Let me tell you a dirty word: Diesel. In the past decade, diesel went from being the potential future of internal combustion to the equivalent of a subject best talked about in private. For those still holding onto their diesel steeds, it’s a life of working with finicky emissions equipment, a fading fuel economy advantage, and high fuel costs. It wasn’t always this way. A little over two decades ago, you could buy diesels that could seemingly survive the heat death of the universe while pulling a house at the same time. From 1994 to 1998, Dodge sold a holy grail of full-size pickups. You could buy a Dodge Ram powered by a 12-valve Cummins diesel and pair it with a five-speed manual transmission.
This week, I’ve been asked to write a double feature of Holy Grails. That’s two Grails in one week, two awesome vehicles with a spotlight on them. My birthday is on Thursday and that’s when you get a rare second round of this series detailing the histories of uncommon vehicles. It’s sometimes said that we don’t write about big pickups enough. Today, it’s Trucknesday!
When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Twister. I’m not entirely sure why I loved it so much. Perhaps it was the sense of adventure put on by the film. We got a scrappy bunch of low-budget storm chasers thundering their way to the next tornado, hoping to revolutionize tornado research with a trash can filled with hundreds of sensors. On the other side was a rival army of storm chasers with all of the corporate funding they could wish for.
Along with a great story, Twister had a talented cast from Bill Paxton to Lois Smith. For many, including myself, the real stars were the collection of vehicles from the Jeep J10 to the GMC TransMode of the bad guys. My favorite was the cherry red Dodge Ram piloted by our protagonists. The truck looked heroic as it tackled tornadoes, crops, cows, and an entire house. I’m sure many kids and teens wanted to buy a red Ram just like the one in the movie.
Being a movie star is really just part of what made the second-generation Dodge Ram great. That truck introduced the concept of making a pickup look like a big rig, and the idea has stuck around ever since. Dodge built hundreds of thousands of these trucks, but one configuration is worthy of being called a grail.
Cummins Power
For many, Cummins is the first name of diesel power. You’ll find its engines in everything from pickup trucks to motorhomes, Class 8 semis, emergency vehicles, farm equipment, construction vehicles, mining vehicles, marine vehicles, and so much more. The birth of Cummins happened not long after the invention of the diesel engine itself.
Let’s take a stroll back over a century. It’s the 1870s, an era where steam was king. At the time, there was a German student by the name of Rudolf Diesel. As the young Diesel learned thermodynamics, he got an idea. What if there were an engine that could convert heat into mechanical power efficiently?
By 1885, Diesel set up shop to test his theories. One of those theories was that if an engine could run high compression, that would increase its efficiency. In 1892, Diesel earned German patent DRP 67207 for a compression-ignition engine design. A year later, Diesel constructed the first engine to test his hypothesis. This first engine was unsuccessful, but this didn’t deter Diesel from tweaking the design. Fast-forward to 1897 and Diesel proved his work by successfully firing the Motor 250/400. Diesel didn’t just invent the diesel engine but proved that compression ignition engines could be remarkably efficient. Reportedly, the steam engines of the day had about 10 percent thermal efficiency. Diesel’s engine? It had an efficiency of 26.2 percent.
Clessie Cummins was born in Indiana in 1888 before Diesel earned his patent. Despite never having an education greater than eighth grade, Cummins turned out to be an innovator. The young Cummins, who was a farm boy, would have mentors who would teach him business and how to use his hands to build things. Putting this newfound knowledge to work, Cummins sold newspapers and built a steam engine at just 12 years old. Some of Cummins’ early inventions included a lathe made from an old sewing machine. His steam engine initially had a boiler made out of metal that was too thin, leading to an explosion.
By the 1910s, Cummins was involved in a number of exciting developments. In 1911, He was on the pit crew for the Marmon Wasp, the racecar driven by Ray Harroun to win the inaugural Indianapolis 500. During this time, Cummins also went to work for banker William G. Irwin, acting as his chauffeur and mechanic. Irwin would aid Cummins in his future exploits, including opening a machine shop in 1915. By 1918, the Cummins machine shop was busy enough to justify purchasing an old cereal mill to expand. Cummins Machine Works spanned 5,000 square feet of space.
Just a year later, Cummins would open and become the president of the Cummins Engine Company. It was that same year when Cummins began to see a future in diesel. The first diesels in America arrived in 1911 when Busch-Sulzer began building engines. Still, when Cummins arrived on the scene in 1919, the diesel was still a niche in America. Anyway, in 1919, Cummins began building his first diesel engines based on a license from R.M. Hvid Co. These were small diesels, good for just 6 HP, which was enough for agricultural use.
It wouldn’t take long for Cummins to create a diesel of his own design. Cummins earned a patent for a direct-injection diesel design in 1921 and in 1924, that engine was put into production as the Model F. 1929 marked a major shift for Cummins. Until then, the brand put its engines to work in the agriculture and marine industries. However, the economy had crashed and with it was demand for engines to put into yachts.
