It’s no secret that America lusts after diesel pickup trucks. Big trucks are all over the place, from the driveways of suburbia to the farms nestled within America’s amber waves of grain. But which one is America’s favorite? If you’re a Ram truck buyer, there’s an incredibly high chance that you will leave the dealership with this, a 2025 Ram 2500 Laramie. This truck is the best-selling variant of the Ram HD, and you’re likely to spend around $85,000 on it before fees. That’s solidly luxury car money, yet I think that in some cases it might be a better buy than a luxury car.
Ram has stormed into 2025 with an updated Heavy Duty pickup truck line. The new 2025 Ram 2500 and Ram 3500 trucks have seen great updates under the hood, and I think that they also get to keep their crowns as America’s most comfy heavy-duty pickup trucks. Sure, Ram’s trucks don’t have the absolute most power or the most capability, but Ram has also placed a great emphasis on being the ultimate vehicle for a wide range of truck buyers.
Back in March, I drove a party of Ram Heavy Duty trucks through the Davis Dam grade, the long, hot drive SAE and engineers use to prove that their trucks can tow the absurd weights these big trucks claim that they can. During that event, I noticed that pricing is all over the place. The 2025 Ram HD lineup starts with the basic Ram 2500 Tradesman 4×2 Regular Cab with a 6.4-liter Hemi V8 gas engine for $45,565. The cheapest diesel is the 2025 Ram 2500 Tradesman with Crew Cab, the 6.7 Cummins, and a 6’4″ box for $62,775. You can easily pile in enough options to get one of these trucks well over six figures.
So, I was curious. Given the huge gulf between the cheapest and most expensive Ram HD trucks, which one is America’s favorite? Which truck is the one that most people end up with when they go into their local Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram dealer? As it turns out, Ram does have a clear answer. When most people buy a Ram HD, they come home with a Laramie adorned with a Cummins.
(Full Disclosure: Ram invited me out to Las Vegas, Nevada, to take its new Heavy Duty lineup on what was more or less an intense 24-hour gauntlet of testing. Ram paid for my travel, lodging (in a weird casino town), good food, and fuel.)
During the Ram event, representatives for the truck maker had some interesting statistics. About 70 percent of people buying a Ram 2500 get it with the Cummins, while nearly all Ram 3500 buyers get it with a Cummins. The majority of gasser 2500s are fleet trucks and Power Wagons, while most of the handful of 3500 gassers sold are also fleet specials. It’s impressive that when it comes to Ram HD trucks, if you’re a regular buyer, you will almost certainly check the box to pay $12,595 extra for a Cummins.
The Ram HD Most Buyers Get
The Laramie is an interesting proposition. It starts at $61,795, or $64,725 if you get it in 4×4 flavor, which a lot of folks do. Toss in the Cummins and you’re at $78,415. Ram says that most Heavy Duty buyers get 4×4 Laramie Cummins trucks, and then they’ll package up favorite features, driving the price up to the ballpark of roughly $85,000 or so before fees, taxes, and so on.
The truck that I drove at the event was configured similarly to what a customer might do to their own truck, but Ram’s reps said they did add a few small extras for demonstration purposes that got the press truck up to $89,950. I break those extra features down later in this story.
The first thing I took note of was that this Ram 2500 was the best-looking of the lot. Ram has introduced a slew of different grille styles for 2025, and some look better than others. The flat black grilles on the Rebels and the Power Wagons are pretty messy, while the standard chrome grilles add a lot of bling. For $2,495, you can equip your truck with the Sport Appearance Package. This adds 20-inch polished aluminum wheels, all-terrain tires, a ‘Sport’ decal, a center hub, a bulging hood, and I think the most important thing: body-color grille surrounds.
Dare I say? This truck looks quite handsome!
There is a bit of a plot twist here because in order to pay $2,495 for the nicer appearance, you are required to also pay either $1,795 for Laramie Level 1 Plus Equipment Group, $2,395 for Laramie Level 2 Equipment Group, or $4,895 for Laramie Level 2 Plus Equipment Group.
