands are being sent to the scrap heap is dead wrong.Stellantis is not walking away from our domestic brands anytime soon. The Ram City is an important vehicle for the brand and its reintroduction, along with the news on an under $25,000.00 Jeep Renegade is encouraging news. The Stellantis corporate power brokers may be biased, short sighted, even at times incompetent, but not crazy. Crazy it would be to weaken their position in North America by sabotaging any of their North American brands. For us loyalists we can clearly see a sound business case for each and a scenario and path forward to success long term. Certainly no excuse for the whole Chrysler debacle or the Dodge Charger Daytona being launched in the face of a consumer market clearly rejecting electric vehicles definitely, and the loss of the Challenger, just unforgivable, but the glimmer of some thought brain activity and the shreds of evidence that a plan exists somewhere in the corporate offices, gives us hope, even proof, that should dismiss our worst fears. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel and this seemingly minor van is the tip of the spear to better times for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram.....or not.

patfromigh · Saturday at 6:48 AM

Will this be a BEV only offering, or will Ram also allow an ICE option?

What strategy will Stellantis use to avoid the chicken tax? I don't think the feds will allow the temporary rear seat runaround anymore.

ScramFan · Saturday at 5:31 PM

If it's based on the Scudo, as the article states, then this van is one segment size up from the previous Promaster City.

That would put it in the same size category as the Mercedes Benz Metris. I'm not sure about the cost, but I don't think MB sells in nearly the numbers that the Promaster City used to.

I've always felt that this size van makes more sense for this market than the smaller Promaster City. I mean, it'd be great to offer both, but if you had to pick only 1 between those twe, the Scudo based one makes more sense for the NA market, in my opinion.

I believe you could fit a sheet of plywood in this van, whereas you could not in the previous Promaster City.

I wonder if they will rename it, or use the same name, even though it's significantly larger.

patfromigh · Saturday at 7:22 PM

I got this from the Fiat Professional UK website.
Overall length : 195 inches or 210 inches. Load floor length is 98 inches for the standard version.

The Citroen Jumpy which is basically the same vehicle except for the engines, grill and badges. It comes in two lengths. Standard: 128.5 inch wheelbase, 195 overall. Long uses the standard wheelbase, but has the 210 inch overall length. There used to be a shorter version with a 115 inch wheelbase and 181 inches overall, but it was dropped because it didn't have enough space for batteries. Too bad because it would be perfect for our market.

The Ram PMC has a 122.5 inch wheelbase, 187 inches of overall length with a 7"3" long load floor. The brochure claimed 4 feet between the wheel wells.

ScramFan · Saturday at 8:37 PM

I just realized that Mercedes has discontinued selling the Metris in the US, so this move by Stellantis makes even more sense.

I've also read that the Metris was a real piece of overpriced junk, so it shouldn't be a very high bar to clear.

patfromigh · Sunday at 11:49 PM

My curiosity got the best of me, so I looked up a few of the Dodge van brochures at the Dezo's Garage website. The Dodge B-series vans replaced the classic forward control Dodge A-series van and pickup truck in the Spring of 1970 for the 1971 model year. The B-series also had two wheelbase with the longer wheelbase vans/wagons offering a standard or extended (Maxi) overall length. The long wheelbase was 127 inches with a standard overall length of 194 inches, while the extended Maxivans/Wagons were 212 inches long overall. In the 1978 model year there were structural changes to the B-series, the wheelbases stayed the same , but the extended Maxi grew 10 inches to 220 inches overall. Then for the 1979 model year there were changes to the front structure of the B-series vans lengthening the wheelbase by 6/10 of and inch while overall lengths grew by 3.1 inches. But there was no more big block option.

I am shocked how close in length the newest Fiat Scudo is to the 1971-77 Dodge B-series van and wagon. Have vans come full circle ?

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Ram CEO Hints At A New Compact Commercial Van Is Coming