2010 Ram Power Wagon
With the somewhat recent debut of the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor off-roader, it’s tempting to draw parallels between it and the Ram Power Wagon. But for all their similarities, these are beasts of a different breed.
First offered as part of the 2005 (Dodge) Ram Heavy Duty lineup, the Power Wagon is just as much a hard-core off-road machine as the Raptor, but the target audiences share only their distaste for pavement. For the Raptor, home turf is the low-lying deserts, places where it can flex its suspension at 100 mph over sand washes and scrub. The Power Wagon, though, answers a higher calling and makes its home climbing mountains and patrolling the back roads of our highest altitudes, not our lowest.
For everything the Power Wagon offers, though, there are a few options we’re left pining for. The redesigned-for-2010 package can only be ordered with the Crew Cab four-door body and 6.4-ft. bed, making the truck simultaneously too long for the most serious off-roading while handicapping customers who need the load space of the 8.2-ft. box. The Power Wagon also is only offered with the 5.7L 383-hp Hemi gasoline V-8 engine and its 400 lb.-ft. of torque and the five-speed automatic. The combination is more than enough to pull the rig through most any situation, but we can’t help but wish the legendary Cummins turbodiesel were available, and maybe a stick shift.
The recipe to build a Power Wagon is rather simple. Start with a $39,430 Ram 2500 SLT Crew Cab 4×4 and mark the $6,350 option box innocuously titled “Customer Preferred Package 26P.” For a base price of $45,780, you walk out the door with an old-school manual transfer case on the floor, lockable front and rear axles, a remote-disconnecting front stabilizer bar, skid plates on the fuel tank and transfer case, a Warn winch up front and a high-output alternator to run it, Bilstein shocks, a trailer brake controller and tow hitch, 17-in. wheels wrapped in 32-in. all-terrain tires, a 2-inch lift, and a 4.56 rear axle ratio.
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