2022 RAM 1500 Rebel Review _ It's got a HEMI.

The 1500 is the smallest truck Ram makes. Really. Now granted, this is a slightly lifted version, and it is riding on larger tires, but the fact remains that the full-size half-ton pickup is the smallest truck that you can get from the brand formerly known as a subsidiary of Dodge. Chevy offers the Colorado, Toyota's got the Tacoma, Nissan has the Frontier, Ford has the Ranger, not to mention the Maverick. But for Ram, it's go big or go home, and spoiler alert, I don't think you're gonna want to go home. Stick around. And please subscribe to this channel, and quick reminder, you can now sell your car 100% online with CarGurus. Just plug in a little bit of information, we'll source an offer from our network of dealers, we'll pick up your car, and we'll get you paid. The 2022 Ram 1500 lineup is a lot like a boy band. You know how you get the cute one, the funny one, the moody one, and the bad boy? Well, this truck is available in six trims, seven if you count the monster TRX. It starts with Tradesman, the classic no-frills work truck, and goes on up to Limited, which basically puts you in the lap of luxury. We've got the Rebel today, which was the bad boy of the group until the TRX hit the market in 2021. Frankly, it's still pretty mean. It now represents a sort of middle ground between the base Ram 1500 and the TRX, but it's definitely not compromising when it comes to looks. This one looks even cooler thanks to Night Edition, which blacks out the 18-inch wheels, and it has the neat accents from the GT package, which look extra sweet with the flame-red color. But all Rebels get this horseshoe-mustache-shaped grille, this awesome sport performance hood, and these LED headlights that really stare you down. I had the Toyota Supra a couple weeks ago as a tester, and on the dark highway when one of these loomed in my rearview mirror, it's pretty intimidating looking, but when you're behind the wheel and all of this is on your side, it feels awesome. Yeah, as the classic commercial says, it's got a Hemi. This one has the optional 5.7-liter V8 to be exact. It makes 395 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque, and it can tow up to 12,750 pounds. This is the eTorque powertrain, which means it's a mild hybrid. You can also get this engine without eTorque support. That setup is standard on the Limited trim, but in that case you only get 17 miles per gallon combined as opposed to 19 with. There are two other powertrain options for the full lineup. The base engine is a 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 with eTorque, and there's also a 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6, the most fuel efficient of them all at a whopping 26 miles per gallon. The TRX gets an exclusive supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V8 as its standard engine. Do you need the supercharger? Well, it'll get you 702 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, and it will propel a truck that's even bigger than this one from 0-to-60 in 4.5 seconds. That's pretty incredible, but it is hard to imagine that it could possibly sound much better than this. Listen. Every 2022 Ram 1500 gets an 8-speed automatic transmission that works really smoothly, and it feels like the right number of gears for the vehicle so that it's not shifting constantly, which can be very annoying. Everything about this truck is really nice to drive. The steering is shockingly light and nimble for something of this size, which made it very maneuverable in Boston traffic, so I really appreciated that. Coil springs are standard, and they're a nice differentiator for this truck in the class. This one has the optional air suspension, which is also available on some of the other trims, and it's got to be doing a lot of work because this is really an impressively smooth ride, especially for a truck. It's not smooth like glass, but it's soft as if it were rubberized. Everything just feels a little bit dampened, which is nice. It's also a little noisy in here, but in a good way. The sound kind of serves the same purpose as the 12 or so badges that I've counted throughout the interior. It never lets you forget that you're driving a truck. Because this is the more off-road focused Rebel trim, it rides a little higher than the others with a raised suspension and 33-inch tires, and it has an electronic locking rear axle and skid plates and a full-size spare. What it does not have is a front camera, which is a little weird considering the off-road intentions. Let's talk about the cabin instead. Really nice. I would not be upset at all if I called an Uber Black and this arrived to take me to the airport. Plus, with a payload capacity of up to 2,300 pounds and this fancy tonneau cover, it could fit plenty of luggage in the bed. Of course, the lower trims aren't going to be quite as nice, but the flip side of that coin says that the higher trims are going to be even fancier than this. Ram is really putting in the effort to justify that over $50k price tag. We have the Crew Cab today, which offers more passenger space than the standard quad cab. There is plenty of room to stretch out in here, and you could easily manage with people six feet tall in both the front and back rows. Tradesman, Bighorn, and Lone Star trims come with manually adjustable bench seats in front in addition to the usual bench in the back, but the Rebel gets bucket seats up front, and since we have the $2,995 GT package, they're power adjustable and ventilated. The $525 Knight Edition took care of making them heated, and the $595 Comfort and Convenience Group makes the rear seats heated as well. Dual-zone climate control is available starting with Bighorn and standard starting with Laramie. We have it here as part of a $3,200 equipment package, which also includes a heated steering wheel, remote start, power folding mirrors, and several tech features. