Just five years ago, contractors around the country were awash with choice in the midsize commercial van market. There were two solid options from domestic automakers, with the Ford Transit Connect and the Dodge ProMaster City. Or, if you wanted to be a bit fancier, Mercedes-Benz would sell you a Metris.
Then, in the summer of 2022, something happened. In the span of two months, between August and September, all three of those automakers announced they’d be discontinuing their respective midsize commercial vans. By the end of 2023, the entire segment had been killed off, leaving buyers to either shop used, buy a van that was too big for their needs, or purchase a normal passenger van and use it for commercial purposes.
Now, four years after killing the ProMaster City, Ram has decided that there’s now enough of a market to resurrect it. As before, the new version will be based on a van built in Europe, rebadged and upfitted to cater to the North American market. And honestly, it seems like the smartest decision Stellantis has made this year.
A Van That Goes By Many Names
Stellantis, the parent company for brands like Jeep, Dodge, Ram, and Chrysler, is a very big company. In addition to its American arm, it also controls several big-name manufacturers in Europe, including Citroën, Peugeot, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Vauxhall, and Lancia. That means it had plenty of existing platforms to choose from when deciding to revive the ProMaster City for 2027.
The van it chose has actually been around since 2016, and has been sold under no fewer than seven different brands and 13 different names. Here, let me list them all out for you:
- Citroën Dispatch
- Citroën Holidays
- Citroën SpaceTourer
- Fiat Scudo
- Fiat Ulysse
- Iveco eJolly
- Opel Vivaro
- Opel Zafira Life
- Peugeot Expert
- Peugeot Expert Traveller
- Peugeot Traveller
- Toyota Proace
- Toyota Proace Verso
- Vauxhall Vivaro
My point is, the new ProMaster City isn’t really new. In fact, it’s pretty old, as far as product life cycles go. But that matters a lot less for commercial vehicles, where proven dependability, functionality, and parts availability are a lot more important than cutting-edge tech and modern design. Stellantis says it’s sold 1.5 million of these things, which means that when someone buys a ProMaster, they’ll know they’re not a guinea pig or an early adopter risking downtime when something silly breaks that wasn’t discovered in testing.
Speaking of design, the 2027 ProMaster City unsurprisingly shares a lot of its design with the vans mentioned above, save for a modernized fascia with specific Ram-style headlights and a new, modernized Ram badge across the nose. As far as work vans go, this one is pretty smartly designed, with short overhangs for good forward visibility and high-mounted bumpers, so the plastic is the first thing that gets hit in a tight workspace, not the headlight.
Like its predecessor, the new ProMaster City is a unibody vehicle with a transverse engine up front, sending power to the front wheels. There’s space-saving MacPherson suspension flanking the powertrain, and a trailing-arm style independent setup in the rear. Containing the driveline to the nose means a low, flat floor that, according to Ram, adds up to 167 cubic feet of cargo capacity. The load floor is over nine feet long and can handle stuff like standard 4×8 plywood sheets, pallets, and sheetrock with ease.
The engine is a 1.6-liter inline-four mated to an eight-speed auto, making a respectable 166 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque. Nothing mind-blowing, obviously, but enough to get the job done for what these types of vans are used for. All in, Ram says the ProMaster City can handle 2,000 pounds of payload capacity and tow 2,000 pounds. While any mid-size pickup can beat that, you have to remember this isn’t a large vehicle—it’s basically the size of your average passenger minivan. That means it can do all of these things while being able to fit in normal car locations, such as garages.
Despite the van’s age, there’s a bunch of modern tech onboard, including forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking, a digital rear-view mirror, a 10-inch digital gauge cluster, and a 10-inch infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
The Right Van At The Right Time
The timing for Ram’s ProMaster City revival almost seems scripted. Just last week, I wrote about how demand for minivans is up by 20%, and not just because families and road trip addicts are realizing vans are the best way to get around with a bunch of stuff and people.
I asked Stellantis exactly who it found was buying its vans, and a representative told me that, increasingly, it saw that Pacifica buyers were gig economy workers such as Amazon drivers or GrubHub delivery workers, or construction workers who appreciated the fact that you could fit a sheet of plywood in the rear of the Pacifica.
