The Ram TRX Is Back For 2027, One-Trick Pony?

Stellantis and in particular its Ram Trucks brand have had some struggles in recent years. Quality issues and high prices put a significant hit on sales and then the model year 2025 update dropped all of the V8 engines from the lineup including the supercharged off-road TRX. When former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares was shown the door a year ago, one of the first orders of business was to bring former Ram brand CEO Tim Kuniskis back from his brief retirement. Kuniskis immediately pulled his old play book out of the drawer and within 8 months, the 5.7-liter Hemi V8 was back in the Ram 1500. That announcement immediately launched speculation that it was only a matter of time before the Hellcat-powered TRX was revived. Well, that dinosaur is officially back.

When the V8-powered Ram 1500s were discontinued for 2025, the bones of the TRX were kept alive in the form of the new RHO model. The RHO used the high-output version of the twin-turbo Hurricane six-cylinder engine and apart from the updated electrical architecture that all 2025 Rams got, the only other real change from the TRX was retuning the suspension for the 150-lb weight reduction. 

For model year 2027, the Hellcat is back and the suspension tuning is updated again, but that’s not all. Over the years, from the original Challenger to Red-eyes and Demons, the Hellcat got various states of tune up to and over 1,000-hp. Given that the Ford F-150 Raptor R is still out there with 720-hp from its blown 5.2-liter V8, it simply wouldn’t do to just put the same 702-hp back into the TRX. Thus the 2027 model now has 777-hp and 680 lb-ft of torque. Ram claims the TRX will do 0-60 in about 3.5-seconds. 

The new TRX is the first Ram to wear the SRT badge since the Viper-V10-powered SRT-10 back in 2006. With the bigger, heavier engine back under the hood, the SRT engineers took advantage of the opportunity to incorporate the latest second-generation Bilstein Black Hawk e2 adaptive dampers that were launched last year on the RHO. The Active Terrain Dynamics suspension management was of course also recalibrated along with bushings and springs and the TRX still has 14-inches of wheel travel off-road. 

The new electronic architecture that came with the 2025 update brought several features not available on the TRX previously including hands-free Active Driving Assist, drowsy driver detection and traffic sign recognition. All of this along with the traction and stability control needed to be recalibrated to work properly with the heavier truck. 

On the inside, the TRX gets the same updates as other Ram 1500s got last year including the larger 14.5-inch touchscreen that still uses the Uconnect 5 software package. Other software controlled features that carry over from the RHO including the trailer reverse steering control using a knob on the dashboard for easier backing up with a trailer and a heads-up display. 

The overall look of the TRX is basically the same as before although there are new color options and the R-A-M badge in the grille is now red. The Bloodshot Night Edition features a flame red hood stripe set against a black over red two-tone paint scheme. In the cab, there’s an assortment of red accents including the seatbelts and contrast stitching. 

While hardcore fans will probably love the new 2027 Ram SRT TRX when it arrives in the second half of 2026, it won’t do anything to help the problem of vehicle affordability. When the 2021 TRX debuted it had a starting price of $71,790 including destination (which was a mere $1,695 back then). The 2027 TRX starts at $102,590 including the now $2,595 destination charge. That’s an increase of 43%! On the plus side, that’s almost $11,000 less than the starting price of a Raptor R and it has more power and torque (and more weight). 

Sales of the new TRX will probably boost Stellantis’ bottom line for a bit, as long as we don’t have a major economic recession. But so far, since the return of Tim Kuniskis to lead Ram and now all of Stellantis’ North American operations, it’s been pretty much a one-trick pony, put a Hemi or Hellcat in everything. When will we start to see some original new product from Stellantis in North America?

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