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are part of that package. They're not standard, not until you get to Laramie trim, and the same is true of Sirius XM and the 10-speaker Alpine sound system that we have. There's also a 6-speaker bass sound system and an available 19-speaker Harman Kardon sound system. The Tradesman models come with the old Stellantis infotainment system Uconnect 3 and a 5-inch touchscreen. Other trims get Uconnect 5 and either an 8.4-inch or a 12-inch touchscreen, which we have here. One thing I really like is that you can turn off the entire screen using this button right here. Turn it back on again when you need it. What I don't love is that the power button on this volume control knob will actually turn the screen off as well. I keep meaning to shut off the music and then losing the whole screen. It's a pretty easy fix. Gauge clusters range from monochromatic with a 3.5-inch display to full-color with a 7-inch reconfigurable display. The head-up display is part of the technology group. It's not standard on any trim. The wireless charging pad is standard on Limited only. It is available from Rebel on up. I really like how it positions your phone. I don't love that you have to get it just right to get it to connect. When it comes to safety features, the Ram 1500 lineup is pretty basic. You're not going to get many of the advanced driver assistance systems that a lot of people have come to expect from a new vehicle in 2022. There's really nothing worth mentioning in the first three trims. The brochure actually lists things like seatbelts and airbags and the rear backup camera. All items that I'm pretty sure they have to include. The Rebel trim gets select speed control, which is really just for off-roading, and it gets forward collision warning, but it's not until you get up to Limited Longhorn that you even see front and rear park assist as a standard feature, and only the Limited trim has blind spot monitoring by default. That's more than $62,000 for a feature that's included on the base Mitsubishi Outlander. I'm actually a little worried that many people on the road have become so dependent on those features that they'd actually represent a threat to others without them. However, you can add a lot of those features through the many available options packages. Personally, I would make darn sure to get the 360-degree surround-view camera. It would be totally worth the $1,695 on the Advanced Safety Group to me, because look how big this thing is. Look at this hood. Let me show you what I'm talking about. You're seeing a six-foot-tall person's perspective right now. You can see me, I can see you, but imagine there's a child here, maybe a six-year-old about this high. As I get closer to the car, the kid gets closer to the car, you can't see that child by the time you get to this point, which is still pretty far away from the truck. I can't reach it. At slow speeds, parking lot speeds, that's probably gonna feel like a pretty safe distance, and yet for a child this high, it's not. Not without a camera. You're really gonna want that front camera. To be completely fair, I do have to mention that the 2022 Ram 1500 did earn an IIHS Top Safety Pick Award, and it scored the maximum number of points in six crashworthiness tests. I just have to imagine that that Top Safety Pick Award is referring to the safety of people in the truck, not people near the truck. The 2022 Ram 1500 starts at $36,500 in its base Tradesman trim. If you go all the way up to the Luxurious Limited, that starts at $62,685, and the high-performance TRX is more than double the cost of the Tradesman, starting at $78,890. Clearly, pricing for the 2022 Ram 1500 runs the gamut, so let's focus for today on this particular trim. The Rebel starts at $54,885, and that puts it in the same territory as things like the Silverado 1500 LT Trail Boss, the Ford F-150 Tremor, and the Nissan Titan Pro 4X, and below the Toyota Tundra TRD Pro and GMC Sierra AT4, all of which I would consider those makes equivalents in terms of fit and purpose. But here's a critical point. The Ram 1500 Rebel that you've seen today does not cost $55,000, and I'm not just referring to the destination fees. With all the appearance and equipment packages, plus the sunroof, the HEMI, and other goodies, this one comes to $76,675, and if you're spending that much, should you just go for the TRX? You'll get more power, more capability, and more comfort and convenience features, but you'll still have to pony up additional cash for leather seats, adaptive cruise control, a head-up display, or blind spot monitoring. Alternatively, you can fully spec out the Rebel, stay just under the entry cost of the TRX, and the trade-off for the difference in power is that you'll save a lot in gas. Let us know what you would do in the comments. Please subscribe to the channel. If you'd like more information on the 2022 Ram 1500, you can read our full written review on CarGurus.com, and remember to check back soon so we drive in something else next week.