These Equipment Groups are largely just the most popular options all piled into one checkbox. My truck had the Level 2 Plus option, which added a ridiculously long list of options from the 17-speaker Harman Kardon stereo and the 14.4-inch infotainment screen to leather seats, auto-dimming exterior mirrors, power blind spot mirrors, limited-slip rear differential, heated second-row seats, and so much more. Throw on that package and the Sport Appearance Package and you’re at $85,755, or about what the average Ram 2500 Laramie buyer spends.
Luxury With A Bed And Trailer Hitch
Honestly, they’re getting a great truck out of the other end. As I drove this truck around Arizona and Nevada, I felt like the queen of the road. I turned on the ventilation of the soft leather seats, cranked up my tunes, and thundered through the desert. As I wrote in my main review, HD pickup trucks are bouncy when they’re unloaded, but the HD Rams are a bit less so than their competition, owing to Ram’s focus more on comfort than best-in-class hauling numbers. I think I could have easily ridden in that truck all day without much fatigue, and after I while I even sort of stopped noticing the suspension.
The comfort went more than just the seats, too. The 2500’s cab was remarkably quiet. I’m not talking library quiet like a flagship luxury sedan here, but so quiet that the only real way to hear the mighty Cummins under the hood would be to open the window. Otherwise, you sort of hear a diesel engine, but the sound is so muted it’s as if you’re hearing the engine through about ten pillows. The steering only adds to the comfort. Oh yes, feel is practically non-existent and I wouldn’t recommend a Nürburgring lap anytime soon, but the steering was accurate and required no work to keep the big beast in a lane. The wheel is even heated to keep your hands toasty on those wintry days.
One note regarding the interior is that the bigger truck doesn’t have a bigger rear seating area. As I noted in my main review, the HD trucks are still using an older cab design compared to the 1500s. As a weird consequence, even the biggest cabs offered by the HD trucks still have a little less room than the 1500s. If you spec your HD with a Mega Cab, you’re looking at 43.1 inches of rear legroom. Meanwhile, a 1500 Crew Cab has 45.2 inches of rear legroom.
If you get your HD with a Crew Cab like the Laramie I tested, then you will see that legroom is reduced to 40.2 inches. I think most people will fit in the back just fine, but you may need to plan ahead if you’ll be filling the truck with a bunch of tall folks.
Of course, trucks like these are also just gargantuan. As I noted in my other pieces on the Ram HD, the bedsides are over my shoulders, and the hood is almost eye level. I think it goes without saying that all big truck drivers should be mindful of their surroundings. Use the cameras, they help!
The fit and finish inside the truck varied in my test unit. Soft-touch surfaces felt pleasing and premium, I think befitting of a vehicle in this price bracket. The hard plastics were a bit more challenging in this regard. For example, the infotainment display is surrounded by plastic dashboard pieces. These looked nice, but I thought that their feel was on the cheaper side for the price on the Monroney. That said, I doubt these are pieces you’ll touch often unless you’re weird like me.
In fairness to Ram, this was also a complaint I had about the 2024 Ford Super Duty F-250 Lariat Power Stroke. Its interior was also very nice on the whole, but had a few cheap areas. If I had to pick, I think I would choose the Ram’s interior over the Ford’s. The Ram feels a little bit more like you’re sitting in a luxury vehicle with a bed and a trailer hitch receiver on the back.
That was a thought I returned to through much of my testing. The Ram 2500 Laramie has most of the features that you’d expect in a luxury vehicle. It has dual-zone climate control, it has heated rear seats, and it has power and automatic everything. A number of automakers today are just adding features and tech for the sake of having more tech, even if you’re not going to use it. I think the Ram 2500 Laramie has just the right amount of content. You will likely use the radar cruise control, the traffic sign recognition is a cool touch, and the giant center touch screen has the most common apps you’ll use.
