1988 Dodge Ram - It Is What It Is

For years leading up to the debut of the '94 Ram, Dodge was a perennial distant third to Ford and GM. A large part of that was because Chrysler had far fewer vehicle options than the Big Two had what with their perpetual limiting of different bed lengths, drive trains and cab sizes. Things had gotten so out-of-hand that by 1993, while Ford and GM garnered combined sales of nearly one million pickups, Chrysler sold approximately eighty-thousand Ram's. I found this '88 Ram recently sitting in the broken down storage shed on the property of where I work. Please. I know.

I've given up explaining the inexplicable and deplorable condition of this storage facility of sorts. I'm at this job just over a year now and I almost don't even "see" it anymore.  Almost. I only really notice it when someone who hasn't seen it before is like, "the hell is this"? I reason that it doesn't do anyone any harm so what's the big deal. If anything it adds unfiltered charm to these early morning photographs of this Ram that might be in worse shape than the shed. I got the story was to why it's here and it's a jumbled, boring mess. Why it's here is doesn't matter. For the purposes of my blog the only thing that matters is that it is here.

Our '88 here is part of the 1981 class of Dodge trucks that traces it's design roots back to the Dodge's 1972 D-Series. While all pickup trucks of this vintage were slabby, the Dodge's were the slabbiest of the slabby. There is a simplicity to the styling that's endearing - to a point. There's something about a truck, as they say, right?

The big engineering breakthrough for '81 was Chrysler offering Borg-Warner automatic locking hubs on four-wheel drive models they called "Power Rams". Prior to '88 owners manually locked hubs at the wheels themselves. Seems as brutally crude as crank starting engines but that's what folks did for years back then. Buyers seemingly just happy to have access to four-wheel drive and put up with the inconvenience.

Pickup trucks didn't so much evolve years ago as much as they went through revolutionary change once every eight to ten years or so. Their buyers are fiercely brand loyal and don't like seismic change - even if it would somehow make their lives easier. Trucks are also expensive to engineer so as long as sales are good and margins are fat why mess with a good thing.

Christened "RAM" in the earliest days of the Iaccoca administration using an axiom Chrysler hadn't used on their trucks since the '50's, like I said what with Chrysler all but abandoning the market over the years by 1988 these came with only one cab size and two bed lengths. This is a bone stripped "Ram" with two-wheel drive, no AC, a four-speed (with over-drive) and, much to the delight of engine geek me, Chrysler's "three-nine" V-6 engine.

Chrysler developed this engine for their new-for-1987 Dakota series of small or mid size trucks and they used it in their full size Ram's as the base engine starting 1988 replacing the "Slant-Six". A "318" V-8 with two cylinders lobbed off, it has split crank pins to quell some of the vibration inherent in ninety-degree V-6 engines. It was never the smoothest of operators even with the split pins; with a manual it was even worse since there was no torque converter to help dampen the shakes. Chrysler never used it in cars.

Holley throttle body fuel injection helped it make one-hundred eighty horsepower and some two-hundred forty pounds of torque. Not bad for something Chrysler put together quickly and as inexpensively as possible. They built these for thirteen model years and while certainly not the near forty-year run of the "Slant-Six" it replaced it was still somewhat admirable given the circumstances it was originally baked up in.

Somewhat ironically much in the same way I guess 1970-1974 Plymouth Barracuda's and Dodge Challengers are the end all and be all of the classic car world, a Dodge Ram of this vintage in good condition is worth a heck of a lot more than a '94 Ram in similar shape. Safe to say even this basket case is worth more than a rusted out '94 Ram would be.

I'm not sure why that is either but I "get it" like I "get" how a 1970 Challenger is so much more valuable than a 1978 Challenger is; even if the '78 Challenger is a far superior automobile. There's a 1989 Dodge Dakota sitting to the right of this Ram, it's greenish blue and you can make it out if you look closely enough. It's been there for the entire time I've been at this job and it's never once occurred to me to blog about it. And I'm not going to either. Why? Because it is what it is.