Realizing the hole in the market left by the midsize segment back in 2023, and seeing the increased demand from people who need a van exactly like this, the company probably realized it could rebadge a van in its overseas fleet and engineer it to work for North American customers without spending too much money on development. The result is a new ProMaster City that happens to be related to that funky eight-passenger Fiat van that shuttled you from the Florence airport to the Tuscan villa on your last vacation to Italy seven years ago. And that’s totally fine! The more vans, the better.
Speaking of shuttling, the new ProMaster can be optioned as a bare-bones cargo carrier or as a passenger vehicle, with either five or eight seats. You can also option windows or blank metal plates in the window sections, depending on your use case. Likewise, there are two trim levels: a base Tradesman model that gets unpainted bumpers, or an SLT trim with painted bumpers, parking sensors, a wireless phone charger, and 17-inch aluminum wheels.
Stellantis plans to build the Ram ProMaster City at the same place where all of the other versions of this van are built, at its assembly plant in Bursa, Türkiye. Despite the shipping costs, the company claims it’s targeting a base price under $40,000, which would make it cheaper than the most basic Pacifica (formerly known as the Voyager). If that does end up being the case, Ram could have a real winner on its hands, especially because it has no direct competitors.
Top graphic image: Ram
Are ProMasters known for unreliability? Our local CDJR always has a flock of Amazon delivery vans lined up at the service bays. I suppose it could be for normal maintenance but…. Maybe these will be better?
Those Amazon vans run 10 hour days 7 days a week. I bet they hit their maintenance cycles very quickly.
At least locally, it seems like Amazon drivers hit just about everything too. I’m constantly seeing Rivian vans and various other Amazon vans with missing body panels, messed up wheels/tires, roofs caved in…
And then I also see them parked at various auto body locations around my mid-sized city, for what I presume is body repairs… unless they just happen to be making extended deliveries.
Amazon drivers are just hard on vehicles. Where I live, we have some horrific speed bumps. I have to slip my clutch to get over them without scraping. The Amazon drivers don’t even brake for them, they just fly over them with the sliding doors still open. The guy that sold me my old Mercedes W210 was a Mercedes tech, and he said that Mercedes instructs them to deny Sprinter warranty claims for failed window motors if there is corrosion present, due to Amazon often drivers keeping the windows open in the rain.
The only thing it’s missing is optional AWD or 4WD.
That probably compromises the low flat floor?
AWD Sprinter still has a flat floor I believe.
Also, the aftermarket conversions to make a Chevrolet Express 4×4 doesn’t impact the floor, but that’s a different animal entirely.
Also there once was an AWD Express that was sadly discontinued
The Promaster is just a Fiat Ducato which has never been engineered for AWD/4WD. It has a transverse mounted engine which makes AWD more challenging, especially since the Promaster/Ducato design prioritizes low load floor more than it’s competitors.
AWD is fun but the reality is that a $10k premium isn’t worth it when a front drive platform with good tires will do fine in most crummy weather.
There are 4wd Promasters – a coworker has one. Fiat does farm it out to a 3rd party though.
I stand corrected! looks like it is available as AWD in some markets. I’m racking my brain to think of a transverse 3.6 Pentastar truck-appropriate transfer case. It’s been used in cars with AWD but no truck instance AFAIK.
In any case, the Transit is the segment leader in the states and AWD units aren’t particularly big sellers. I’d imagine that it would be even more challenging for a struggling Stellantis.
Some info if you are interested
https://www.dangel.com/sites/www.dangel.fr/files/pdf/EN/Fiat/DUCATO%20V50_caracteristiques%204x4_ENG.pdf
A quick look at Dangel’s website shows that mechanical 4×4 is no longer offered and they have switched to an e-Axle in the rear for 4×4.
The AWD Sprinter has a flat floor, but I believe the floor sits higher than for instance on the FWD Promaster. The Chevy aftermaket 4x4s I’ve seen are also lifted (but I’m sure there are multiple versions out there). For delivery purposes I’d assume the lower the floor the better.
Depends. e-AWD wouldn’t be hard to add.
Stellantis be stellantising. Stellantizising? Stelli?
First the new nose on the Pacifica and now the modernized Ram logo. Is it just my imagination or has Stellantis hired some designers away from Kia?
That said, this is a nice looking little van that should serve the market better than the Doblo-based PMC.
I like this, a cargo Pacifica aka Ram C/V would have been easy but not as purpose-built.
I wonder if this means they’ll drop the 118″ wheelbase ProMaster. It’s about the same length as this.
This is apparently the only version of this van to get the gas 1.6T engine.
