With RHO, Ram unleashes a rhino to take on the F-150 Raptor

AUTO REVIEW

By HENRY PAYNE

The Detroit News (TNS) R aptor, meet Rhino. The 2025 Ram 1500 RHO supertruck is here and it’s a worthy competitor to segment pioneer Ford F-150 Raptor. RHO is short for Ram High Output, and the acronym’s similarity to rhinoceros is no accident. This is a full-grown, armor- plated, earth-pawing, terrain-chewing, bone-crunching beast.

Better yet, it’s a rhino in tennis shoes. Barreling into Holly Oaks’ sandy, Back 40 “Lollipop” – foot to the _oor, 540 horses snorting, all four corners churning – I nailed the brakes and hooked the 6,000-pound rhino into a 90-degree right-hander. With remarkable agility, we tangoed across the sand, the rhino’s hindquarters nearly overtaking its front end before the massive 35-inch front, all-terrain Goodyear Wrangler tires gripped, propelling us forward across the dance _oor. BWAAAAWWRGH! If this were “Dancing with the Stars,” we would have received a perfect 10.

Track geeks like me marvel at the race car-like talents of modern-day $80K supercars like the Corvette C8, BMW M3 and Porsche Cayman – but for the same price, you can purchase off-road animals that sport similar horsepower numbers and astounding, Baja 1000 racing-like capabilities. And supertrucks do this while offering more interior space than a Boeing 737 and a bed that will haul home your tree for Christmas.

Rhino follows in Raptor’s footprints. Finally. It’s been 14 years since the Ford energized the pickup space just as the BMW’s M3 transformed the car market four decades ago with a performance version of a popular badge.

Like M3, the Ram is also a premium vehicle. Trucks are the new luxe, and RHO will go head-to-head against any Mercedes that pulls up next to you at the golf club. That’s right, take your Rhino to the club dressed to the nines.

Nines as in the $9,995 Level 1 package, which adds a 14inch console screen, headup- display, passenger-side display, carbon ber accents, 19-speaker Harman Kardon stereo, memory/ massaging/heated/

cooled leather seats, 360-degree camera, hands-free self-driving system, and jacuzzi (kidding about that last one).

On I-75, I went hands-free just like GM’s Super Cruise and Ford’s Blue Cruise – two other mainstream brands who make luxurious trucks. I poked the left stalk and the rhino changed lanes automatically. Poked the right – and it moved back into the right lane. I enjoyed a snack and a drink while my luxury yacht – er, pickup – drove itself at 80 mph.

My wee wife might need a ladder to climb into the passenger seat (the RHO towers 11.8-inches above the ground thanks to 35s), but once strapped in, she would love it. She’s the navigator in the family, and the passenger-side screen would allow her to sync her phone using wireless Apple CarPlay, then share directions with the main screen that we both could see (the passenger screen is invisible to the driver).

In total. RHO can be outtted with nearly 50 inches of available screens, starting with the vertically mounted 14.4-inch console jumbotron. A congurable 12.3inch digital display is behind the steering wheel, the 10-inch HUD _oats over the hood and there’s the aforementioned, 10.25-inch display for Mrs. Payne riding shotgun so she can immerse herself in music ‘n’ apps in addition to charting our course.

If all this luxe sounds familiar, that’s because it’s shared with the Jeep Grand Wagoneer luxury yacht.

What the RHO doesn’t have is the insane 702-horse Hellcat V-8 from the ol’ TRX. Yes, the T-rex is extinct, a victim of federal nannies. But Ram gures the Rhino will be more resilient – and not just because of its lesser appetite for fossil fuels.

The cheaper Rhino will sell in greater volumes – like its nemesis Raptor – and its $69,995 price tag (plus $1,995 destination fee) is closer to the lineup’s other performance trucks (unlike the T-Rex’s $100K sticker): the $56,255 Warlock and $66,190 Rebel with their 33-inch tires, off-road capability and detuned, twin-turbo inline-6.

What Rhino does share with T-Rex is chassis performance specs: 88-inch width for surer footing (thus the three amber lights required of vehicles wider than 80 inches), functional hood scoop, electronic- locking rear differential, gigantic 15-inch front brakes and huge, remote-reservoir Bilstein active shocks enabling 13 inches of suspension travel in front, 14 inches rear. What, no missile launcher?

As awesome as this truck may look swaggering up your country club driveway, the Rhino’s natural habitat is the Baja Peninsula. And since you’re unlikely to go there, may I suggest the Holly Oaks ORV park right here in Detroit’s backyard?

If you own a Corvette, you gotta track it at Waterford Hills or M1 Concourse. If you own a Rhino, you gotta go to Holly Oaks.

“Go on. Just put your foot in it,” encouraged veteran Dodge SRT dynamics engineer and fellow race driver Erich Heuschele. I didn’t need to be told twice.

Holly’s 200-acre sandbox is ideally suited for narrower midsize Jeeps and Broncos, but the Bilstein-shod RHO moves like it’s a size smaller. Roaring up Darlene’s Ridge, the beast stayed true, _attening washboard bumps like Hulk _icking away helicopter re. It soared over jumps, drifted through corners, slung sand in launch control. To manage this punishment, the dampers feature remote reservoirs to better control shock _uid temperatures.

The 3.0-liter inline-6 and eight-speed transmission were in sync like Grey & Swayze. Where the Raptor’s 10-speed tranny can sometimes stumble, the Ram’s ZF gearbox ripped off shifts like a Porsche.

I missed the supercharged V-8’s rib-rattling roar. But the I-6 is 150 pounds lighter, making the truck easier to control, quicker to rotate.

Load the Rhino with the Level 1 package and it matches the base, well-equipped Raptor’s $82K sticker.

Ram shrewdly offers the more accessible, $71,990 starter model without all the digital jewelry, while maintaining its core specs including a healthy 90 more horses than the 450-horse Ford. I kept Rhino in Baja mode for my high-speed antics, but other modes include Auto, Tow, Mud/ Sand, Rock, Snow and Sport.

If you still covet a V-8, Ram will walk you across the showroom to a 2500 Heavy Duty Power Wagon. If you don’t need Olympian shocks, then the butch Warlock will do just ne. And if you just like the Ram’s smooth, best-in-class multi-link rear ride and handsome design, the base $42K Tradesman will do.

But for the price of a ‘Vette, RHO supertruck will explore the envelope of offroad capability while still having the capacity to tow up to 8,380 pounds. Enough to pull a real rhino.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News.

Stellantis / TNS