After decades hiding in the shadows of aftermarkets parts catalogs and one-off at-home builds, street trucks are so back. We’re talking lowered, sometimes force-fed pickups that can haul the toys and butt with aplomb, optimized for their primary environment: The street. Ford already offers the 700-horsepower FP700 package for V8-powered F-150s, several big tuners have had a crack at the latest half-tons, and now the Ram 1500 Direct Connection is here to dole out some racecar-towing Mopar muscle.
This Ram 1500 street truck is not an in-house vehicle, but it benefits from official distribution. See, it’s built by Fox Factory Vehicles and then sold through Mopar’s Direct Connection program. Considering the program’s previously let people buy full carbon fiber Dodge Charger bodies, Hellcat convertibles, and seven-liter Hellphant crate engines, a Ram 1500 street truck almost seems tame by those standards, and it’s probably the closest thing we’re getting to a spiritual Ram SRT-10 successor.
It all starts with a 5.7-liter Hemi V8-equipped crew cab Ram 1500, then slaps a Whipple supercharger on top and cranks up the output to 650 horsepower and 600 lb.-ft. of torque. From there, a three-inch drop courtesy of Ridetech coilovers gets the stance dialled in over a set of 22-inch wheels, a performance exhaust system brings the noise, and then Fox Factory Vehicles goes to town on the cosmetics.
We’re talking about a front splitter to visually lower the truck further, a rear spoiler, window tint, and all the trim pieces and graphics you can shake a stick at. Inside, this Ram 1500 can be optioned with black leather seats with gold stitching to match the exterior graphics, along with a special console badge and all-weather floor mats. Sure, it might be down on power compared to Ford’s 700-horsepower FP700 package for the F-150, but Ram and Fox Factory Vehicles seem to have cooked up a more cohesive street truck that touches on a little bit of everything just about equally.
Then again, this further treatment also commands a bigger price tag. The Fox Factory Vehicles Ram 1500 Direct Connection carries a price tag of $89,995 including freight, and that’s before you add four-wheel drive for an extra $4,045 and leather for an extra $1,085. Tick those boxes, and the Ram 1500 Direct Connection is knocking on the door of what Ram used to charge for the TRX in its final model year, and that 702-horsepower beast was an entirely different sort of phenomenon. It’s also hard to ignore that adding the $12,350 FP700 kit to a $58,115 Ford F-150 XLT crew cab with the five-liter V8, four-wheel-drive, and 3.73:1 axle ratio produces a substantially less expensive street truck. However, the Ram 1500 feels the most luxurious out of the current half-ton crop, and those graphics do look sweet. Plus, a three-year 36,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty is nothing to sneeze at.
So, if you have money to burn, love a good street truck, and are Mopar-loyal, the Ram 1500 Direct Connection might be just the ticket for you. With 650 horsepower under the hood and proper suspension upgrades, it looks like a good time, and it can still tow 11,320 pounds. Did somebody say Section 179 deduction?
Top graphic image: Fox Factory Vehicles
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
It’s as much of a street truck as the Viper is a minivan or Dank Demoss is a ballerina. But JFC this thing is hideous…
Probably doesn’t need to last more than 3-months/3-cars-and-coffees.*
*and/or street takeovers.
More big vehicles. More gas guzzlers. More of the same. This is what kills them in the future. No forward movement.
I’ve eagerly been waiting for the return of the street truck, they are a bit of a guilty pleasure. But that price…. ouch.
Everyone has said that V8 sedans died out due to CAFE; they could have easily been replaced by street trucks but those died out before sedans did and haven’t returned. If this was basically a truck form of a Scat Pack or Hellcat, I’d be on board, but boy oh boy is it way more expensive.
Can’t wait to be cut off by one of these weaving in and out of highway traffic blasting a lifter tick louder than the supercharger whine
I have a prediction, which is that the truck manufacturers toying with factory street trucks could very well signal a trend that could be applied to the crossover market. The current hotness of course is the soft roader, but now that everyone is doing it and has been for a few years there is going to be a change in what’s cool/desirable and I for one think that change could be lowering an inch instead of raising an inch and doing away with all the cladding.
I honestly could see this being the next thing and for the first one to do it making a killing amongst all the CUV buyers looking for something different. Then everyone will do it and in 7-10 years we’ll be looking for what’s next.
And frankly I’m down with that. Factory “street” crossovers could be a fun alternative. Just make sure fun, bright colors are an option again!
can’t wait for that future, and I think you are right. There’s a clamoring for sportier trucks and suvs I think.
I’m looking for pictures of a street truck here and not finding any. This thing is too tall and too long.
It’s definitely set up more as a family hauler truck than a street truck. Dodge used to build a true street truck with the Ram SRT-10 that was short bed, single cab, RWD, less ground clearance than this, and had summer tires. For good measure they even slapped a big wing on the bed to stop you from trying to use it as a truck. ‘Merica!
When I was in college, this is the kind of stuff that foreign exchange students from the middle east and new Jersey frat boys absolutely loved. Campus was lousy with SRT8 Cherokees, SVT F-150s and Cayenne’s decked out in Gemballa goofiness. One of these students iconically drove a CTS-V through the sign at the main gate. All that to say – there is a whole world of young men with access to unearned money (or credit) that will love this thing.
They’d better be careful with this. Part of what got Nissan in trouble is that a bumper-to-bumper warranty on an Altima covers almost a whole city.
Costs the better part of $100K? And more than that after tax/title/registration? What is a 600-700 horsepower truck good for exactly? Each to his or her own of course, but stuff like this always seems to bring out the worst in drivers.
And the Kia Soul is cancelled? Decent, cheap, well-warrantied, and with a bit of style?
What a dystopia we inhabit. 🙁 Where did the timeline go bad?
When the Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
3 year bumper to bumper warranty… uh, until a catastrophic failure and then they will just try to buy out the warranty and leave ya hanging
Me: I must begrudgingly admit that this is kind of cool
“ The Fox Factory Vehicles Ram 1500 Direct Connection carries a price tag of $89,995 including freight, and that’s before you add four-wheel-drive for an extra $4,045 and leather for an extra $1,085”
Lol. Lmao, even. I think the people that buy six figure trophy trucks already have several, but who knows….there’s never been a better time to be rich than right now
I really hope Nissan makes an EREV pickup.