Irwin warned that Cummins’ business was on the ropes and would be shut down. Cummins used this bad situation as an opportunity and shifted his engines toward vehicles. A Model U was fitted into a 1925 Packard limousine, showing that diesel power could even work in cars. Later, that car would drive over 800 miles from Indiana to the 1930 New York Auto Show. The car consumed just $1.38 ($24.83 today) in fuel getting there. In 1931, Cummins even entered a diesel-powered racecar into the 1931 Indianapolis 500.
The goal wasn’t to win, but to prove a diesel car could run the whole race without a single fuel stop. Indeed, the car never stopped, finishing the whole race and consuming just 31 gallons of fuel. The car finished 13th of 33. By 1932, Cummins would help launch the United States’ first diesel truck fleet with Purity Food Stores. After a distinguished career, Cummins passed in 1968.
In 1984, when Cummins introduced its 5.9-liter B engine. I’ll let David hold the mic for a moment. He told this engine’s story before:
To help tell the tale of the “five nine,” I reached out to Cummins’ marketing director David Goggins, who told me that the engine’s durability is rooted in its design for grueling industrial applications, saying:
“A lot of the reason that engine is as durable as it is is because we designed it to be a heavy duty, commercial kind of engine.”
He went on to say that the 5.9-liter engine actually originally started as a joint venture between the Indiana-based diesel engine company and Case Corporation, which builds tractors and construction equipment. And indeed, starting in 1984 (well before the 5.9-liter engine ever found itself powering a Dodge Ram), Cummins offered three different variants of the 5.9-liter called the 6B, 6BT (turbocharged) and 6BTA (turbocharged, aftercooled), which served duty in tractors, combines, excavators, road graders, pavement rollers, boats, field sprayers and even school buses.
[…]
But perhaps even more impressive than its factory torque numbers is the engine’s reputation for longevity. Once you start looking at the mechanical bits, you begin to see just how overbuilt the B-Series engine really is. The block and head are cast iron, the crankshaft and connecting rods are forged, the seven main bearings are massive, and like many heavy-duty diesel trucks, the crank and cam are connected by a steel timing gear—not a chain or belt like you’d find in normal cars and trucks. The Holset turbos are also known to last until the end of time.
The B5.9 is a straight-six design with two valves per cylinder. A 4.02-inch bore and a long 4.72-inch stroke helped the engine develop low-end grunt. Reportedly, The Cummins B5.9 12-valve had 40 percent fewer working parts than a competitive engine. Add in the Holset turbo and the Cummins 5.9 was making a healthy 160 HB and 400 lb-ft and was proving itself to be able to go hundreds of thousands of miles without an overhaul.
This is just a sliver of Cummins history, but I think you get it. Cummins has spent over a century becoming one of the first names in diesel, and it’s earned it. If you’re interested in reading more about the feats of Cummins, click here to check out the company’s history timeline. Don’t worry, we’ll be returning to the B5.9 in a bit.
Dodge Goes Diesel
Dodge’s relationship with diesel wasn’t always a solid one. The automaker’s first experiment with diesel was back in 1939 when an in-house 331 cubic-inch inline-six diesel was planted in trucks. These engines made 96 HP and 225 lb-ft of torque. This engine wasn’t popular, and by 1941, Dodge moved just 195 units. By 1942, Chrysler called it quits on the diesel program.
Dodge would take another swing at diesel in 1960 with the introduction of the LCF medium- and heavy-duty commercial trucks. By now, one in four heavy trucks sold in America had diesels in them and Dodge wanted in on it. A variety of Cummins, GM Diesel, Perkins, and Caterpillar engines were offered on the line of LCF trucks. The largest engine available was the Cummins V903, a thick 903 cubic inch V8 diesel making 289 HP. Dodge would continue to offer large diesels in big rigs after. Of course, today we’re talking about diesels in pickups.
In 1962, you could buy a Dodge W300, what some call America’s first diesel pickup, with a Perkins diesel engine. These trucks were powered by 354 cubic inch straight sixes making 120 HP and 260 lb-ft of torque. It’s unclear how many of these trucks were sold or for how long, but it’s believed that there’s one original survivor, a 1964 Dodge W300 with the engine.
Fast-forward to 1978 and Dodge decided to flirt with diesel pickups for a second time. Back in the 1970s, American automakers were experimenting with putting diesels into vehicles that weren’t locomotives or heavy trucks. The infamous Oldsmobile diesel engine originated in the 1970s. Chrysler was already having fun with Mitsubishi in the 1970s, and a benefit of that relationship was that for just a single year, maybe two years, you could buy a Dodge D100 or D200 pickup or potentially even a B-series van powered by a 6DR5 diesel from Mitsubishi.
Reportedly, less than 2,900 Dodge trucks came with this engine and vans with this engine are so rare they might as well not exist. Some of that rarity could be explained by the fact that the 6DR5 was a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated six good for just 105 HP and 163 lb-ft of torque. Diesels tend to be known for pumping out torque, but this engine actually makes less power than a gas six, so the only reason to buy one would be for the fuel economy.
