While Trump and Elon Do the Fish Slapping Dance, Dodge Reintroduces the Hemi V-8 Ram

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While Trump and Elon Do the Fish Slapping Dance, Dodge Reintroduces the Hemi V-8 Ram 1

See the kind of totally cool news you miss if you watch the spat between the big kids… 

Oh, SHUT UP ALREADY

…instead of the rest of what’s going on in the world?

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Trump and Elon can duke it out over who got who elected (I’m ‘Team Trump’ with an able-bodied Musk assist), but there’s no denying the changes in the world since Trump WAS elected.

Good ones at that.

This sort of goes hand-in-glove with the post I had earlier about Elon’s Chinese competitors and their flaming ocean-going cargo boat of EVs.

Had Trump not prevailed in November and the geriatric, dessicated sack of carbon’s mentally challenged assistant and her brain-damaged running mate taken the win, we would all be well on our way to privileged folks being allowed to have an EV in their taxed driveway, timed waterflow of lukewarm streams from EPA-approved shower heads, electricity rationing for those whom had caved and converted to all-electric, and no bug rations for those who once had natural gas and refused to surrender it.

They would have frozen to death with it turned off in the name of the planet.

We missed all that by the hair of our chinny chin chins, praise Jesus.

And you know what we’ve got?

Freedom of CHOICE returning.

The stuff that screams ‘By God, AMERICAN’ is returning.

And corporate heads admitting, well, yeah – we kinda effed up.

No, you didn’t. You had to bend the knee. I get it.

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I am delighted to see it’s straightening out so fast, and, after convincing the Portuguese Stellantis CEO to leave, they’ve brought back the American former head of Dodge to do it, Tim Kuniskis.

Ram resurrects Hemi engine for popular pickup trucks in ‘Symbol of Protest’

 Stellantis said Thursday it is resurrecting its popular V-8 Hemi engine for its Ram 1500 full-size pickup trucks beginning this summer.

The company discontinued the 5.7-liter engine amid tightening fuel economy regulations and a companywide push toward electric vehicles and more efficient engines last year under ex-Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis, who unretired from the automaker late last year, admitted the decision to cancel the Hemi engine for its popular consumer-focused Ram 1500 was a mistake.

“Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle them defines you. Ram screwed up when we dropped the Hemi — we own it and we fixed it,” Kuniskis said in a press release. “We’re not just bringing back a legendary V-8 engine, we’re igniting an assertive product plan and expanding the freedom of choice in powertrain for our customers.”

The announcement marked the latest reversal in automakers’ plans this year, as EV adoption has been slower than expected and as the Trump administration has sought to unwind many of former President Joe Biden’s initiatives to push the auto industry away from gas-guzzling internal combustion engines.

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Stellantis, the owner of Dodge, has had its Bud Light moment and is done with it.

You will be forgiven for thinking Ram is down and out these days. The brand killed the Hemi V-8 that was a highlight of its 1500 full-size pickups, stopped building the affordable (but old) Ram Classic, and had a difficult launch of the Hemi-less 2025 Ram 1500 that included problems getting trims with all the bells and whistles out the door while also trying to start producing new Heavy Duties at the same plant. EV plans were pushed back, both for the range-extending Ramcharger and the entirely battery electric Ram 1500 REV. It adds up to a bad stretch for a brand critical to parent company Stellantis’ U.S. fortunes.

The company is now talking about what customers want, not what the company wants to give customers, and/or the government will allow customers to have.

…Unlike previous generations of the truck, the new vehicle will not feature “HEMI” on the side. Instead, the company has created a new badge that features a ram’s head coming out of a Hemi engine that it’s calling its “Symbol of Protest.”

The new logo and name are an effort to regain customers who may have decided not to buy a Ram truck because the company attempted to push more efficient engines and EVs on them.

“They hate the fact that we took away the freedom of choice,” Kuniskis said at a press briefing. “We, as Americans, probably even more so truck buyers, hate the fact that we said, ‘This is the choice you get.’”

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WE, AS AMERICANS, HATE BEING TOLD ‘THIS IS WHAT YOU GET’

Damn straight.

Or what we’re ‘allowed.’

Holy smokes. This is awesome.

Okay. 

Back to Trump and Elon.

Posted in Republican News