Fun Trucks

I recently drove a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT. That was a fun vehicle to drive. I’m used to my 16-year-old Buick (capable of moderate acceleration) and my 20-year-old Jeep (not capable of moderate acceleration), so to have a vehicle that powerful was pleasing. My usual vehicles don’t always do what I want, but that JGC SRT did. Want to accelerate? No problem. Want to stop? No problem. Good times.

I have also – about a dozen years ago – driven a Dodge Ram 1500 SRT. That was the SRT-10. Ten whole cylinders of engine, instead of the puny 8 cylinders found in the JCG SRT. And 506 cubic inches instead of 390 (that’s 8.3L compared to 6.4L, for those of you who are mathematically impaired metrically inclined.) With that vehicle, the hype was bigger than the fun. While it had an impressive top speed, I was never able to approach it, seeing as I was always on public roads with speed limits. So the only thing I was able to use that power for was acceleration. However, the gears in the transmission has such long ratios in order to reach a top speed of 180mph that they were not well suited for acceleration.

That brings me to the final vehicle of today’s post: the Dodge Ram 1500 R/T. Its engine is nothing special – the standard 5.7L Hemi that’s used across many of Chrysler’s vehicles. But the transmission is geared for quickness. Actually, if you want to be technical: the transmission is normal, it’s the final drive ratio that makes it quick. That R/T seemed a lot faster off the line than the SRT-10. And since I was accelerating from 0 to 40mph, that’s about all I could do. This was also many years ago. I believe it was a manual transmission back then. I know they’ve kept selling the R/T 1500 for all these years even as the SRT-10 dropped away, but they’re only in automatic transmissions now.

To summarize: Ram 1500 R/T = most fun.

I’m sure there are sports cars that are more fun, but as far as SUVs and pickups go, the R/T gets my vote.

He caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and He made them drive with difficulty; so the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.”

Exodus 14:25

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This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:44 am and has been carefully placed in the Driving category.

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