My Laramie tester had additional neat stuff like a camera overlooking the bed, parking sensors, and even a kind monitor to tell you when you’ve probably been on the road for too long and you should get some sleep. Looking through the build sheet on the tester, the options that got this truck a touch over $89,000 are the metallic paint ($295), the Towing Technology Group ($1,595), clearance lamps ($95), the sunroof ($1,195), and a $1,995 destination charge.
Is this a true hardcore luxury vehicle? I mean, I guess that depends on your benchmark. The luxury cars of today have quad-zone climate, massaging seats, power shades, and can even pump your interior full of soothing noises and aromas. They’re full of fabrics you’ve never heard of, trimmed in nice metals, and have all kinds of RGB lighting. I mean, heck, you can buy a BMW with a huge rear screen that hinges down from the ceiling and has screens in its door panels. We live in an era where car doors can open and close themselves.
But for most people? I think the Ram 2500 Laramie has just the right amount of stuff that they’ll actually use. Most people will be perfectly okay opening their own doors, and maybe you don’t want Alcantara covering a pickup truck, anyway. But, even better, the Ram 2500 Laramie has a lot of goodies that you can consider to be luxurious. Then the truck pairs them with a chunky 6.7-liter Cummins High Output turbodiesel making 430 horsepower and a whopping 1,075 lb-ft of torque and close to 20,000 pounds of towing capacity. It’s a luxury car that can haul a huge load on Monday and then take your spouse out for a nice date on Saturday.
I Understand Why Americans Keep Buying Big Trucks
I can see why some Americans buy just one expensive luxury truck instead of a luxury car plus a cheaper truck. Today’s American pickups have gotten to the level where they could be your work vehicle and your luxury car in one. In a weird situation where I had 85 large and had to spend it on a single vehicle to do everything, I could see myself choosing a high-end truck. I feel weird saying that, too. If you’ve read my work long enough, you know I’m addicted to German cars so much that I’ve subjected myself to Volkswagen Phaeton ownership not just once, but twice!
Of course, half-ton trucks get really luxurious, too, so you could get one of those if you just want a really nice truck and don’t need to pull nearly 20,000 pounds.
Either way, I get it. These trucks command crazy money, but then they’re also just bombastic vehicles. They’re comfortable, they have tons of features, and they can tow a house up a mountain while blasting you with ice cubes as the stereo is cranked up to 11 belting out “Weird Al” Yankovic. Ok, that last one might be me only.
I am in alignment with your aesthetics, in that I think the Dodges are the best looking of the bunch here in the US, but dear Lord!! $85 K? I don’t actually need a pickup truck and one that large would be tough to park in my condo’s garage.
I remember when pickups were cheaper (and admittedly, less luxurious) than the mainstream sedans of the day. I met wealthy ranchers and oil guys in Texas, back in the Teens, and kinda I understood their King Ranch edition Fords. These were the guys who owned the properties. They then, at least, no longer worked on the properties other than to supervise.
But if I had that kind of money, driving a jacked up F-150/250/SuperDuty would not be how I would want to get from Point A to Point B or flaunt my (own, personally, non-existent) wealth.
I like these fancier rigs, but a 2500 is too much truck and it’s too large to daily for me personally.
It’d be nice to see diesel 1500 trucks again, at this point I think the Duramax 3.0 is the only one left.
Cummins could make a small 3-4 liter inline-6 for the Ram 1500 to right the wrong that the V6 Ecodiesel caused.
I know 1500 diesels probably don’t make much economical sense but there’s something so good about that smooth diesel pull and sound in a truck.
You touched on something I’ve noticed in the high end trims of some American trucks/SUVs. There are upgraded materials and the interior generally looks quite nice, but you can tell that materials from base trims are still present. Not a deal breaker or anything, but there’s a noticeable difference between a luxury RAM and, say, a Mercedes or BMW product that was designed from the ground up as a luxury car.