An old Jeep factory will soon be building new Ram pickups.
The UAW has reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with Stellantis that includes the reopening of its Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois, which was idled in February with no immediate plans to reopen it.
Locals and union members alike had been fiercely critical of the closure of the facility, which used to assembly the discontinued Jeep Cherokee.
Now the union has spilled the beans on what it will be building there.
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“We have won a new vehicle at Belvidere. It will be a mid-size truck and will have two shifts,” UAW Vice President Rich Boyer said.
Ram has been discussing with its dealers the possibility of adding a midsize pickup to its U.S. lineup, which is currently made up of just full-size models, but hadn’t previously confirmed one.
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The only question now is: what kind of truck will it be?
If Boyer’s “mid-size” description is accurate, that suggests it could be a Ram version of the current Jeep Gladiator, which is partly based on the Ram 1500, but not a huge seller, making it unlikely that the brand would add a second pickup.
Ram had also shown dealers designs for an electric mid-size pickup, but most of Stellantis’ future vehicle platforms are being designed to accommodate both battery-electric and internal combustion engine powertrains.
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However, considering the factory was currently used to build the unibody Cherokee, there is another possibility.
Ram recently introduced the Rampage pickup in South America, which is the same size as the popular Ford Maverick. That would technically make it a small or compact pickup, but Boyer referring to it as a mid-size, if he’d even been shown the product, wouldn’t be too far off the mark.
Regardless of what it ends up being, the wait too see it shouldn’t be too long.
MotorTrend reported in April that the final design for the model was expected to be locked in this past spring.
Ram is also set to unveil an updated 1500 pickup early next year and could use the occasion to announce the new mid-size model.