The Dodge Ram SRT-10 Is the Ultimate Performance Pickup Truck

this is a 2004 Dodge Ram srt10 and it is the ultimate performance pickup truck of all time to create this truck dodge took the eight point three liter v10 from the Viper and stuck it in the smallest RAM they had a short bed short cab model that doesn't weigh very much today I'm going to show you the result I've borrowed this pickup truck from CNC motors which is an exotic car dealership here in Southern California that has everything from multi-million dollar exotic cars to old cars to weird cool stuff like this CNC has one of the most amazing showrooms of any car dealership in the world and you can check them out by clicking the link in the description below so let's talk performance trucks making trucks fast has a long history in some notable examples where the Dodge little red Express in the 1970s and the Chevy 454 SS pickup in the early 1990s but the grandfather of modern performance trucks was the GMC syclone which came out in 1991 and it used a turbo v6 that gave it some insane performance numbers numbers that could meet certain exotic cars of its time period but a turbo v6 was nothing compared to what dodge came up with ten years later the economy was good gas was cheap and so dodge took the 8.3 liter v10 out of the Viper and stuck it in the RAM where it makes 500 horsepower and 525 pound-feet of torque it would do a top speed of a hundred and 55 miles an hour and zero to 60 in 4.8 seconds this is still the most powerful pickup truck ever made it has 50 more horsepower than a new Ford Raptor which is a pretty impressive feat considering this thing came out 15 years ago the Ram srt10 came in two versions you could get a four-door truck the quad cab which was more rational and practical and those all came with automatic transmissions or you could get this the two-door which was later faster and more insane because all the two doors have manual transmissions this particular Ram srt10 was a special edition made for the Viper Club of America which is why it has the Vipers famous blue with white stripes paint scheme anyway today I'm going to take you on a tour of the Dodge Ram srt10 and I'm gonna show you all of its interesting quirks and features then I'm gonna get it out on the road and drive it and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the SRT 10 ram click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash oversteer where I've also rounded up a list of some other cool fast pickups currently listed for sale on auto trader alright I'm gonna start the quicksand features of the Ram srt10 with a look at the window sticker which is rather interesting because at the very top you have the base price of the truck which is twenty two thousand five hundred dollars then you look down at the bottom and this truck has option package 29 s that was the Ram srt10 package and the cost is twenty two thousand five hundred dollars I have never seen this before obviously you get in a Ferrari and there are certain options and packages that cost like fifty grand but I've never seen any vehicle where one option package doubles the price of the vehicle imagine if you had a Camry for 30 grand and then there are some thirty thousand dollar package on top a couple of other interesting things about the window sticker one is that it's been signed by a guy named Wolfgang Bernhard just some German dude who happened to be the chief operating officer of Chrysler at the time because of that Danelaw Chrysler merger and so he's out sign in window stickers not really sure how he's related to the whole thing but there's his signature maybe the most interesting thing on the window sticker though is the fuel economy ratings you can see nine in the city and fifteen on the highway this truck was not only inefficient it was unbelievably in efficient oh and by the way despite that fuel economy rating of 9 and 15 it's actually considerably worse in practice according to the truck it's getting 5.7 miles per gallon I don't know when the last time that was reset was but obviously it reflects some real-world use and it isn't pretty and next up I want to move on to some of the quirks and features of the truck itself and I want to start with the key here's the key and the key fob they are two separate pieces even though by 2004 other automakers were combining them Chrysler wasn't you had to have both the thing I find funny here is they're different colored this was true on a lot of Chrysler's in the period one is gray one is black why couldn't they just make them both gray or black to match I don't know but they did anyway when you climb inside the truck the very first thing you notice is the shifter because it is so uncommon to be in a full-size truck that has a manual transmission now the shifter is crazy it's like two feet long and so I always assumed it must be floppy and terrible to use but actually it's pretty good it's a Hurst shifter and it shifts pretty well it goes right into gear and there's not anywhere near as much play in it as I was expecting it's a pretty decent shifter which I'm surprised to be saying about you know a Dodge Ram but not everything in this truck was executed as well as the shifter one good example of some poor execution is the parking brake I say that because this truck has a foot Mountain parking brake in a pickup truck that's normally fine because you want to leave this Center area free for a person or for you to throw your work stuff whatever the problem is this truck is a manual so it has a clutch pedal and so right next to the clutch pedal the thing you press constantly