Exclusive: Tim Kuniskis Says First New Ram 1500 SRT Model Will Be Revealed On January 1 … Maybe
Ram is charging into 2026. Hot off the revival of its V8-powered models, the truck brand’s next new offering is just weeks away.
Tim Kuniskis, Ram CEO and head of all of the American Stellantis brands, joined American Cars And Racing’s The GAS podcast to talk about Ram’s return to the NASCAR Truck Series and what it means for selling pickups to customers.
“There is already a natural draw to that Truck Series that I think has been relatively untapped and I think we can go after pretty aggressively,” Kuniskis said.
Ram’s partner Kaulig Racing will be entering five trucks in the series, with one of them dedicated to a Free Agent program that will see a new driver take the wheel each week.
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It’s all about leveraging the program for maximum marketing impact, but that only works if you have something to sell.
Kuniskis says there’s a lot of Ram news coming in the next year, but the most anticipated might be the upcoming high performance Ram SRT models that Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said would be revealed sometime in the next three months.
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One is presumably the rebooted Ram 1500 TRX, while the second remains a mystery, but now we know when we’ll find out for sure. Well, maybe when.
“I hesitate to say it, because I almost always miss goals when they’re related to timing, but, I will tell you, my goal, I’m very specifically calling it a goal, because I’ll probably miss it, my goal is to make one of those announcements on January 1, New Year’s Day, which you’re going to tell me is a horrible day for media and all that stuff,” Kuniskis said. The date makes sense as Ram has a big college football marketing campaign this season and that’s the big bowl game day.
“I think it’s a cool enough announcement that it’ll break through that whole ‘it’s New Year’s Day, bad idea thing,’ and then my other goal is to make another announcement at Daytona, right before we get on the track.”
The Daytona hook suggests that model could be more of a street-oriented performance truck, like the throwback Dude concept that was revealed at the SEMA Show, but Ram has other historic performance trucks to use as inspiration, like the Lil’ Red Express and Viper V10-powered SRT-10.
Kuniskis has a lot more to say about the NASCAR program and what Ram is hoping to achieve on The GAS, so subscribe and listen to the latest episode on Spotify or the American Cars And Racing YouTube channel.
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