Dodge Rampage Rendering Makes Us Crave A Car-Based Pickup!

In the early 1980s, Dodge created the Rampage a subcompact, unibody, two-door pickup based on the Dodge Omni platform. The small front-wheel-drive (FWD) pickup competed with the likes of the Volkswagen Rabbit Sportruck and Subaru BRAT. With only 37,401 units produced over a three-year production run, the Rampage was particularly popular at the time but has become a cult favorite amongst Mopar fans today.

Using the car-based pickup idea, our friend digital illustrator Oscar Vargas (@wb.artist20), has created a modern take of the Rampage using the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye as its base. Morphing the four-door performance sedan into a two-door pickup might seem easy, however, to create a unique cab design with a wrap-around rear window.

The Rampage UTE (“utility” or “coupé utility“) design, shows us just how good-looking a car-based pickup could be on the LD platform. Unfortunately, with the current Dodge Charger and Challenger moving to an all-new architecture, it seems unlikely that such a vehicle could be produced anytime soon. 

We have seen aftermarket companies like Smyth Performance, produce actual kits to transform older 2005 to 2010 Dodge Chargers into such a vehicle. The kit will set you back about $4,000 USD, but unfortunately, it will not work on the newer Charger models.

Back in 2010, Chrysler LLC was looking to bring a car-based pickup to market sometime in 2013. It was shown in a future product launch cadence during Chrysler’s 5-Year Plan presentation. 

We would love to see such a vehicle make it into production. Even though there have been such vehicles before like the El Camino and Ranchero, it could open Dodge up to a unique niche that no one is covering at this time. GM’s former Australian-based Holden brand showed that its VZ platform could produce a sports sedan (Commodore), a two-door performance coupe (Monaro), a two-door UTE (UTE), a four-door UTE (Crewman UTE), and even a chassis cab (UTE One Tonner). 

This could lead to a lot of opportunities for Dodge if they followed a similar formula that Holden did. With the future of electrified options for the next-generation Charger (LF), the capability of offering a compact dual e-motor setup could offer all-wheel-drive (AWD) and a deep pickup box due to the lack of most conventional things on internal combustion engine (ICE) offerings (like gas tanks, exhaust systems, and drive shafts).

Nevertheless, we love the vision laid out by wb.artist20. So, what do you think of a car-based pickup based on the Charger? Would you give one a chance? If so, what would you look for in such a vehicle? Let us know in the comments below or in the MoparInsiders.com forums.