That leads us to take three. In 1989, Dodge decided to put diesel power into pickups again, and this time Dodge would hit a home run.
It’s sometimes said that one of the best decisions Dodge made was plopping the excellent Cummins 5.9 down into its aging first-generation Ram truck. In 1972, Dodge introduced the third-generation D series pickup. This truck was facelifted and renamed the Dodge Ram in late 1980, buying the truck another 13 years until it was finally discontinued for an all-new Ram. The Ram was already an old duck when Dodge dropped the Cummins B5.9 into it in 1989, but people didn’t care. That engine turned the Ram into a truck with more power than Ford and General Motors could match.
People piled into showrooms to scoop them up. Reportedly, 16,750 Cummins-powered Rams left the showroom in 1989, and the number was that low only due to the fact that Dodge and Cummins couldn’t make the trucks fast enough. By 1990, the Chrysler and Cummins partnership started sorting itself out and 26,700 Cummins-powered Rams left showrooms. Here’s the amazing part, these trucks were in such high demand that in 1991, Dodge sold 40,180 diesel rams. In the final year of the first-generation Dodge Ram, people still couldn’t get enough and 49,226 Cummins-powered Rams followed people home. It’s common for models to lose steam at the end of a generational run. The first-gen Ram was heating up just when things were coming to an end. Yet, this isn’t our grail, either.
The Rules Have Changed
Now that we’ve established how great the B5.9 Cummins is, we need a good home to put it in.
Our old pals at Jalopnik detailed the rollercoaster of development that the second-generation Ram faced. The 1994 Ram was the result of over seven years of development and more than one rejected design. We’re glad the initial designs were booted because none of them quite had the punch the production Ram would have.
Despite the success of the B5.9 Cummins, Dodge struggled in the marketplace. Reportedly, its market share was just 6 or 7 percent, putting it far behind the competition. Chrysler, which had just survived financial turmoil, needed its next Ram to be a big win. Hindsight being perfect vision, we know the second-generation Ram launched a truck revolution, but Chrysler almost fumbled it.
In 1986, Chrysler’s Advanced Package Studio produced the first design study for the then-upcoming truck. It was dubbed the Louisville Slugger and while the truck was plenty utilitarian, it looked like a minivan with its roof chopped off. The truck was perfectly inoffensive, like the kind of cars a video game developer makes to avoid licensing issues. Unfortunately, bland looks weren’t the Louiville Slugger’s only problem. It had a spacious cab and large box, but the engine bay was too small to fit the Cummins or the planned V10 engine. That was a non-starter and the design study was dropped in 1987.
Later that year, design transferred to the AMC/Jeep design studio, and that crew produced a new truck, nicknamed Phoenix, but that one reportedly looked a bit like a clone of the Ford F-150. Oops. In 1989, executive Bob Lutz and executive Francois Castaing decided to can the Phoenix as well. Instead of sending the truck’s designers back to the drawing board, Lutz ordered the development to be restarted from the beginning with six months to come up with something new. In addition to starting from scratch, the designers would work from start to finish in Computer Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application.
When it came to the design, the mission was to be original and go bold. The truck’s designers went flipping through the pages of Dodge’s past at its Power Wagon trucks from World War II. Along the way, they found American big rigs, and that sparked an idea. Chrysler former vice president of design Tom Gale noted to Ars Technica in 2021 that the second-generation Ram had retro style. But, instead of borrowing from Chrysler’s past, designers copied the looks of Kenworth and Peterbilt semis, from Ars Technica:
Borrowing other companies’ heritage was notably successful on the 1994 Dodge Ram, which channeled the language of Kenworth and Peterbilt. “It was a pretty big leap, but we had nothing to lose,” Gale admits.
Reportedly, designer Phillip E. Payne also got some inspiration from the 1950s Studebaker Transtar truck. For the interior, a designer was sent out into the field to look at how people used their trucks. It was found that existing trucks didn’t have great storage for cups, clipboards, and other gear, so truck owners built their own solutions. It was clear that the new Ram also needed a functional interior. Designers threw these inspirations into a large stew, creating a vehicle that some would call an icon today.
As Gale noted in the Ars Technica report, copying the traits of a big rig, from the long, tall hood to the low headlights, turned out to be a winning formula. The truck was released for the 1994 model year with sales jumping a huge 143 percent. Buyers didn’t let up in 1995 as that model year still saw a 77 percent jump. The second-gen Ram even won MotorTrend‘s Truck of the Year award in 1994. Market share jumped from around 6 percent into the 20s.
The second-gen Ram, which spans 1994 to 2002, includes a number of variations and a slew of engines. The base engine through most of the second-gen Ram’s run was the 3.9-liter Magnum V6. You could also have your Ram with a 5.2-liter Magnum V8, 5.9-liter Magnum V8, and even an 8.0-liter Magnum V10. Diesel-powered second-gen Rams 2500s and up were offered with 5.9-liter Cummins straight-six engines. All of them, from 1994 to 2002, were the Cummins 5.9, but they came in a variety of flavors. From the 1998.5 model year to 2002, the trucks were powered by the Cummins ISB 5.9 24-valve while earlier trucks put down power through the 5.9-liter 12-valve variety.
