New Ram builds reputation at Texas truck rodeo

Posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 9:10 AM EDT.

Narrator
The 2009 Dodge Ram came to the Texas Auto Writers Association Truck Rodeo last weekend – ready to take home a big win. After all the votes were counted on Sunday—Ram had indeed rolled into first place as the Full-size Pickup Truck of Texas. The  Dodge RamBox^TM was also judged the Rodeo’s most  outstanding feature. Standing out among more than a dozen top competitors, brings with it a whole lot of Texas truck ‘cred.’

Dan Bodene
Truck Communications
It means a lot in terms of exposure for the truck because all of the journalists here will write about it, and therefore they can influence more purchases. It’s big for the dealers because they can advertise these awards. These are extremely prestigious awards, the TAWA awards, and dealers can make a lot of good publicity out of that. Winning something here is very big in terms of our sales in Texas.

Narrator
The TAWAS truck competition is huge for trucks of all sizes-from light to heavy duty, and includes CUVs—all the way from basic to luxury packages. The judges had their work cut out for them.

Harold Gunn
President-TAWA
We’ve tried to make our ballot as fair as possible for people to express what they like, and it’s going to be different for some people. Some people, they maybe start with what’s between their ears and work down. I start with my rear end and work up ‘cause I’m really about ride and handling. There’s nothing pre-conceived. We enjoy vehicles. Everybody here really enjoys this, so they’re trying to be as fair as they can be in assessing what they like. You’re looking at a state that’s approximately 94 percent privately owned. We have the land, and we work it, so we need these vehicles, and we know them. This is definitely truck country.

Narrator
Chrysler Vice Chairman and President Jim Press said everything about the ‘09 Ram was designed with the country’s toughest truckers in mind from the get-go.

Jim Press
Vice Chairman and President
Texas customers are the most demanding, and really the most sophisticated truck customers, and if you can satisfy their palate, you can satisfy anyone. Innovation, creativity and engineering is what sets up apart. You take our truck—take a look at the aerodynamics of it, the weight savings, the fact that we get our best mileage from our biggest legendary HEMI^® engine. The coil suspension in this vehicle is absolutely ground-breaking. It gives you a ride like no other truck can give you. Or the RamBox^TM …all those options. You get inside and it’s like sitting in a movie theater. So what we’ve done is a lot of thought, a lot of engineering innovation, and it’s beautifully put together. The manufacturing of that truck is flawless.

Narrator
I’m Betty Carrier Newman reporting.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 9:10 AM EDT and is filed under Company and tagged Video. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed.