Ram says it will take back US pickup sales crown from Chevrolet in Australia

Ram Trucks Australia says it will soon reclaim the US pickup sales crown it lost to General Motors Specialty Vehicles’ Chevrolet Silverado last year.

The Ram 1500 was Australia’s top-selling full-size pickup for the seventh consecutive year in 2024, despite a 44 per cent sales slump following the discontinuation of the more affordable previous-generation DS-series truck, and a bevy of new rivals including the factory-backed Ford F-150 and Toyota Tundra.

In 2024, 3239 Ram 1500s were sold, once again making it more popular than the Silverado 1500 (2389), F-150 (2428) and Tundra (469).

The Tundra was only released in earnest in November, and like the Ram 1500 and Silverado is also converted to right-hand drive in Melbourne by Walkinshaw Automotive.

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But in terms of overall sales, including GM’s heavy-duty Silverado HD, and Ram’s 2500 and 3500, Chevy outsold Ram by just 10 vehicles in 2024 – 3862 sales to 3852.

In doing so it became Australia’s top-selling US pickup brand for the first time since Ram officially began selling its 2500 in 2016, which was followed by the 1500 in 2018, while the GM-backed Silverado didn’t arrive until 2020.

According to Ram Trucks Australia general manager Jeff Barber, Chevrolet’s sales win was largely due to the popularity of the facelifted Silverado HD.

“Chevy had a new Silverado HD and they outsold us last year by 10 units combined,” Mr Barber said at the launch of the new six-cylinder Ram 1500.

“We pioneered the segment and we deserve to be number one, so I think we’ll see ourselves back on top very soon.”

Mr Barber said Ram’s 43.6 per cent sales slump last year was due primarily to the discontinuation of the previous-generation DS-series model, which previously opened the Ram 1500 lineup from under $80,000.

“So that’s because we don’t have DS any more,” he said. “Sales dropped off quite a bit in 2023 and 2024 because we previously sold about 2500 units of the DS [annually].”

“We’ve dropped off a little bit, but DS is where the big drop is.”

The DS-series Ram 1500, which continued to be available alongside the latest fifth-generation DT-series Ram after its release in 2021, accounted for more than half of total Ram 1500 sales during COVID, and the federal government’s instant asset tax write-off period in 2022 and 2023.

In 2021, Ram sold 2136 DS-series Ram 1500s versus just 1682 DT-series vehicles (accounting for 56 per cent of sales), decreasing to 33 per cent in 2022 (1805 DS, 3646 DT), 42 per cent in 2023 (2485 DS, 3435 DT) and just eight per cent in 2024, when just 268 DS-series trucks were sold compared to 2972 pickups.

However, sales of the current DT-series Ram 1500 also declined last year by 13.5 per cent.

“DT [sales] year-on-year is close. We lost about 2500 DS sales last year, but DT sales are tracking about the same,” said Mr Barber.

Ram faces a similar problem with the staggered release of its facelifted Ram 1500, which is being launched in premium Laramie Sport and Limited guises first, with deliveries starting from April.

At $141,950 before on-road costs, pricing is unchanged for the upgraded Ram 1500 Laramie Sport, despite the fact its downsized 3.0-litre twin-turbo petrol six makes it more powerful, quicker and more efficient than the 5.7-litre Hemi V8-powered model it replaces.

The Limited flagship costs $159,950 plus on-roads – up $3000 – and packs a High Output version of the same engine, offering 403kW of power and 707Nm of torque (up from the 313kW/635Nm with the Laramie Sport’s Standard Output engine).

However, the price of entry has gone up by $22,000 due to the fact there’s no base Big Horn – for now.

Ram has limited stock of the pre-facelift 1500 Limited available, and enough stock of the entry-level V8-powered 1500 Big Horn (priced from $119,950 before on-roads) to last until the second half of this year, at which time the updated six-cylinder Big Horn is expected to become available.

“At the moment, of remaining stock most of it is Big Horn, which is fine because we’re launching the Laramie Sport and Limited now, and we’ve got a small amount of stock of those in the network,” said Mr Barber.

“We’ve got enough Big Horn stock to last us until the third quarter.”

However, Mr Barber said there would be no immediate replacement for the sub-$100,000 DS-series Ram 1500, US production for which finally ended last year.

This ends a 15-year lifespan for the model which continued to be sold alongside the DT-series, renamed as the Ram 1500 Classic.

“We miss the DS,” conceded Mr Barber. “There’s nothing to fill that gap at this point in time, but hopefully in the future we might have something to replace it.”

In the meantime, the next cab off the rank for Ram will be the facelifted Ram 1500 Big Horn, followed before the end of this year by the facelifted Ram 2500 and 3500 Heavy Duty models.

“In the future, we’ll look at a replacement for Big Horn, but not until later this year,” said Mr Barber.

“We’re working through engineering development [of the upgraded Ram 2500] now. Hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll have some news.”

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