The 24-valve has numerous updates over the 12-valve. Reportedly, the 5.9 24-valve has better throttle response as well as better air and coolant flow. Here’s a picture of what a 24-valve looks like:
Another change included the 24-valve moving from mechanical fuel injection to electronically controlled injection with a Bosch VP44 pump. In addition to these evolutionary changes, the 24-valve also made more power than the 12-valve. In 1999, the 5.9 24-valve made 230 HP when bolted to a manual transmission or 215 HP when connected to an automatic. By 2001, power reached 235 HP regardless of transmission. There was also a High Output option available, which gave you 245 HP and 505 lb-ft of torque.
In contrast, the 12-valve offers more simplicity. As stated before, this engine uses mechanical fuel injection with a Bosch P7100 injection pump. There are fewer electronics involved, which further simplifies operation. In 1994 and 1995, you got 160 HP with an automatic transmission and 175 HP with a five-speed manual. Torque was 400 lb-ft and 420 lb-ft, respectively. From 1996 to 1998, automatic-equipped 5.9 diesels made 180 HP and manuals got 215 HP. Torque was 420 lb-ft and 440 lb-ft, respectively.
The Grail
Both of these engines are popular and you’ll find people paying pretty crazy money for a clean second-gen Ram with a 5.9-liter Cummins in it. However, of the two, the 12-valve is the grail. Why? The 24-valve’s Bosch VP44 injection pump is reportedly a failure point and one that can be costly to repair. Apparently, many 24-valve engines were also made with thinner blocks, sometimes resulting in cracking by the freeze plugs, which causes coolant leaks. The engine’s exhaust manifold is also noted to crack.
The 12-valve is generally the more reliable of the two engines with fewer parts and electronics to go wrong. At the same time, tuners have figured out that the 12-valve can accept some frankly silly power numbers. Want 1,000 HP? The 12-valve can handle that! Still, even the 12-valve has a few problems here and there, such as the so-called “killer dowel pin.” This pin helps with aligning the timing cover but can migrate out of place, ending up inside of the engine and causing havoc.
Here’s what a 12-valve looks like from the engine bay:
Having a 12-valve Cummins 5.9 would be cool enough, but according to our David Tracy, the true grail is a 12-valve truck paired with a five-speed manual transmission. The grail of the grail seems to be the 1998 Ram 2500 Quad Cab with a 12-valve Cummins and a manual transmission.
Why? 1998 was the first year for the Quad Cab (four-door), but the last months for the 12-valve. Ram owners can tell you that the automatics in these trucks weren’t a strong point. A 1998 Ram with a 12-valve, Quad Cab, and a manual transmission appears to be ridiculously rare nowadays. I found a couple of archived for sale ads, but nothing current.
This could be avoided with the addition of a five-speed manual transmission. Not everyone likes manual transmissions in trucks, but they can be fun. While I could not find a review of the truck with a manual transmission, I did find a review by the Orlando Sentinel describing driving a 12-valve Ram. It’s deeply entertaining:
When offered we said yes to test-driving the turbo diesel. We should have said we gave at the office. The Ram is a whale of a truck. Room, comfort, carlike amenities, anti-lock brakes, a driver’s-side air bag and looks that would make a Kenworth blush. Ram has it all – until you put the diesel under the hood and a human being directly behind it.
The diesel in the 1994 model Ram 2500 SLT Laramie we drove brought neighbors out of their houses, not to admire the engine but to investigate whether all that clatter in the drive was actually someone operating a jackhammer. Simply idling in a hospital zone would be reason for a ticket.
Construction workers, snowplowers, boat or horse trailer haulers and those who log many miles and need the driving range diesel provides vs. gas will love the diesel and its estimated 20 to 21 miles per gallon city/highway combined mileage – provided they accept the noise. The sound of combustion in this diesel was akin to a string of cherry bombs being set off in a mailbox.
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Another fueling visit brought another problem. The truck stop catered to 18-wheelers, and so the diesel pump filled tanks at the rate of 50 gallons a minute. Had we tried filling our half-empty 21-gallon tank with that pump, it’s possible the tank would have arrived back in Illinois ahead of us. It meant finding another station that pumped diesel at a more normal rate.
If you’re laughing as much as I am, it gets even better, click here to reach the Orlando Sentinel‘s review.
Admittedly, trucks like these aren’t known for refinement. They also aren’t known for being quiet. What you’re buying with a truck like this isn’t a commuter, but a tool. A Cummins-powered Ram is the truck that can tow your camper across the country without breaking a sweat. A Cummins Ram is a great platform for modifications, custom builds, and for keeping a farm alive.
