I was young and dumb once also .... now just old and dumb.
I bought a Heavy 1 ton, was a county truck and could have had beefier suspension then a 1 ton ... was a 1962 Dodge with a slant 6/4 spd 12' flatbed with dual wheels.
I was 22 years old and bought my first home ... A 12'x60' mobile home ... I used the Dodge 1 ton to pull it 30 miles to my newly bought property.
Could not go over 35 mph on the freeway the front end was barely touching the pavement .... that slant 6 had no problems pulling the old trailer up the 2 mile long Eli hill.

 

Very low gearing would have been the answer there...

 

My major problem when overweight was the same. Very little steering feel, and not much control either. Every bump would have it darting to one side or the other. I *could* have driven it 70 miles an hour, but, I would have ended up wrapped around a tree, or exploring some farmers field.

 

A few years ago we had a TV commercial in Australia where the strength of the F100 was emphasised by one of them being seen carrying a Hilux or maybe a Navara across its back coming over a hill on a rough bush track.

F100s, by the way, have always been sold in Australia, Chev pickups not after about 1958, Dodge similar to US Dodge until 1960 and Dodge with International Harvester-based cabs until the early seventies.

RAM 1500 pickups are generally available here now and have been for a couple of years, I don't know if this is an official Chrysler importing effort or operated by an outside outfit with Chrysler cooperation. They are currently advertising that the Hemi V8 will no longer be available soon - maybe they're going to offer only the Cummins?

 

The hemi replacement is a turbocharged inline six...... Lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth about that one. No V-8?? Customers aren't gonna like that.

 

Curious what that engine would look like. They made the flahead 6 from the 30's-70's.
Then they made the slant 6 for awhile, then they made V6's ...... Curious what a modern inline 6 looks like.

 

Dodge had a picture of it somewhere.... Or, maybe it was in the Motor Trend mag..... Don't recall.

 

yep - that's why Ford has the Coyote motor (5.0)

But - the Ecoboosts really have that power they advertise...for a older guy like me that grew up with 130HP being a lot...damn man - even my 8000# Transit workvan is fast LOL

 

I've done a little research on this and this is what I've come up with. anecdotally the 1500 is the base model the 2500 is a hybrid of the fifteen hundred and thirty five hundred and the 3500 is the maxi van. maxi as in maximum. The 2500 and 3500 generally have different front knuckles hubs rotors springs and ball joints. The wheel bearings are bigger also. Everything between the 1500/2500 slash 3500 is not that big of a difference. It's not the difference between an F-150 and say a super duty. Now there's a big difference in bearings with between those trucks but within the vans the ball joint is only an 8th of an inch bigger than wheel bearing is an 8th of an inch bigger along with the knuckle. And the rear ends are for whatever you can get is whatever you get so you can get a 3500 rear end and a 1500 Etcetera. I upgraded my 1500 to 2500 springs. But still have the five log Rotors and the 9 1/4 rear end. I have no problem pulling any trailer. Pretty much is all about the springs with these late model vans. I did pick up about 700 pounds of tongue capacity with the new springs... the body from what I can understand is exactly the same along with interior parts air conditioning and wiring harnesses. There are different wiring harnesses per van depending on options but generally speaking they're all the same.

 

Yeah, some of the 70's versions of the z28 (camaro) didn't even crack 200 horsepower. These days, every little V-6 does 300, or more..... Tech has come a long way, but, folks want what folks want. And they want a V-8 in their truck. Doesn't matter that the turbo six produces more HP/TQ over a wider RPM band.... It's the whole "Six cylinder" thing.