to change gears you have the parking brake the thing you never want to press never a good idea to have a foot mounted parking brake in a manual car and another good example of interesting execution and decision-making goes to the front bench seat now because this is the short bed Ram you only have one row of seats here there was a quad cab version of the SRT 10 like I mentioned that had back seats but this isn't that so instead you get two side seats and one middle seat complete with a seat belt which is strange because there's a shifter in the middle of everything here you really don't want someone to be sitting in the middle because they'll probably kick your shifter not a good idea this truck probably shouldn't have had a middle seat here but I suspect dodge did it because it was the only way they were making seats for the short cab ram models now one other interesting item even though you don't want an adult passenger in this seat there is a little latch point where you can install a child seat in the middle in case you want your child in here so that he or she could kick your shift lever while you're driving down the street again a strange decision but that's just what you have now the next step I want to move on to the rest of the Interior in this and I gotta say it isn't pretty Chrysler during this era was not making the nicest cars and ultimately this truck is based on a 2004 Dodge Ram and a short cab kind of bass model at that and so the interior really reflects that you have a lot of cheap plastic all throughout this interior very very few high quality materials in here everything just looks really cheap really kind of bottom of the line nothing luxurious or nice or upscale about the interior in this truck then again that was kind of the intent because the thing about this truck was it was the cheapest way to get the Viper's powertrain a viper itself was way more expensive than one of these trucks and so they didn't turn it into some like luxury truck that had all this nice stitching and cost a hundred grand instead the materials were cheap but that meant the truck was cheap to buy and it was a relatively easy way into a Viper v10 with a stick shift and rear-wheel drive now when you're in this interior there are quite a few examples of the cheapness beyond just the materials for example if you look below the climate controls you can see a hole just an empty space and if you look below that hole you can see another hole carved into the plastic just another empty space look below that hole and guess what you have another hole this time in the center console on the floor and go to the door panels you have another hole near the back of the door panel not exactly sure what this is for an umbrella holder I guess but it doesn't have drains you have the same thing over on the passenger side I think Dodge was like well we have this extra space in the door panel what should we do with it something nice no not let's just give them another hole now I will say in this interior of cost-cutting there is some good news specifically the fact that in this floor center console you have a coin slot you can see it in there you stick your coins in and in this center armrest between the seats you can open it up and reveal another coin slot so you had two places in here to put your coins which is very luxurious if you have a lot of coins and by the way it's also worth noting another interesting item inside this center armrest there's a steering wheel cover in here you'd put that on the steering wheel to protect it from sun damage interestingly the steering wheel cover is this nice leather but the wheel itself looks like crappy plastic I would rather protect the steering wheel cover but anyway next up we move on to the act of simply turning on the Ram srt10 like I showed you there is a real key you put it in turn it and then you push the engines start button you have to do both the engine start button as you can see is this bright red button below one of the climate vents it is like the only thing in this interior that splits up the grays and the blacks and the silvers next up another interesting item in this interior again despite all this cost cutting another luxurious feature they have power pedals there's a little switch over on the left and the drivers footwell and you can push it forward or backwards and then the pedals slide forward or backwards to accommodate different sized drivers which is kind of a nice luxurious touch especially in a truck that doesn't have too many of them and the last interesting thing on the inside of the Ram srt10 is the fact that the inside of the Ram srt10 isn't really all that interesting aside from the bright red engine start button and the manual gear lever there's not really any way you can tell that you're in a Ram srt10 it just looks like any old cheap ram from this era there are only a couple of other small factors that give away what this truck is on the inside one is on the headrests it's printed srt-10 which kind of tells you what you're in same deal on the dashboard you can see it also says srt10 over there and on the a-pillar on the driver side you have an oil temperature gauge there the SRT logo inside of it there was no oil temperature gauge on the regular Ram pickups from this era but otherwise it's a pretty bland interior but there was no such problem on the outside of the truck which was basically overflowing with ways you could tell it apart from this standard ran my very favorite was the spoiler alright check this out you have a pickup truck bed but you have a sporty truck so you put a spoiler on it