Also wonder if this opens the door for the electric version down the line.
I was wondering why they made this van quite so big when the smallest ProMaster already exists, and in the USA is not subject to the chicken tax. Will the lower width and height of the new PMC be enough of a differentiator for buyers? This thing is already longer than the Pacifica.
Although in regard to the chicken tax, I can see some commercial buyers simply choosing the passenger model to avoid it, since unlike the previous PMC, this one has easily removable seats.
Isn’t it ~8″ shorter than the Pacifica (at least in Euro form)? But the point stands and to add to that there’s a shorter wheelbase version that measures about 181″ long. Guessing the cost difference between them is nil if they’re only planning to bring one length. And perhaps part of the plan is to use passenger versions to replace some Voyager fleet sales.
I assume this would get better city/mixed mileage than the Pentastar ProMaster even though those aren’t officially rated. Perhaps that counted against it for fleet calculations too, not sure how “unratings” might factor in.
We’re only getting the extended length version here in the USA. I don’t know the exact dimensions of the shorter version, but I remember the previous PMC was dinged for not being able to fit a 4×8 sheet of plywood (or any material). But that would fit in a Pacifica.
My mistake, there’s actually two extended lengths – I defaulted to the 195″ length not the 209″ that we’re getting, as both lengths use the same longer wheelbase.
The old PMC was roughly in the middle of the two wheelbases and 187″ long (which I always think it was shorter, more like the SWB Transit Connect when Ford offered both sizes).
But I figure it’s all a “go big or go home” thing to start and maybe they’re going to focus group offering a smaller size down the line.
Other possibility is balancing it with the upcoming midsize pickup. This is bigger than a Maverick (or the Rampage) but a bit smaller than a Ranger or Tacoma.
Right; even if they own the segment with this, it’s still not going to be a massive seller by truck standards. So I’m sure they workshopped it to death and figured that this would be the best all-around version to offer in the US or NA market for now.
Welcome back, Grand Caravan. We missed you.
A basic van with A/C and cruise control will go a LONG way with both commercial fleets and budget-minded families.
This is probably Stellantis’ smartest move all year
I knew going into it I shouldn’t get my hopes up (because Stellantis), but I’m really waiting on a slightly smaller minivan to replace my Mazda5.
Unfortunately, this isn’t it. It’s over 2 feet longer than the old Promaster City, and longer and taller than the Sienna. I like the Transit Connect, but the engine feels undersized and I’d hate to throw 2k of payload or 2k of towing onto it. In Europe a van this size might get away with a 1.6(!)L engine, but it’s going to feel woefully undersized here.
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/fiat-doblo-2015-5-door-van-lwb-vs-toyota-proace-2016-van-l2/
Come on, car makers. Give us a good van.
Agreed, with a ton of cargo and a couple of passengers, it will probably move very slowly. Bump the displacement up a bit and it would do much better.
If it sells well, Stellantis may bring some more interesting European vehicles stateside. Chrysler, in particular, really needs them.
Yeah, at this size “mini”vans really need the full-fat V6 or preferably a hybrid option (Toyota setup, not Kia setup).
This would be a compelling Sienna alternative with the Sienna drivetrain since it’s less ugly and more practical, but it needs more grunt.
A hybrid setup with that instant torque electric motor assist / low speed driving similar to the Maverick/Escape/Rav-4 and any other well designed hybrid would be a nice option.
Even better would be a PHEV/e-rev.
.
The torque number looks good for what it has though there’s no word on efficiency or speed. I wonder if it’s a slouch? A a basic hybrid variant should be an available option that presumably would be a step up in performance as well as MPG.
Looking back, I drove the 1.6 Ecoboost Transit Connect, which is pretty similar setup to this but with less torque (184 lb-ft). It was smaller than this and could definitely use a bump in power, so I think the 210 lb-ft here likely isn’t quite enough for such a large vehicle.
I fully agree the way to go is the Toyota/Ford hybrid setup. Ford teased the idea of a Maverick based TC replacement, which if it was similar size to the last TC and had the hybrid with 4k towing and AWD I would buy it new. But I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve never heard of IVECO before – somebody (hint hint) should do a story on them. the eJolly is an all electric version of the van too — so that’s ready for RAM if the demand is there for urban deliveries with known duty cycles.
