Light-duty Ram 1500 sales picked up over the past few months, but now the Hemi is coming back.
Across all of FCA’s brands this past quarter, Ram posted the best sales gains, at 5% versus the second quarter of 2024. Things may look even better in the coming months though, as the brand saw “over 10,000 orders in the first 24 hours” upon announcing it would bring the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 back to its half-ton lineup. The company announced that milestone with its second-quarter sales statement on July 1.
So far this year, Ram dealers have managed to move 98,915 Ram 1500 trucks — a 2% improvement over the same period last year between January 1 and June 30.
When it officially makes its comeback this summer, the 2026 Ram 1500 will be a $1,200 option across most trims, while it’s a no-cost option on Laramie and Longhorn. Like the pre-refreshed truck, you get 395 horsepower and 410 lb-ft of torque, as well as an eTorque mild-hybrid setup. The GT performance exhaust system also comes as standard equipment, as does a 33-gallon fuel tank.
Alongside the Hemi’s return, Ram announced an expanded 10-year/100,000-mile limited powertrain warranty. More details on that are available here, but the upshot is that owners should be able to not only get the V8 trucks they want, but hopefully enjoy them for longer.
While the resurrection of the Hemi V8 for Ram 1500 trucks is music to enthusiasts’ ears, the rest of the powertrain lineup will remain for the 2026 model year as well. The old-school 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 is still the base engine, while you get two flavors of the 3.0-liter Hurricane twin-turbocharged straight-six. The standard-output version still beats out the V8 on paper, putting out 420 horsepower and 469 lb-ft of torque. The high-output version, available on higher trims as well as the RHO, makes a heftier 540 horsepower and 521 lb-ft of torque.