RAM Dakota ute apparently axed

The all-new RAM Dakota ute that was promised by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) in mid-2018 and earmarked for Australia as a direct rival for the top-selling Toyota HiLux has reportedly been axed.

According to GM Authority, the global ‘metric-tonne mid-size truck’ program, which was expected to be called the RAM Dakota judging by a trademark application filed in May 2020, has been cancelled.

The US website’s sources gave no reason for the apparent move by the new owners of the RAM, Jeep and Chrysler brands, Netherlands-based Stellantis NV, which also assumed control of FCA’s Alfa Romeo and Fiat brands and PSA’s Peugeot and Citroen marques in January this year.

Adopting a nameplate first deployed in 1985 but last seen on a US-only Dodge/RAM pick-up in 2011, RAM’s first mid-size dual-cab 4x4 ute in a decade was expected to be based on the Jeep Gladiator pick-up.

It was first announced by former FCA chief, the late Sergio Marchionne, as part of the five-year business plan he delivered in June 2018, when he said the all-new one-tonne ute would be a global model produced in Mexico from 2021.

FCA said new RAM mid-sizer, to be positioned below the new DT RAM 1500, would be sold in “every global market” and help drive a million annual RAM sales worldwide by 2022.

At the time, RAM’s then global chief Mike Manley, who assumed control of FCA after Marchionne’s death and now heads up Stellantis’ North American operations, said the new ute would be sold as both a RAM and a Fiat in various global markets.

Manley said at the 2019 Detroit motor show that the smaller RAM pick-up would be very different to the upcoming Jeep Gladiator dual-cab, which is built in Ohio and lacks the diesel engine and payload/towing capacities of vehicles like the Toyota HiLux.

But he also stressed that a cost-effective platform and manufacturing site had yet to be found.

“A gaping hole in our portfolio is a metric-tonne pick-up,” he said. “Do you fill that individually or fill that in partnership? We are looking at what can we do individually and if we partner with someone what would that look like?

“The Gladiator is perfect for the US market, but because of its content it’s not perfect for Thailand.

“Being able to find a cost-effective platform in a region where we can build it with low cost and it still being applicable in the market is what they’re struggling with at the moment,” he admitted.

The 2022 RAM Dakota had yet to be revealed (the computer-generated image you see here is based on the Ford Ranger) or officially confirmed for right-hand drive, but our sources previously said it was a shoo-in for the Australian market – the world’s fourth biggest destination for utes globally.

The Toyota HiLux has been Australia’s top-selling new vehicle for the past five years and the Ford Ranger is the most popular 4x4 ute in a total light commercial vehicle market that was almost as big as passenger cars last year with more than 200,000 sales.

Of course, mid-size utes are even more popular in the US, where the Toyota Tacoma found almost 240,000 homes on its own in 2020 (ahead of the Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado and Gladiator, with just 40,000 sales), and the overall market totalled more than 575,000 sales – down five per cent on 2019.