Iveco primer:
…IVECO’s journey began in 1975 with the union of five leading European industrial vehicle manufacturers, bringing together over 150 years of engineering expertise and innovation. Through acquisitions and partnerships, it has become a major player in road transportation on the world stage. Today, IVECO is part of Iveco Group that represents seven brands, each a leader in its sector, offering a comprehensive range of commercial vehicles, powertrains, buses, and specialist vehicles…
I’m surprised you’ve never seen an IVECO box truck (assuming you’re from North America or Europe). I started seeing IVECO trucks here in the USA back in the 80s. They even had a TV ad campaign for a while!
Wait, we got Ivecos in the ’80s? You’ll occasionally see an old Peterbilt-badged VW, or an Isuzu (sometimes badged as a Chevy or GMC), or a Mack-enized “Club of Four” truck (as they got bought by Renault), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Iveco in the US, or even heard of them being here.
…hang on, I found it! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iveco_Zeta
Iveco had a surprisingly strong presence down here in Baja Arizona before they left the USDM. I’ve seen a few EuroTurbos on FB Marketplace and until 2017 a local hiking area even ran them as shuttles.
I would probably move past this at that price point. a base LX Carnival is a few grand under 40K.
I think Stellantis has the right idea though, take some of the good stuff from Europe, but build it in Mexico if we can’t pay enough to make money on one of these little fellers at 30K max. Honestly a bare bones mini work van should be closer to 25K I feel like. All of the tooling should be paid for if this was a 1.5 million unit sales thing in the EU.
“the new ProMaster can be optioned as a bare-bones cargo carrier or as a passenger vehicle, with either five or eight seats”
It that how they’re getting around the Chicken Tax? I thought they closed that loophole?
great question!
Well the passenger versions wouldn’t be subject to the Chicken Tax, but yeah importing all of them as passenger vans and converting them to cargo vans at the port won’t cut it. But with the price expected staring price of $40k they can afford to pay the Chicken Tax on the cargo versions.
This is one case where it could make sense for commercial operators to buy the passenger version: Unlike previous small commercial vans available here, this one is designed with easily removable seats in both rear rows. That design decision obviates the need for port conversions. (The buyer now having the burden of figuring out what to do with the removed seats is literally a small price to pay.)
Yeah I don’t understand why Ford decided to pull the seats and side glass and install the blanking panels at the port. Seems to me they should have sent them to the dealer and sold them with the seats.
Then they could offer blanking panels in their accessory catalog so dealers could sell them and install them after the sale. Or to even further remove them from the conversion just provide the specs to upfitters.
They pay the tax. Right now the tariff on a passenger car from Europe is 17.5% so trucks and vans aren’t that different.
Built in Turkey. Does Turkey count as part of Europe? As I understood it, it’s Trump Tariff + Chicken Tax, not one or the other.
Part of Turkey is in Europe. They are not a member of the EU but they are part of the European custom union.
Whether or not tariffs stack varies by mood and day.
Which one is better, the Turkey Tax or the Chicken Tax?
They’re both fowl.
French delivery van. Reminds me of one of my favorite commercials.
“The bourgeoisie businessmen waiting for their packages . . .”
https://vimeo.com/103735330?fl=pl&fe=sh
I would not hate a Citroen H, well until I tried to live with it I suppose. but for now I at least dig it’s lack of style, style.
Got a spare $39K or so?
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/d/petaluma-1975-citron-hy-van-very-rare/7918932566.html
Good Loord, 10 years off the road, and never actually registered? That soundslike a nightmare to make useful. but it is kind of nice looking.
Hah! I even remember that commercial! Chuckle worthy then and now. The classic Citroen running over one of the packages at the end, *chef’s kiss*. Had a college buddy with a similar era Citroen back in the day.
This might be my favorite vehicle launch of the whole year. Not just a small work van, but one that looks like a stunner! When’s the press drive?
They’ll send you to Death Valley in July to make up for February in Vermont
Where, inexplicably, the engine will somehow fail to get to running temperature. lol
My 9th grade French teacher would physically assault me if I wrote the French text in that lede photo.
When are we going to get the series of articles we’ve all been clamoring for? The RAM Promaster Debate Series
Totally useful for small businesses, lock your tools up in the van to protect from theft and the weather – where a pickup truck would be far less useful.
Despite being from 2016, it still seems fresher and more modern than its also-from-2016 Chrysler Pacifica corporate cousin.