Are these trucks rare? I have no idea. Dodge sold 286,194 Cummins-powered Rams from 1994 through 1998. These numbers aren’t broken down by transmission. What I can tell you is if you find one of these grails, you can expect to pay ridiculous money. Here’s a 1996 Ram 2500 with a 12-valve Cummins and a manual transmission. The price? $34,997. Ouch! That was one of the cheaper ones. Here’s another that’s just a fiver short of $50,000. These are trucks that, depending on configuration, originally sold for $28,009 – that’s $57,335 today.
Nowadays, diesel pickups are basically eldritch monsters that can pull 40,000 pounds with ease. A 6.7-liter Cummins-powered Ram 4500 makes 360 HP and 800 lb-ft of torque today. Modern trucks can basically pull a mountain, but for many, old diesels are better. If that sounds like you, an old Cummins is calling your name, just bring a lot of money.
Do you know of or own a car, bus, motorcycle, or something else worthy of being called a ‘holy grail’? Send me an email at mercedes@theautopian.com or drop it down in the comments!
I know we’re pretty fast and loose with the term Holy Grail here, but we’re approaching boomer car show territory with this one. You know the trope, one of xxxx with options a,b,c,x,y,z in red with red interior etc. etc. etc. While the combo of 12 valve, manual, quad cab is a grail in the sense that it’s the pinnacle of the 2nd gen, these aren’t very rare. I see 12v quad cab trucks daily (might not all be manual), most still used as farm beaters, and know at least a couple people with these trucks. To elevate the grail slightly more find one with a short bed (I know a guy). Depends on what you value in this type of truck, but the short beds are far more rare than the long bed trucks.
That 1989 dually is pickup perfection.
Yes, the 2nd gen ram is a timeless design, especially the 94 with the rounder chrome grill and accents. But the ‘89 is just right in terms of size, simplicity and understated TCB coolness.
Lutz’s book has a great story about the second-gen Ram going into customer clinics before introduction and something like 3/4 of the people saying they hated it and thought it was ugly, but the rest saying they loved it and would buy it tomorrow. So they said, in essence, “f it, we ball.” And it worked.
“Guts” by Lutz is a good, quick read!
I have a year 2000 quad cab/24v with the manual transmission as my daily driver and household work truck, and wouldn’t trade it for anything new. Despite the fact that it’s definitely achieving the same… ummm… patina as David’s infamous Jeeps.
I would caution anyone considering one of these beasts to first be willing to come to terms with the nature of diesel power, particularly in cold-weather places. Have a place to plug in the block heater in the winter. (Hint, put it on a timer that comes on for an hour or two around the time you wake up to save your electric bill from running it all night…) Get used to lower power output (sometimes miserably low) in cold weather due to the kerosene blended with diesel to keep it from jelling. Kerosene produces lower BTU output, but it’s a necessary evil in snow country. HP will be down, but you still have plenty of torque to run on. It’s just sluggish. Be nice to your turbo year-round and gently rev the engine just past 1000RPM until you hear some whistle, meaning the turbo bearing is getting plenty of fresh oil pumped up to it. Understand how the intake heater behaves (and get the benefit out of it by waiting for it to cycle when starting in cooler weather) — it helps save the starter. It’s still hard on alternators… but it’s quite possible to change one on the roadside if you keep tools in the cab.
For the 24-valve versions, most VP44 fuel pump failures have been taken care of by now; the rebuilds tend to be more durable than the originals. Still, it’s important to change the fuel filter regularly because fuel flow through the recirculating system is what keeps the pump cooled.
On a 24v, there are three separate computers which don’t talk to each other very well — the VP44’s own fuel injection controller, the Cummins engine controller which has had some of its functions disabled and handed over to the VP44, and the Dodge OBDII controller inside the gauge cluster which is designed for gas engines and has to be fed bogus signals from the Cummins controller to keep the check engine light from coming on. It’s a janky system, yet it works. By far the biggest fault was putting the voltage regulator in the gauge cluster as well. It fails or goes intermittent, but it’s easy to cut out of the circuit and then wire in an old-school Mopar voltage regulator under the hood near the alternator. But sometimes the gauge cluster circuitry will still malfunction and give false over- or under- voltage readings to the voltmeter and trigger an idiot light/alarm.
Save your turbo from potential FOD (foreign object damage) and remove the plastic “silencer ring” that’s snapped into the intake at the factory. More whistle (Is that a bad thing, really?) without it, but plastic degrades over time, so why risk it cracking apart and getting ingested by the turbo?
People spend silly amounts of money on “performance exhaust” for their diesel trucks. Most of the time they end up sounding worse. The simple, less expensive, and most reliable solution is to is to get a turbo-back tailpipe kit that’s necked-out by an extra inch which allows the use of a commercial-duty muffler. The whole job cost slightly more than half of what a “performance” exhaust sold for. And the commercial muffler is just a big, sturdy resonator can — a straight pipe with perforations to let some of the gas expand into the can. No reverse-flow baffles, no packing, not much to fail. Just a straight pipe in a can. It’s a bit louder right at the tailpipe, sounds like a big rig, but noticeably quieter in the cab.
