Surprise! This is the updated 2025 Ram HD pickup truck, and although we don’t have many details on it, Ram is giving the world a full, undisguised look ahead of the truck’s launch. It’s a weird move, but there’s actually some sound justification for it. Here’s the full statement from the makers of this rig:
As we approach the reveal of our 2025 Ram Heavy Duty, the engineering teams are conducting final testing on one of the most important performance attributes of our heavy haulers: cooling. As the trucks will be running loose in the wild, with the camouflage removed, we wanted to share some quality exterior images with you rather than a badly lit snapshot out the window at 70 mph.
The formal reveal of the 2025 Ram Heavy Duty will take place at a later date. At that time, we will provide more details on design, powertrain and technology.
Alright, so although dropping full-on photos of a new vehicle without releasing details may sound weird, Stellantis has good reason to. It’s ridiculously hard to test cooling capability with camouflage on, and leaks often spoil hype. If these trucks are going to be tested on public roads undisguised, it makes sense to get ahead of the story, right?
There’s just one problem I can see — it seems like nobody actually took a step back from the clay model because my word, this has to be the least visually attractive Ram truck ever.
[Editor’s Note: I actually think the new truck looks decent, especially compared to the 2006-2008 Ram:
Yikes! -DT]
America is going through a phase of over-mawed heavy duty pickup trucks. Certain trims of Ford Super Duty have a grille that looks like the element on an electric oven. The Chevrolet Silverado HD looks like someone crashed the clay model into a shipping container nose-first. The GMC Sierra HD looks like its grille surround was designed in Microsoft Word. Check these out:
But none of them hold a candle to the bizarro stuff going on with the 2025 Ram HD.
Just look at the front end on the Rebel trim. This thing has vertical slats, horizontal slats, an entirely different type of mesh in the lower grille, weird almost-lung-shaped elements, and it’s all just so busy. You almost get the sense that the point at which to stop adding styling elements was long ago, and that the finished product might’ve been better if someone just paused more often in the design process. The current model isn’t a huge looker either, but this is just such a fuss.
Zooming on on the other trims shown off, the monochrome treatment on the red three-quarter ton is better, but still busy. Merely having two styles of grilles on one truck is an improvement over three, but the grille silhouette is overstyled compared to the one on most trims of the current truck, and surely there has to be a better way of integrating the radar sensor, right? Oh, and painting the entire front of the work truck trim satin black is certainly a choice, but it feels more like an attempt at disguising sins than anything else. On the plus side, if you do like simplicity, both the cab and the bed seem to be shared with the previous generation of heavy duty Ram, and while that is an ancient truck, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it, right?
Part of the trouble is that massive grilles are a technical requirement for getting the cooling system capability that heavy duty truck customers need. If you’re pulling something like a loaded enclosed two-car trailer up a mountain, you don’t want your rig overheating, so big radiators and big airflow are critical. At the same time, there has to be a more tasteful way of styling around those needs than this. Maybe if NHTSA gets its way with revised pedestrian safety standards, we could see handsome heavy duty pickups again. Or maybe it’ll go the other direction. Who knows. The distant future’s hard to predict, but the near future is going to have this bizarre looking truck on the roadway before you know it. Oink.
(Photo credits: Ram, Dodge, Ford, Chevrolet, GMC)
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I get and even respect that truckine beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this thing doesn’t look kosher to me.
I see what you did there.
Car and Driver called it “sleeker” which must translate to “holy shit it’s ugly.”
It was probably the mention of Microsoft Word, but for some reason, the GMC’s grill appears to be repeating FORDFORDFORD and I can’t unsee it
I though I was crazy for seeing that
I don’t see a pig, rather, I see the jowls of Deputy Dog. Woof.
Another design direction no one seems to want to take is making heavy duty pickups look more like commercial trucks. You know, REAL trucks. Straight forward, no gimmicky nonsense, no chrome, all work.
The grill with all the different slats appears to have been designed by AI. You know, the kind of AI that gives people three hands and such. What an absolute mess!
Damn truck so tall the FAA isn’t going to allow you park within three miles of an airport. Gonna need a folding ladder to get in. On high trims, they’ll have an optional slide for easy child and small adult disembarking. This thing couldn’t see Shaq in a crosswalk. Good thing a cattle-catcher of a disused CSX train should bolt right up. And just think, you’ll save so much money flagging it Liberia.
so, is this an all new truck, or just a facelift? it looks like a facelift to me
the HD Chevy still takes the cake for ugly for me, but this one is a close second. Kind of feels like they hit a BMW buck tooth grill. Definitely give of Porky Pig vibes too.
However work trucks really don’t matter, the dolled up 2500’s will likely hide much of this. the big question is power train options. if they are going to use tiny Turbo 6’s for the base models they won’t sell any of them anyway.
You’re not even going to see the entire grille when you’re tailgated at 120km/h by a guy who definitely hasn’t washed his ass for a week.
As the proud parent of two American Mini Pigs, I am deeply offended. My boys are not this gd ugly.
Someone call The Bishop!!!
Wow, I though nobody would out-ugly Chevrolet and Toyota, but Ram has definitely done it.
My window AC unit looks better, HOA approved, just don’t tell them.
What they don’t know can’t hurt you.
It’s not good. But to me what makes it look so bad is that the front end looks to be made from so many individual pieces of trim that all seem to fit together with gaps that are reminiscent of any other early aughts Dodge vehicle.
Pour one out for the star of Twister. Middle age has hit it hard.
The old Durango looked more like a pig than this truck.
I feel like the macho truck elements are akin to the ever-growing tailfins trend of the 1950’s
.. except I actually like the tailfins
There’s something that’s just so cute about these trucks trying to look at macho.
It would be nice if they make a simple crosshair grill for these as well. There has to be a way to use that simple design and still work around the other requirements of this front end. Dodge has had the nicest looking trucks for a number of years, but this new front clip is rough.
I don’t *hate* the front end with the horizontal chrome slats to break up the sand worm’s gaping maw. Otherwise following the trend of making these trucks look like they are screaming at or preparing to eat the car in front of them is unfortunate. Is this something the market really wants? It’s hard not to look at the giant blacked out grille and logo and think that the driver got in a crash and bought a cheap knockoff grille to fix it.
Judging from a lot of the angry brodozer trucks I’ve delt with, yes. And I’ve also lived in some parts of the country where so many Jeeps have the angry face grille you’d think it came from the factory that way.
Please tell me that the final picture of the pig truck, next to the actual truck, has been distributed across the entire internet for everyone to see, it is awesome
someone seriously needs to distribute a (properly attributed) side by side far and wide.
I truly understand why grilles have to be so large on these machines. Arguably, Ford seems to do the best as disguising the size of their cooling systems/front end. What is beyond me, however, is why badges on the grilles have to be the size of dinner plates if airflow truly is so important.
And while I’m at it, shouldn’t the automakers lease space from owners to drive around advertising their vehicles with badges on the hood, fenders, doors, trunk, and/or tailgate?
Looks like me when I wake up too early with a stuffy nose
Oh, I wonder why that reminds me of this
https://youtu.be/4WdtAj8jYMM
Of all the current HD trucks I personally think RAM looks the best, this continues that. Although the ultimate truck is a combo of the three…. RAM looks, Ford HO powerstroke and aluminum body with GM transmission.