This is probably the smartest decision that Stellantis has made in years. Granted that’s setting bar so low it’s a tripping hazard in hell, but still, with no real competition they will basically own this, admittedly small, corner of the automotive landscape.
That being said, now waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out how they are going to screw this up…
“Bar so low it’s a tripping hazard in hell”
Thank you, will be stealing that. Lots of use cases these days.
The full phrase, as I heard it years ago was, “The bar was set so low it was a tripping hazard in hell, but here we are once again, limbo dancing with the devil.”
Always good to have an enhancement for the most severe situations.
Dispatch would be a cooler name for it, but sadly not on brand for RAM I suppose.
Opportunity for a Dodge edition.
idk, Alfa Romeo Dispatch sounds pretty cool to me
But drivers hate dispatchers. I doubt they wanna drive one anywhere other than into a pole.
Ce truc a un moteur Hemi?
(Courtesy of Google translate, so don’t come at me)
it fits one in the back!
Like that Transit with the XJ220 powertrain??!!??!!??
You could’ve told me!
Excuse my poor Google translate French, but…
“Si les femmes ne te trouvent pas beau, elles devraient au moins te trouver bien utile.”
(…also trying to imagine this in Possum Van livery is hard with the big bulbous nose.)
Includes a free roll of duct tape.
With enough house paint and duct tape, it’s doable.
It’s more a problem of proportion: where do you start spraypainting the teeth in? It was easy when it had a big grille and that nice steel bumper. Now the whole front end is bumper.
The fact that they used the bumper on the original as teeth always bothered me a little bit, so I think the new design should be even easier to incorporate the possum motif. It even looks a bit rodent or marsupial-like already.
I’d paint the front grille/air intake area below the headlamps white and red, and draw in an open mouth with teeth. The black plastic parts at the outboard ends would shape the edges of mouth.
I’d paint eyebrows on the hood like the original, and the legs would largely match the original.
The new one benefits from having the headlights/eyes higher than the grille (which predicated using the bumper for the mouth, I would guess), so now the space between the headlamps can properly be the nose shape instead of using the hood. The headlights are also already squinting, which matches the open-mouth aesthetic of the grille/air intake area.
Fascinating that this is how they get European minivans here. Some passenger, some cargo. Any good camper vans already designed for these things? Is Stellantis worried about taking away Pacifica sales?
Are they eating the chicken tax on this thing? I remember when Ford was building the Transit in Spain and importing them as passenger vans then removing the seats at the port.
Maybe with all the latest round of random tariffing, that it stops mattering as much.
They have to be. Ford got slapped with an almost $1 billion fine for trying that passenger van to cargo van trick.
It also will never sell enough volume in the USA to justify local assembly.
I disagree. If they built it in North American, had it share common parts with a vehicle like the Escape and it is CUSMA-compliant and then sell it for a reasonable price, I think it could sell very well.
The reason why they didn’t sell well in the recent past is because they were grossly overpriced for what they were.
Ram has nothing in the USA to share a platform with.
The Transit Connect shared the C2 platform with the Escape, Focus and C-Max. The current Transit Connect is a rebadged VW so there is no way it is coming here. If Ford was going to do a new Transit Connect for the USA they could base it on the Maverick / Bronco Sport platform but the problem is they have no excess capacity. The factory is already running 3 shift cranking out Bronco’s and Mavericks. So we are back to adding manufacturing capacity just for the Connect.
As to price. The Connect was $2K more than the Escape when it was available. It was made in a lower cost country (Spain) and imported with a 2.5% tariff. You aren’t going to get a cheaper van making it in the USA with $70 an hour labor.
You could make it in Mexico with $15 per hour labor but USMCA is basically dead and vehicles from Mexico are paying similar tariffs as the EU.
These are the synergies that make a lot of sense.
Ceci n’est pas un Ram.
(I’m assuming Ram is masculine because grrrrr. RAM)
ram is bélier and it is masculine… but i am not sure at all what they are trying to say in french. je ne sais pas?
It’s an easy enough mistake for someone unfamiliar with languages that use two-part words like “ne” and “pas” that English doesn’t really have.
Le chat est sur la table.
Ram would also be masculine because it’s the male of the species, in contrast to an ewe female. Lamb could indicate either gender.
Yeah, but in this case it’s referring to a car brand. Not sure what rules apply.
That’s fair.
French sounds and looks pretty, but even with my knowledge of Latin and Spanish it still confuses me.