2027 Ram 1500 TRX SRT First Test: More Power and Off-Road Punch Equals More Fun

Pros

• Crowd-favorite powertrain
• Brilliant suspension package
• Surprisingly capable hands-off HDA

Cons

• Almost too wide for daily driving
• Predictably poor fuel economy
• Still no dedicated 2WD mode

The automotive industry needs an intervention. It’s fallen into the perpetual hamster wheel trap of maxxing 0–60 numbers and lap times. You get the feeling engineers aren’t sneaking a whoopee cushion under their boss’s chair or goofing off when he or she isn’t looking. When was the last time an automaker built something for fun? The 2027 Ram 1500 TRX SRT certainly feels like it was. It’s an absolute laugh riot on any surface you drive it on, and that means it’s time for us to see how it stacks up against the original TRX and its competitors.

Comparison is often called the thief of joy, but if we zoom out and look at the 1500 TRX SRT and Ford’s F-150 Raptor R, the reality is quite the opposite. The two automakers seem to be the only two that have mastered the concept of a production Baja “super truck.” A bit like Coke and Pepsi, if it weren’t for the R-rated Raptor, we probably wouldn’t have gotten the latest pumped-up TRX.

We digress, and that’s because we needed a few more fact-finding expeditions to see just how well the SRT-treated Ram truck launches, jumps, slides, and otherwise slings dirt-along with our instrumented testing, of course.

Supercharged V-8 Symphony

You may have noticed that we listed the powertrain ahead of the TRX’s suspension in our pros and cons list-and that’s not to say the truck’s kinematics aren’t mind-bogglingly good, because they are. But ask anyone about the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V-8 under the hood, and they’ll have you convinced it runs on angel tears and the block was hewn from 24-karat gold. Of course, there are quite a few V-8s that make the same amount of noise, but few engines manage to feel quite as special as the Ram’s Hellcat-derived V-8. The two-part harmony of the supercharger’s whiny scream mixing with the cross-plane V-8 snarl creates a truly special sound-a classic rock tune that deserves to be cranked up as much as possible.

For the 2027 truck, SRT’s go-fast crew (yes, that still stands for “Street and Racing Technology”) reached into their tool chest to help extract an additional 75 horsepower and 30 lb-ft of torque more than the mill that powered the previous TRX. The biggest modification involved transplanting the valvetrain components from the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye into the TRX. Once the engine was stitched back together, engineers gave the motor extra fuel and air to support the added power. The newly fettled motor draws in 13 percent more air via a redesigned intake system, the 2.4-liter supercharger now flows 12 psi instead of 10 thanks to a smaller pulley, and the injectors shoot an eye-watering 102 psi compared with the previous truck’s 73 psi.

That brings the numbers up to 777 horsepower (at 6,500 rpm) and 680 lb-ft of torque (at 4,800 rpm). To my well-calibrated posterior, it didn’t feel significantly faster than the old truck, and that’s because … the old truck that we flogged for a year wasn’t exactly slow, as you can see below. In our testing, the TRX SRT required 3.8 seconds to do the deed to 60 and 12.5 seconds to reach the quarter mile at 97.3 mph. Allow us to give some additional context between the new and old TRXs (using MotorTrend-specific test data):

(You may have noticed the truck we tested fell short of its Ram-quoted 3.5-second 0–60 time. This could be a combination of factors, but our leading hypothesis is that the truck was running 91-octane fuel instead of 93. It’s unlikely that would be worth three tenths, but it never hurts to retest.)

Bomb-Proof Suspension

A quick peek underneath the wheel arches reveals some of the biggest and beefiest suspension components we’ve ever seen on a road-legal truck. More specifically, the TRX uses the new(er) Bilstein Blackhawk E2 shocks from the Ram RHO with different tuning to deal with the increased heft. The end result is the same borderline pre-runner capability as the truck achieved previously. No, you won’t see it chasing down Baja trophy trucks in San Felipe, but it sits comfortably at about 50 mph over well-traveled OHV trails-those that are wide enough for the TRX, of course.

Like with many sophisticated suspension systems, you don’t fully notice the technology until you need it. This was especially evident when we were evaluating how well the truck handled itself when we got all four tires off the ground, as one does. It laughed at jumps and other features that felt like they would’ve produced enough kinetic energy to fire the dampers through the shock tower and propel them into low-earth orbit. Frankly, if you need more suspension travel and compliance than the TRX SRT offers, then it’s probably time you get your racing license and build yourself a trophy truck.

Putting our test-team caps back on, the truck was surprisingly capable around our paved figure-eight track. While the truck’s dynamics in the air convinced us it was tailor-made to jump, it’s equally impressive when the tires are firmly planted on terra firma. Let’s not forget that the suspension has a massive job: keeping the 6,605-pound truck composed when it arrives at a corner. Posting a 27.7-second lap, the SRT TRX was significantly faster than the legacy TRX, which crossed the line nearly a second slower at 28.4 seconds. However, neither could unseat the F-150 Raptor R, which blitzed the figure eight in just 27.6 seconds.

For those of you who are curious, we did mention extra heft, but according to our scales, the TRX SRT is just 30 pounds heavier than the hurricane-powered RHO-and roughly 100 pounds lighter than the outgoing TRX.

TRX Swan Song?

Test numbers are one thing, but we need to remember that Baja-inspired super trucks like the TRX SRT are inherently special things that aren’t offered forever. If parent company Stellantis’ strategy with its now-departed Challenger is anything to go by, it can giveth, and it can taketh away. We certainly hope there will be several more “final” editions of the truck that continue getting marginally more brash and powerful. We know a certain tuner whose name starts with J and ends with ohn Hennessey, who hasn’t had to work too hard to achieve four-digit horsepower with these motors. Would Ram go that far? We doubt it, but hey, anything’s possible.

Then there’s the potential off-road racing angle. Ram has dipped its toe there before, having achieved a Class 8 victory in the 2011 Baja 1000-with a handful of non-factory entries in the following years. Perhaps it’s time for Stellantis to field an TRX SRT in the 2027 installment? We’ve seen Ford do something similar, durability-testing its Ranger Raptor in the 1000 a number of years back. Whatever it decides to do in the future, in the present at least, this is the type of truck that 777 horsepower dreams are made of-whether you’re jumping it off-road or burning rubber on it.