1998 Dodge Ram

Dodge has been playing the pickup game beautifully ever since it introduced the Ram in 1994. With this year's introduction of a 4-door extended-cab pickup truck, Dodge has fired yet another shot across the bow of Ford, Chevy and GMC, which offer only three doors on their extended-cabs. The new Dodge Quad Cab, as it is called, is an option on all 1500 and 2500 extended cab trucks and it's standard on the big 3500 models.

That one major product advantage is backed up by a host of other significant changes for 1998 from one end of the Ram family to the other. Interiors have been given a thorough makeover for the new year. A passenger-side air bag that can be switched off is now available.

It may not be ideally suited for a commuting situation where a lot of shifting would be involved, but it's great fun on the boulevards. It's also a really flexible, driveable combination in off-road situations, much more so than the automatic. The low-end torque of the engine and the low gearing in first and second gears make it easy to get around in most driving situations.

Front suspension on a Ram 4X4 is a coil spring setup with four leading arms, a track bar and a stabilizer bar to keep the front axle assembly located fore and aft and side to side. Rear suspension is a conventional live axle with leaf springs designed to carry heavy loads. We found the suspension delightfully smooth and supple on the street, aided by those big fat Goodyear RT/S tires. But the body is so high off the ground that some passengers--particularly females--had a great deal of entry/exit difficulty even with a grab bar on the A-pillar.