Okay, I got your attention with my feeble attempt at a humorous headline. On this year's Truck of the Year testing, Motor Trend technical director Frank Markus observed how much open space was in the engine bay of the base-model Dodge Ram. He then proceeded to crawl into the Ram's engine bay, feet squarely planted on the pavement, standing under the truck's open hood. If I were feeling more clever at the moment, I'm sure I'd make some sort of Flintstone's reference, but I'm hitting the mid-afternoon wall at the moment.
After Frank had extricated himself from the engine bay, I went over to have a look for myself, and indeed, there is an unusual amount of room under the hood with the Ram's short, 3.7L base V-6. The Hemi does a much better job of filling the engine bay.
As noted in a previous blog, just prior to this year's trip, I injured my ankle, not to mention the fact that Mr. Markus is probably a good 30-40 lb leaner than yours truly. So I will leave the vehicular theatrics to the professionals.
Perhaps on next year's TOTY shootout, we'll have an actual Ram Hybrid, if indeed, Chrysler as a company and Dodge as a brand are around that long.