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The Hemi V8 is disappearing from the native Ram 1500 lineup, however its return isn’t utterly off the playing cards.
Powering the up to date 1500 is Ram’s new ‘Hurricane’ engine, a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged inline six supplied in two tunes and which produces as a lot as 38.5 per cent extra energy and 27 per cent extra torque than the Hemi.
Naturally, diehard pickup followers are ruing the lack of the 1500’s V8 burble, which leaves the Chevrolet Silverado as the only American pickup supplied in Australia with V8 energy – aside from leftover examples of the pre-update 1500 at native Ram sellers.
Regardless of the Hurricane’s superior outputs, an outcry from V8 followers led to Ram saying the return of the Hemi to the 1500 within the US marketplace for 2026. Nonetheless, its return to Australia – the place Rams are imported in left-hand drive and domestically remanufactured in right-hand drive by Walkinshaw Automotive – has but to be introduced.
“The inline-six, or the Hurricane, goes extremely nicely; we see that as the long run,” stated Ram Vehicles Australia normal supervisor Jeff Barber on the native launch for the brand new Ram 1500 Insurgent.
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“If in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later we’re supplied [it], and there may be client demand for it, and there’s a stable enterprise case, we’ll take a look at it.
“No ensures, however any determination like that takes a very long time to think about and produce to market, so nothing within the subsequent couple of years, that’s for certain.”
Ram Vehicles Australia has beforehand indicated it takes 12-18 months to finish an area engineering program for a brand new mannequin variant that shall be remanufactured domestically in right-hand drive.
That will make a Hemi V8-equipped 1500 a late 2026 or early 2027 proposition, ought to it’s permitted for our market. The 2025 facelift comprised extra than simply aesthetic tweaks, with different modifications together with upgraded infotainment, so this isn’t so simple as simply figuratively flicking a change.
“Everybody makes errors, however the way you deal with them defines you. Ram screwed up once we dropped the Hemi — we personal it and we fastened it,” Ram’s world CEO Tim Kuniskis stated in saying the return of the Hemi again in June.

Whereas Ram is returning the 5.7-litre Hemi to the 1500 within the US, it has but to substantiate the rumoured return of the supercharged 6.2-litre ‘Hellcat’ V8-powered TRX.
When Ram rolled out the Ford F-150 Raptor-humbling TRX domestically, buyer demand stunned the model, even at house in the US, regardless of the pickup’s equally monstrous price ticket of $224,950 earlier than on-roads.
“TRX did extremely nicely right here. We thought the air was extremely skinny up there, however we offered 983 items between Australia and New Zealand, and that’s simply ridiculous – even the US can’t imagine we offered that many, we nonetheless can’t imagine it,” Mr Barber stated.
“So sure, it was a really important mannequin to us. There’s hypothesis world wide as to what would possibly occur with that – I don’t need to discuss to that hypothesis; it’s as much as the US to find out what they’re going to do with that.”
Its oblique substitute is the Ram 1500 RHO, once more fitted with the Hurricane six, and Mr Barber says there could also be “potential room” for it in Australia – even when it’ll be equally costly.
MORE: Ram 1500 revives Hemi V8 as model fixes “mistake”, Australian return unconfirmed