There is a lot of excitement surrounding the upcoming HELLCAT-powered off-road Ram Rebel TRX. This morning, we showed you the first pictures of the 2021 Ram 1500 Rebel TRX in its production form out testing on the streets of Metro Detroit. Now, we are happy to show another look at another TRX out testing on public highways.
With Ram kicking Chevrolet to the third-place slot in the full-size pickup sales category this past year, Ram is taking no prisoners and has its sights set on Ford. While Ford still leads the full-size pickup truck market by a big margin, Ram is ready to hit the pickup leader where it hurts the most… its beloved F-150 Raptor.
We told you this morning that the official production start of the TRX will start on September 8th, 2020 (the day after Labor Day) at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) in Sterling Heights, Michigan. The pictures shown off today are showing us some interesting details about the new off-roader. So let’s take an in-depth look at what the new pictures tell us.
Starting off with lighting, we can tell that the production TRX will, in fact, wearing the full LED with the Adaptive Front-lighting System (AFS) as the Laramie Longhorn and Limited models. The same LED daytime running light signature can be seen poking through the camouflage, so we can more than likely expect the blacked-out units from the new 2020 Ram 1500 Limited Black to adorn the front of the truck. Tail lamps seem to be the same style as the current ones while looking at the rear, however, a brand new all-LED third brake light is a welcome addition and something we hope to see on all 2021 models. Body-colored mirrors from the Big Horn and Laramie Sport trucks appear to have also migrated over to the new TRX, to maintain that it will have a much more upscale look than what many people originally thought the truck might look like.
Now the heavy vinyl camouflage does a good job hiding the TRX’s massive fenders, but we can still tell some important details about the new truck from them. Front fenders look to be just as wide as a Raptor’s, so you can forget about trying to put this truck in many automatic car washes. Just before the A-pillar there appears to be a vent that sticks out of the fender, suggesting that maybe heat extractors are placed on the sides of the new wider fenders to help cool that 6.2-liter Supercharged HEMI under the hood down. At the rear, again we can see that the box also gets massively extended bulges in the fenders.
The TRX’s hood area is heavily camouflaged, however, thanks to some of our sources we have been told that it is actually hiding a large hood scoop. The hood scoop will be 100% functional and was such an important part of helping TRX with cooling, that the SHAP facility had to install accommodations to allow the newly design hood to work with the actual assembly process.
Gone are the rear 8-lug wheels and axles from the earlier prototypes, as the more production-spec models, have 6-lug wheels and axles all the way around. But instead of the more contemporary wheels, we have seen on the early prototypes, the production-spec trucks are wearing some sharp-looking 18-inch snowflake-like pattern wheel.
From the rear, if you look closely it appears that the rear coil springs are painted a blue color. While we still don’t know much about the suspension, we can exact Ram isn’t fooling around. Ram has had experience with putting the coil spring suspension through tough Baja conditions when it launched the Ram Runner package under the Mopar brand. The Ram Runner featured lengthened and reinforced front control arms, heavy-duty tie-rods and ball joints, with 3-inch Fox internal-bypass front and rear shocks. That truck could support 14-inches of wheel travel at both ends. Could the TRX do something similar? We will have to wait and see.
Also looking at the rear, we see that Ram has placed beefy rear tow hooks on the inner side of both of the rear exhausts. According to our sources, the TRX will have the full 707 horsepower grunt from its supercharged HEMI V8, so pulling out your buddy’s Raptor should be no sweat for a TRX. Rear backup sensors are still located in the same places as the current trucks, while we do get a nice glimpse that Ram has put a matching size Goodyear Wrangler tire underneath.
So what are you most looking forward to with the new 2021 Ram 1500 Rebel TRX? Leave your comment below.
2021 Ram 1500 Rebel TRX Prototype Image Gallery:
