Ten Cylinders, Or Only Five? 1996 Dodge Ram 2500 vs 2008 Chevy Colorado

Welcome back to another week of questionable automotive decisions! We’re starting off this week with a pair of pickup trucks with unusual numbers of cylinders in their engines. Which oddball makes more sense? That’ll be up to you to decide.

On Friday, I showed you a couple of imports that had been altered from their factory color schemes. I had a feeling that the stripey Toyota Van was going to be hard for you all to resist, and I was right. It won handily. A lot of you liked the idea of the Tracker, but the one-two punch of the Tijuana interior and two-wheel drive ruined its chances.

I actually have no interest in that van, so you all can fight over it. It’s cool to look at, and I’m glad it exists, but I don’t want it. I’d have a lot more fun with the Tracker. And I’m used to 2WD SUVs; we’ve had a couple of them, and for general use, they’re just fine.

For a long time, no matter which manufacturer you went with, your engine choices for a pickup truck were pretty much the same: a standard inline six, or an optional V8. The inline sixes gave way to V6s eventually, not long after small trucks gained popularity, all of which offered a standard inline four or an optional V6. The details and displacements differed, but the formula was pretty much the same across the board. Only occasionally did truck manufacturers mess with this formula; Mazda (in)famously tried to power a small pickup with its rotary engine in the ’70s, but it was another couple of decades before anybody else tried anything weird with truck engine configurations. We’re going to look at a couple of those weirdos of the truck world, and see which one makes a better cheap truck today.

1996 Dodge Ram 2500 SLT Laramie – $2,999

Engine/drivetrain: 8.0-liter OHV V10, four-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Joliet, IL

Odometer reading: 245,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

Dodge’s all-new Ram pickups made a big stir when they came out in 1994. No one had seen anything quite like them, and they arguably set the stage for today’s enormous family-toting crew-cab trucks. Advertised as being not only more comfortable and civilized than earlier trucks, but also damn near indestructible (even tornado-proof), Dodge had a hit on its hands with the new trucks. This is one of more than 400,000 of its kind sold in 1996.

Most of the Ram’s engines were carryovers from the old bodystyle, including the LA-series V8s and the popular Cummins diesel inline six, but Dodge had something bigger on offer as well: a V10 engine, displacing a frankly ridiculous 488 cubic inches. This is not the Viper V10, by the way, even though it’s the same size; this one is cast-iron and tuned for torque rather than high-RPM horsepower – note the low redline on the tach. Fuel economy, as you might imagine, is not its strong suit, but if you need to pull a big-ass trailer, this is the right tool for the job. This one is approaching a quarter-million miles, but its seller says it still runs just fine.

If you were used to the trucks of the ’80s, sitting in a mid-’90s Ram was a revelation. It was more like a contemporary Chrysler LeBaron inside than a typical truck, with comfy seats, a car-like dashboard, and all the creature comforts. They held up pretty well inside, too. This one looks great for its mileage, but there is an extra cushion on the driver’s seat that might be hiding some wear.

It’s a little rough outside. White paint in the mid-1990s wasn’t fond of staying on the cars to which it was applied, and had a tendency to come off in sheets like this. It mainly happened to horizontal surfaces like this truck’s hood. The seller says it has “minimum rust,” which I suppose it does, by Chicagoland standards. It’s pretty crispy along the rocker panels, and there’s some bubbling on the front fenders. But some cosmetic flaws won’t stop it from doing truck things, which is what you buy a truck this old for.

2008 Chevrolet Colorado LT – $3,499

Engine/drivetrain: 3.7-liter DOHC inline 5, four-speed automatic, RWD

Location: Howell, MI

Odometer reading: 233,000 miles

Operational status: Runs and drives well

Chevy replaced the long-running S-10 with the all-new Colorado in the mid-2000s. And in this case, it really was all-new; the new truck shared the same basic layout as the old one, but no parts. Two new engines were available, part of GM’s Atlas line of engines: an inline 4, and – bizarrely – an inline 5.

The first version of the Colorado’s inline 5 displaced 3.5 liters, but this one has an improved version, enlarged to 3.7 liters. Unusual as it may be, it puts out plenty of power for a truck this size: 242 horsepower and 242 pound-feet of torque, though both at higher revs than trucks typically see. It runs and drives fine, even with all the miles on it. It drives the rear axle through GM’s ubiquitous 4L60-E automatic, which at this mileage has almost certainly been rebuilt once.

It looks good inside, especially for the mileage, and as an LT model, it has a bunch of power options. It also has a pretty snazzy stereo for 2008:

That’s right; it plays MP3s and WMAs. Do WMA files even exist anymore? I mean, I guess someone out there could still be using a Zune…

It’s a single-cab short-bed, the typical “sporty” configuration for trucks. It’s not as useful as some other truck styles, but it’ll still haul stuff home from the hardware store just fine. It’s a little beat-up outside, and it’s hard to tell from the photos if it has any rust, but if it does it isn’t serious.

Having a good, cheap truck around is very handy; take it from me. Yeah, it’s another vehicle to keep up, more insurance, more gas, but when you need a truck, it’s there waiting. One of these is an absolute beast that can do anything, but will take up a lot of space when you’re not using it, and burn up a whole lot of gas when you are. The other is less capable, but a whole lot friendlier. Which one fits your life better?