Everybody puts the Cummins versions of these trucks on a pedestal and ignores the V10 and V8’s. Up until the 5.9HO came out the V10 outperformed the diesel in all aspects except fuel mileage. It offered 310 HP and 450 ft. lbs. while being extremely reliable, lighter, and less complex. It got all the same heavy duty running gear as the Cummins truck including the optional NV4500 manual transmission. The main movie truck was actually a 2500 V10 with some V8 trucks subbed in for stunts. I would argue that is the holy grail truck but I am slightly biased having owned my 99 Ram 2500 with the V10 for 13 years so far.
I had the next level Holy Grail….a late ’97 Ram Extended Cab 3500 4X4 12V Cummins 5 speed. Had seen Twister as well, and had ordered it up at the dealer, but noticed no clearance lights, so called a friend who knew a contact at Production Control & had him add in the sales code for the lights. 2 months (!!) later, we go pick up the truck, but don’t see a 2500 on the lot. Salesman comes out, says the 3500 is your truck…..hmmmm….well, considering that it would be 3 months for the next one, we took it. Was mostly a daily driver, loved getting looks when you pull up & park. Best was when I took parts to Auburn Hills & hearing the reverb in the loading dock, then taking guys home after a meeting/dinner at MeadowBrook Hall, 6 guys in the truck, they were like little kids with a new toy.
It was also an RV tow vehicle for us. Was on the keeper list til we got a Jeep, and can’t tow one behind a bumper pull RV.
I was actually going to suggest the combo as a “holy grail”. I have a 12-valve (no smog inspection in CA) NV4500 (5-speed manual) quad-cab 3/4-ton 4WD longbed w/ a few power upgrades but I had to build it myself from pieces. It does exactly what I need from it and I do expect it to be my last truck which means it may be 50 when it’s done with. Oh and the guys saying this should have an automatic are sadly misguided, I don’t know how else to put it.
I hadn’t heard about the B series tie in with Case but I’m not surprised. Back around 1990 I worked in rental yard and we had lots of 3.9 liter 4B engines in Case 480 backhoes and IR compressors, a couple of 4BT powered generators and I’m pretty sure the Case branded diesel in the track loader was actually a Cummins variant. On the other hand all the trucks were Ford, F350s with 6.9 IDI engines and a Louisville with a Ford New Holland 6.
If they don’t rust or blow up the Dodge Cummins is pretty durable, I saw a first generation (89-92) working for the Linn County parks department.
Owned one! Sold it with 355K Miles. Wish I hadn’t.
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As solid as the 12V/5-speed combo is, the 24V/NV5600 is a lot more fun to drive. I’ve always joked that those Rams were a garbage vehicle wrapped around an amazing power train.
About 20 years ago I looked at a 1993 F350 for sale in my neighborhood for $10k. At the time, that seemed pretty steep until I saw the 12V Cummins and 5-speed stuffed into it, and then I wished I could justify spending $10k on it over the $1300 300ZX I bought instead.
An older guy I used to help at harvest had 5 diesel pickups on the farm, 3 F-350s (‘03 7.3, ‘04 6.0, ‘06 6.0), an ‘86 F-250 with the 6.9 IDI, and a ‘92 D350 with the 6bt. The 7.3 was terrific but very loud; the 6.0s were both gutless and problematic; the 6.9 was as loud as the 7.3, slower than the 6.0, and more reliable than the sun coming up every morning.
But the Cummins? That was a sweetheart of a truck. It was so much smoother than any of the Fords, quieter, and easily pulled harder than any of the trucks. We all liked the 7.3, but given the opportunity I think any of the guys working there would have taken the Cummins any day of the week. He also had a couple 6bt tractors that were pretty stout as well.
Short story time! When I was a poor used car salesman about 10 years ago we had one of these come in albeit with the V10. White extended cab, full bed, super clean truck, only issue it had was a seat belt warning that wouldn’t go away. We paid next to nothing for it as a trade and it got sent to auction due to age, it’s one of those few vehicles I wish I had the ability to buy at the time.
My favorite part about twister was all the times they swap between a 1500 and a 2500 and how many of the seatbelts in the back of shots are cut. I’d always assumed they were preproduction trucks that were leased to the movie and the seatbelts being removed was to make them not sellable
I remember seeing a metallic almost olive green ram when I was 5 Albuquerque right when they came out and begging my dad to buy it. One of my earliest memories actually!
Back in ’92 or ’93 I was sitting on the guard rail at Ebey’s landing in Washington while my dad and uncle were scuba diving in the kelp bed. Out of nowhere this guy comes up to me and starts demanding that I leave his “closed set.” At that point another guy walks up and tells him that they never got the road closed for filming so they were just posting lookouts. The first guy then told me that I at least needed to get out of his shot, and that I couldn’t tell anyone about the car coming down the road because they were filming a comercial for it and it hadn’t been released yet. So I got out of the way and got to see the second gen ram slightly early. It certainly made an impression but at the time I don’t think it was a particularly good impression, I like it now but when I was ten I was more into my dad’s F150 custom so I was just kind of meh.
