Speak Softly and Carry a Big Six

Ram 1500 RHO HIGHS: Costs less than a TRX, quiet and smooth highway manners, shares the TRX's love of getting dirty. LOWS: Negligible fuel-economy gains, slower than the TRX, former chest-beating exhaust roar now a purr. VERDICT: A balanced package with bona fide off-road chops yet still destined to live in the shadow of a legend.

- Andrew Wendler

HIGH-PERFORMANCE off-road pickups aren't exactly known for discretion. Intimidation comes naturally to these inexplicably lovable brutes. Take, for instance, the departed Ram 1500 TRX. The direct predecessor of the truck you see here, the 2025 Ram 1500 RHO, the TRX had a brazen stance and a 702-hp supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 with a roid-ravaged wail that elicited adulation and derision in equal measure. Wallflowers need not apply.

But, for a confluence of reasons too lengthy to go into here, the TRX's raucous blown V-8 popularly known, of course, as the hellcat— has been replaced by a kinder, gentler twinturbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six dubbed the Hurricane. Here in its most powerful form, the Hurricane produces 540 horsepower and 521 pound-feet of torque. That’s down 162 ponies and 129 pound-feet from the late, great V-8, but the six puts all the torque to work at a very accessible 3500 rpm, a full 1300 rpm lower than the V-8 it replaces.

As a side benefit, the aluminum-block six is lighter than the iron-block V-8 that formerly resided within the frame rails. On our scales, the RHO weighed in at 6541 pounds, 240 less than our long-term TRX.

Based on the presence of fewer cylinders and modern sophistications such as direct fuel injection, we hoped the sensible six would yield some supernatural gains in fuel economy, but we averaged just 11 mpg—4 mpg less than the RHO’s 15mpg EPA combined estimate. Actually, it matches the number we observed over 40,000 miles with the TRX.