Will he or won’t he? That’s the question on whether newly returned Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis will also unretire the Hemi V8. Publicly, Kuniskis is saying. “We’ll see.”
Stellantis sales were awful last year, and Ram was no exception as its light-duty truck sales in the U.S. were equally abysmal. The Ram 1500 DS and DT saw annual sales slide by 44 and 21 percent, respectively. A vehicle catalog and corporate upheaval ensued. Everything from the cars to the C-suite was legitimately fair game, including the auto group’s CEO. Carlos Tavares unexpectedly resigned early last month, and Stellantis continues to operate without a CEO.
As the Stellantis product portfolio shrinks, so does its number of high-profit margin vehicles. The 1500 TRX is no longer in production. Icons or not, the V8 muscle cars are also gone. Jeep discontinued its stalwart Cherokee, while the Renegade didn’t last a decade. Overall brand sales for the year were down by 20 percent, too.
What’s a re-appointed CEO to do? Wait, according to Kuniskis. He’s not ready to pin the blame of poor Ram sales on the lack of 5.7-liter Hemi V8 power (even though the 3.0-liter Hurricane inline-six is plenty potent). Maybe it’s the poor truck builds. Or the fact that new RHO and Tungsten models don’t have a full year under their belts yet.
“I have to know what the performance of this truck is first before I say Hemi is a problem,” Kuniskis said in an interview with Road & Track. “Because I hear the noise, I hear ‘Hemi, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi,’ but is it real or is it noise because you took it away. We’re all like that. You took something away that I love, and I love it, too.”
The refreshed 2025 Ram 1500 experienced plenty of growth but not in the design department. Which is to say, the Hemi can still fit under the hood. But just because there’s room for it doesn’t mean the V8 is still compatible. Even if the Hemi were greenlit for a light-duty comeback, its application would take much longer than the decision-making.
“Number one, the Hemi was never designed to run in that [new] truck on that electrical architecture, so that’s a huge challenge,” Kuniskis told Motor1 during this month’s Detroit Auto Show.
He further elaborated, “They shut down production on that particular Hemi, the eTorque. There’s supplier work [that needs to be addressed] because when you shut something down, suppliers shut down their assembly lines, and they switch to something else.”
Kuniskis, however, doesn’t slam the door on a future Hemi-powered half-ton. He doesn’t even make a veiled attempt to close it.
“I didn’t say you can’t do it,” Kuniskis added. “You can’t do it right away.”