cuz it's sporty only there's a problem then you put down the tailgate and you can't get anything in here because there's a spoiler you want to load a TV or a couch into your pickup truck look too bad now fortunately dodge realized that this was ridiculous and so inside that center armrest in the middle there is a tool that comes with the truck that allows you to easily and quickly remove the spoiler still kind of funny to have a spoiler hanging over a truck bed but at least you could take it out without much fuss and next we move on to some other ways to tell apart the srt-10 from the regular ram one would be the liberal application of badging pretty much the only thing liberal about this truck an SRT 10 badge on the driver story of another one on the passenger door and then in back you also have another srt-10 badge all very large to let people know what you have but my favorite exterior change to this truck is the wheels these wheels are designed to perfectly mimic the wheels that were used on the Dodge Viper at the time this truck was new now they're not the same size the Viper used 18s and 19's this truck uses twenty-twos but they were able to get the style and design just perfect and I've always loved the fact that the Viper truck has Viper wheels of course another clear identifier that this was the SRT 10 truck and not a regular Ram was the exhaust note which sounded very different from the standard pickup take a listen and next up we move around to the front of the Ram srt10 where there are several ways you can distinguish this version from its lesser counterparts starting with the front bumper which goes very very low looking like a sports car front air dam you would never want a front bumper this low on a truck when you're trying to off-road or drive through a job site but this is a special kind of truck but my very favorite distinguishing feature of the SRT 10 Ram is the power bulge you can see and the normal Ram you would just have a hood but in this thing the hood sticks up like three inches in the middle to emphasize just how big this engine is and they called that the power bulge now the interesting thing is you actually open up the hood and you can see the engine is set very low in the engine bay it doesn't need the power bulge to accommodate its size so that's all for show but nonetheless it's there and speaking of the engine let's get under here and take a look this has to be the coolest looking engine ever placed in a pickup truck they didn't even change it to say Ram it still says Viper and it's huge and it's red and it has ten cylinders and it's so crazy to see it in there considering this truck is so short and stubby and it's a pickup and there's the Viper engine and I just love opening this hood more than almost any other car one other interesting thing about the engine is you can see at the top there that's Wolfgang Bernards signature again they just couldn't get the guy to stop signing stuff they're trying to take the pen out of his hand he's like no I must sign it there's no Carroll Shelby let's put it that way and finally I want to talk about the VC a special edition now dodge made these Ram srt10 trucks for several years and they made them two body styles like I mentioned and many different colors but the only way to get blue with white stripes was if you got the Viper Club of America Edition they only made 50 of these trucks this is number 43 the blue with white was kind of paying tribute to the original Dodge Viper GTS and it's blue and white color scheme now the way these 50 trucks were distributed was kind of interesting there was a raffle among Viper Club of America members so presumably people who already owned a Dodge Viper and they were selected and then told that they had the chance to purchase a Ram srt10 VCA Edition they were not selected and given a free truck they were selected and then told you can now spend fifty thousand dollars for a truck but anyway there were only 50 of these people who were chosen and if they wanted to they could take a delivery of the truck at Daytona Speedway in a car race in February 2004 and the guy who originally got this one did just that and he saved everything he's got original emails in here from Chrysler confirming the scheduling he's got his passes to get into the event to pick up his new truck he's got travel info from Daytona he's got pretty much everything saved from that day that he picked up his truck it must have been such a special day to be selected to be one of the 50 people who got one of these and then show up and take delivery during a race it seems like it was really really cool now interestingly this guy also saved everything else he got at the race and there was this backpack full of Ram srt10 goodies you have a polo shirt that says Ram srt10 you have a hat that says srt10 VCA addition there's a license plate frame and my favorite earplugs because it was a car race it was loud they gave people earplugs this guy still hasn't in the original case now you might be wondering what else the VCA Edition included and the answer is there were a few things that went along with it it was $5,000 extra on top of the regular price of a Ram srt10 and the most noticeable thing was the paint color the blue with white stripes but there are a few more items you've got too for example there's a decal on the outside of the bed on the side that says Viper Club of America and the floor mats also say Viper Club of America to make your truck seem a little bit more special and rare than your typical Ram srt10 you also got a plaque in the interior reminding you that your truck