I want an old school bus with General Balloon tires on it now.
Between the currently manufactured General ties and balloon-tired beach carts, I can’t find much beyond vintage adds for them.
Oh hell yeah! I love me a 12v so much I own two of them, both manual. Both rusted out farm trucks that can’t legally go 15 miles from town under their own power. But one is a Quadcab. Let me tell you, for all the glory of a 12v, the greatest engine not called ALH, what a massive piece a shit truck they attached it to. The Quad has 150k on it, primarily spent it’s like on the farm. And that damn tank fell off due to rust. A good pitcher can throw a slider through one side of the bed and out the other. The leafs might as well been made of pine. And numerous other complaints.
That 12v though, will start in -20 though. And you can idle it in first if your facing slightly down hill. I taught like six people to drive standard on em, cause anything less then a tree in front of it, it won’t die. Will plow though 10” like it ain’t there too. 8/10 would recommend.
I have a ’99 Ram 2500 with a 24-valve Cummins, a five-speed manual, a quad-cab with the rear-hinged back doors, and an eight-foot bed. It’s my third Dodge truck, after a 2000 Dakota and an ’07 Power Wagon. It’s also my first diesel. And probably the last truck I will ever buy.
You could also get the V10 with a manual. Awhile back, I saw a V10 5-speed with a red interior listed for $4000.
This gen Ram is the cheapest V10 you can buy.
And its a great powertrain. Ive owned my 99 Ram 2500 with the V10 for 13 fantastic years with many more to come.
It’s funny how tame these look today, I remember the freak out when they launched.
IIRC, this is the truck they drove through the giant pane of glass at its intro at the Detroit Auto Show.
One of the attendees was so impressed, he said something to the effect of “Next year, they’re gonna have to kill a man” to get that kind of a reaction.
Maybe they did it twice. The ZJ Jeep Grand Cherokee was the one that was driven through the window, by Bob Lutz himself.
This is the one they dropped from the ceiling I believe. The ZJ went through the glass.
Oh, for the days when NAIAS was cool!
I wouldn’t want a manual transmission in a giant diesel powered tow rig. What is the point? If it’s large and not fast or exciting to drive, it should be an automatic imho. Backing up while doing the clutch, pulling boats off from slippery loading ramps, all of it is easier with an auto, and towing things is sort of the entire point of owning one of these.
In this case I think the manual is rare because nobody really wanted that combo because it makes no sense.
If you’re already distracted thinking about the horses in the trailer you’re towing, shifting a manual is yet another distraction from the other cars on the road. And a torque converter definitely makes towing easier.
I’d prefer a manual, but it’s not my truck, trailer, horses or job.
Two points:
1) In these trucks the factory automatic is a known weak point, especially when used extensively for towing. The factory manual transmissions are bullet proof.
2) Engine braking. In the 90s, lockup torque converters were not typical. The factory brakes on these trucks are about at the limit for heavy towing. With a manual transmission behind a diesel, towing downhill is much easier and less terrifying.
I owned a 7.3L Ford with the manual, and while it was cool to drive for a bit, the novelty wore off quickly and it was just annoying. You’ll get a lot of people disagreeing with you here but I think you’re right on.
Modern autos have no downsides in trucks. The same is basically true of gas engines. Any modern gasser will last just as long as this Cummins, outperform it, and cost a fortune less in running costs and maintenance.
MT is way more reliable and saves a lot of weight. My buddies have a few. They aren’t easy to drive though – very firm clutch pedals. The seats are cheap and the padding is always completely blown out on the left side of the drivers seat from pushing back thousands of times.
Firm clutch pedal? Allow me to present the ’83 F150 I used to drive with a fully mechanical clutch linkage plus an oversized clutch. THAT was a firm clutch pedal.
The Dodge’s hydraulic clutch linkage is firmer than typical car clutches, but it’s still way too easy for me slam the pedal into the floor without thinking about it.
The Cummins-Dodge is basically a miniaturized medium-duty truck with hydraulic brakes instead of air. Complete with all the rough edges of contemporary MDTs.
It’s entirely possible they had some aftermarket clutch in there.
Oh, it was absolutely an oversize clutch. It drove a shop once because what they ordered wasn’t what was in there once they had it opened up. Basically a Ford part on the “wrong truck” by model/catalog numbers. I was the second owner; the original owner had used it as a work truck for a machine shop, so it had been ordered with heavy-duty leaf springs and the clutch.
At the time, dealers had a back-door way to tack individual orders onto fleet purchases for the Michigan DOT, which was known to order off-catalog configurations. Sometimes ones which resulted in a truck beyond the accepted Federal specs for a model; so basically this was an F150 with an F250’s driveline and springs. But it still had an F150’s five-lug hubs and rear axle. At the time, Federal safety and emissions standards were cracking down on this sort of thing, but some state governments were still getting a pass. So the back-door deal of adding onto the fleet orders was a way to get more truck for less money for as long as it lasted. Figures it would happen in Michigan, where Detroit and its lobbying have forever held sway.