is a special edition and look once again we have Wolfgang's signature the guy just wouldn't stop citing this truck but there's the plaque and it also shows which number it is this one number 43 out of 50 and the last thing that the Viper Club of America package included additional side curtain airbags so strange there was all this Viper stuff when the plaque and the decals in the paint color and then you also got extra side airbags that the regular srt10 Ram didn't get I guess Chrysler figured they wanted their Viper customers to stay alive we're really important and so they gave them extra safety features to make sure they kept buying more dodge vehicles and so those are the quicksand features of the Dodge Ram srt10 now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the Viper Ram this thing is so cool I mean when these came out back in Oh 304 it was just so insane then and now 15 years later it's still insane and it remains the most powerful pickup truck ever when you look around the interior this thing you know it's basically just a ram but there's a shift lever in the middle it's not until you kind of start to get going that you think to yourself wait a minute there's a little more going on here you hear the exhaust because shift you see that power dome on the hood and you're like this is something special I love that I love the sound I love the acceleration it is not as best as you would think it would be considering it's a relatively small truck with 500 horsepower but it sounds great and it's just so wacky that it's like yeah and it's emit news quick it's just not like insane it's no it's not a Viper but it's great like this is so ridiculous on the highway it drives like a rides like a 16 year old Ram reasonably comfortable great visibility good driving position that sort of thing but it's not incredibly well put together you hear a lot of tire noise you hear a lot of wind noise but that was kind of the beauty of this thing it was just a ram truck just a bass Dodge Ram and then they threw in a Viper motor and they didn't try to go too crazy and oh I'm gonna make stitching everywhere and it's gonna cost a hunt that's not it was just like here's the cheapest way to get the Viper engine Oh whose sound is so good it's just hilarious to hear that v10 you don't have to put much throttle in the clutch is also surprisingly easy not very heavy it's been a long time since I've driven a Viper from this era I don't remember how they are but it's pretty good it's actually pretty easy and easy to find the engagement point a lot of people have asked me to review this truck and I've been looking for a really nice two-door because you want the manual the Quad Cab was obviously far more usable a more rational truck for doors and an automatic but this was how this truck was intended to be it just Bob's I mean that sound is crazy they're just not used to that you're just not expecting to hear it just roars and it's way way faster than it should be given how tall it is I mean I'm now driving on the highway behind it GTI and it looks like I'm dwarfing him nothing with a center of gravity this high should be this fast this thing is just so cool it's it's not the nicest truck it's not the fastest not the best handling but it's just so cool and the fact that they made it is especially the coolest part there was some wacky person at Chrysler who was like forget about that 6.2 liter v8 we have let's just go all the way and put the Viper v10 in the thing just another one of Chrysler's crazy decisions and so that's the Dodge Ram srt10 the Viper truck this was a special truck and a ridiculous truck in the days of sticking v10 engines and manual transmissions and pickup trucks are probably over but as this truck showed it was fun while it lasted and now it's time to give the Viper truck a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the Ram srt10 is fine not exactly beautiful but fine and it gets a 5 out of 10 acceleration to 0 to 60 and 4.9 seconds which means it is quicker than a Ford Raptor pretty impressive and it gets a six out of ten handling is merely acceptable nothing more this truck is definitely intended more for straight-line speed and it gets a three out of ten fun factor is decent it's a hoot to drive fast in a straight line and hear that exhaust note and it gets a six out of ten cool factor is also decent these are awesome but fairly common so it gets a six out of ten for a total weekend score of 26 out of 50 next up are the daily categories and features it's fine it has the basics but not much else and it gets a three out of ten Comfort is average with a roomy but not exactly luxurious interior and it gets a 5 out of 10 quality is fine the interior is bad but these are simple reliable trucks and it gets a 6 out of 10 practicality is mediocre these have a single row of seats with only two usable seats they have an open bed and horrible gas mileage its lucky to get a 4 out of 10 finally value and these are reasonably well priced most are in the 15 to 30 dollar range and they don't really seem to be losing all that much value but they did make a lot of them and it's getting old so it gets a six out of ten for a total daily score of twenty four out of fifty add it up and the Doug score is 50 out of 100 which places it here against other performance SUVs and trucks and many thing else I could find that was sort of similar the Ram srt10 is cool it's not as much of an all-rounder as a raptor but it's still a fun weird rare truck and it was fun to spend the day checking one out [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,752,865

Rating: 4.832828 out of 5

Keywords: dodge ram srt-10, ram srt-10, dodge ram srt-10 review, ram srt-10 review, srt-10, srt-10 review, dodge ram review, dodge ram, dodge ram srt, ram srt, ram srt review, viper truck, dodge viper truck, dodge viper truck review, viper truck review, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: 2YKGMtv20cs

Length: 24min 41sec (1481 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Traedog]

Financial misguidance and poor decision making led to me purchasing a 2004 SRT-10 Ram 4 years ago to be used as a daily driver. In that time, I've put in some effort into preventative maintenance, replacing wheel bearings, rebuilding the T-56, and keeping all 8.5 quarts of oil fresh. It gets used as a truck, making trips to the local hardware store, lumber yard, and grocery runs without much of a hassle.

In the wet, it will damn near try to kill you if you don't respect it. The throttle in combination with the short wheelbase and posi rear end will force you to concentrate as there are no electronic assists beyond ABS. What little snow/ice we get in Tennessee, it's pointless, but that's what the wife's vehicle is for.

Where this truck shines is being able to drop a gear and make a pass without hesitation, cruise for miles, and make people smile from stop light to stop light. Being able to open the sliding rear glass and listen to the exhaust note pop and crackle on deceleration is what really draws me to this thing.

This truck was a poster on my wall in middle school. As time passed, it became an attainable goal as it now is an absolute bargain on used market. You do pay the Viper tax on a few parts here and there, but a lot of this truck was a parts bin build.

I absolutely recommend this truck and the 50 Doug Score.

[u/hamburglar27]

Ah yes, the good old Viper Truck.

Too bad it never got a 2nd generation. Overkill trucks are fun. The Hellcat powered RAM Rebel TRX should be a worthy successor.

[u/Bentley-Benz]

One of the greatest SRT-10 videos of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v9_dOV9g6Q

[u/jmsturm]

I wish single cab/ short bed 2wd sport trucks would make a come back.

The SRT-10 Ram, The Ford Lightning, The 454 SS. Some of my favorite vehicles ever.

I would kill for a new Silverado with a LSX 454.

[u/Drzhivago138]

As useless as they'd be in my neck of the woods for 6 months out of the year, let's have more low RWD sport trucks!

[u/BathroomSecurity]

5,000+ lbs Pickup Truck

8.3L V10

Poor fuel economy?!?! surprised_pikachu.jpg

[u/hennytime]

I remember back in like 2009/2010 when you could pick these up for like $12k and a bunch of viper guys would buy them for the engine and trans to build. I almost got one in 2012 a red one regular cab with 50k miles for around $16k. These things have been increasing in value a lot in the past few years. Love these things.

[u/[deleted]]

There are plenty of positive adjectives to describe cars but IMO the word badass is best used for this thing, along side Hellcats and Vipers

[u/MicBarry21]

If you consider utes to be trucks lets not forget the El Camino had an LS6 454 dropped in it at one point and the Ford Ranchero had the 429. Not to mention the crazy performance utes down under.