The truck had the 300 straight six, an engine which found its way into virtually every truck model Ford produced at some time during its run. I’ve seen brochures listing it available in the H-1000 “Two-Story Falcon” class 8 semi-tractors of the 1960s. That seems like a tall order (and it didn’t stay in the lineup very long, but it remained in the medium-duty line for decades) but with a big clutch and a whole lot of gears, it worked fine given the lower weight limits of the time. So there was probably a huge catalog of clutches which would fit up to the F150’s engine depending on the transmissions put behind them — more than you’d expect by the 80s and 90s when I owned the truck.
Aside — Putting the 300 I-6 in the H-1000 wasn’t the only thing that might raise eyebrows. Like a lot of trucks of its day, front brakes were optional! And then there was the available “rubber band tandem” drive, which was a setup with one set of driven rear wheels, and the other set driven off of them with a rubber drive belt on big pulleys about the same diameter as the rims. Insane by today’s standards.
In these trucks, the manuals are more for reliability than fun. I’m not sure what breaks more in 2nd gen Rams, dashboards, or auto transmissions. I almost bought a clean rust-free 12-valve with about 200,000 miles and an automatic from a friend. At $5,000 it was going to be a steal, but then another friend swooped in.
Last time I checked, the transmission in the truck died. He had it rebuilt (by AAMCO, which I hear is iffy in my area) just for it to conk out again. He ended up trashing that transmission and spending $8k on a spiffy built auto from a specialist shop. Makes me feel like I Dodge-d a bullet.
Boat ramps are the one place where I think an auto is hands-down the best choice. But for every other purpose, it can be argued that for an old-school skilled truck driver, there’s no problem with a manual.
I’m not dissing anybody, neither car drivers experienced with manuals nor younger drivers who’ve probably driven automatics and automated manuals most of their lives. But as somebody on the high side of half a century who’s also driven trucks and heavy things, there’s a skill with feathering the clutch and the brake on a truck that’s outside the normal stuff that car drivers are trained on with manuals. It’s fast becoming a lost art now that automated manuals are largely taking over the commercial truck space.
These Dodges are “little big trucks” and tend to be driven that way. Allison torque converter automatics had already established themselves in the truck and equipment sector by the time these trucks came out, but Dodge chose to stick with their own (less-stout) automatic. Probably due to cost, weight savings, and city/highway performance expectations. If they’d chosen a little Allison auto, it might have been a whole different story on auto transmission reliability. But the manual would have smoked a period Allison-equipped truck in stop-and-go traffic, highway acceleration, and overall fuel economy. On the other hand, equipping one with an Allsion automatic would have made for a bulletproof heavy hauler that anybody could drive with confidence, and it’s a shame they didn’t.
I towed with a manual for years, I can do it, I have the skills… it just sucks. It’s a better easier time with an auto.
For what it’s worth the Dodge diesel has suuuuch a low 1st gear you can absolutely crawl it up a boat ramp without spinning. You can start in 2nd really easily.
When I was young my parents dragged my two brothers and I on a month long road trip around the western US in a Lazy Daze motorhome with a Mopar 440 that had seen many better days.
One stop was at a friend of my Dad’s who had a sprawling ranch in Montana. He had two identical 5 speed Cummins rams in red, basically identical to the mast picture of this article. I remember riding around town in them thinking they were the coolest thing since sliced bread, because they were. I learned that trip that diesel fuel is a sub-par fire starter.
I worked with a truck company around this time and they bought the automatics as they could haul more due to cooling the transmission
They say “there aint no replacement for displacement” and “when in doubt, more torque”
Get you a little red wagon that can do both! 🙂
Now they are saying that “if your engine needs a turbo, it was not built right in the first place” after Ford put turbos on everything.
Jo: [After her truck is destroyed, looking over at Bill’s truck] Do you have full coverage on that truck?
Bill: Liability only.
Jo: Liability only…Well, it’s a very pretty truck.
I still like to watch Twister every couple of years. The Dodge Ram was the real star of that movie and not even an Oscar nod. Maybe the current Ram will star in Twisters in 2024. Start the statue campaign now.
It’s crazy that Bill buys a brand new Ram 2500 SLT and doesn’t get full coverage.
Agreed. Guess weathermen make enough to buy one cash.
Nice find. A lot of idiots have ruined these trucks. I dont know if it came in the Manual but I prefer the V10. Just a personal preference.
Yes, the V10 came with the manual for at least part of its run. One of the farmers down the road had that setup in a regular cab short bed dually. It was fast, for a mid-90s dually.
If memory serves that V10/manual setup was a sore spot with the 5.9 “sport” 1500 owners because it could walk them easily in a 2500. Nobody buys the shiny sport truck to get outrun by a farm truck.
But then you can’t but a giant CUMMINS sticker on the back window, bro
And something about how Cummin is better than Strokin, which doesn’t really make any sense.
Yes, that was available, and I even saw one on Craigslist a couple years ago for $4000. The cheapest way to get a V10 is the mid to late 90s Ram