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The Ford Ranger sold over 30,000 units in 2023, and it’s on track to meet or beat that number in 2024, having moved over 15,000 at the mid-year point, and while that may be a blip next to the F-150, it’s proof of strong demand for ladder frame midsize pickups. There is a misconception that Americans only buy big trucks because we love them. But what if the truth is actually that we buy them because smaller pickup trucks are in short supply? The Ranger’s sales figures certainly indicate that there is demand.

Every week seems to bring new rumors of automakers coming for a piece of the expanding non-full-size truck market, whether it’s the upcoming Toyota Stout, the Kia Tasman, or a new Hyundai pickup positioned below the Santa Cruz. The Ram 1200, a midsize Chinese-made pickup found on farms and construction sites across Mexico, is one we’ve been keeping an eye on, and while there are no official plans at present to bring it to North American shores, we don’t think it’d be a bad idea. But, we have a few notes. Here’s what we think Ram should do before bringing the 1200 to the USA.

1 Give The Ram 1200 A Horsepower Boost

The Ram 1200 will be equipped with a 2.4-liter gas engine that produces 207 horsepower. That’s decent, but the 1200s midsize competitor, the Ranger, has 270 horses. 207 hp is enough for most light-duty pickup work, but that’s not going to cut it for most American buyers. We like big numbers.

How could Dodge pack another 50 to 60 horses? The 2.4-liter 4-cylinder engine is naturally aspirated, so it could add some turbocharging. The best-selling Toyota Tacoma is equipped with a 2.4-liter turbocharged four-pot that produces between 228 and 278 horses sans electrification, and that’s a decent enough figure.

Ram could also dive into the Stellantis parts bin and use the same Hurricane turbocharged four-cylinder found in the Rampage. It’s not as powerful as the Ranger or Tacoma, but 268 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque is pretty close.

2 Borrow The Dodge Hornet R/T Powertrain For A Ram 1200 PHEV

This could be another possible solution to the underpowered engine problem. Getting an engine close to 300 hp without compromising the 1200’s size rules out packing it with something like the 6-cylinder Hurricane found in the 1500 models, but a hybrid powertrain would allow for a significant power bump without redesigning the whole truck from the ground up.

The Dodge Hornet R/T plug-in hybrid is a good example of where they could go with an Americanized 1200. The Hornet R/T uses a 1.3-liter 4-cylinder engine with a turbocharger and an electric motor for a total of 288 hp. This would put the 1200 ahead of the Ford Ranger by 18 points. Small truck buyers are also big fans of hybrids, as proven by the Maverick’s sales figures.

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3 Include The Peugeot Landtrek’s Diesel Engine As An Option

It’s hard to say where the Ram 1200 is from, with its international lineage. It’s sold in Mexico, built in China, based on the French Peugeot Landtrek, and branded with an American automaker’s stamp. In its former life as the Peugeot Landtrek, the truck was sold with an optional 178-hp 2.2-liter 4-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine, but that engine never made its way to the Mexican market.

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These days it’s not unusual to see diesel-powered pickup trucks, and beyond that, its application is pretty much limited to the transport industry.

We do have experience with this engine, however. It’s a bit rough around the edges and is laggier than a teenager waking up for school, but it gets the job done reliably and efficiently. We’ll admit that diesel never caught on in the US like it did in the UK, but we do have a small, dedicated market for it. With no diesel-fueled Ranger or Tacoma available, this option would allow the Ram 1200 to dominate the niche.

4 More Generous Creature Comforts, Like The 1500’s UConnect Touchscreen

The Ram 1200’s most obvious application will be construction, farming, hauling loads of gravel, and pulling trailers (the 1200 manages a respectable towing capacity of 6,613 pounds, after all). But the truck’s light weight and low price make it a perfect daily driver, too, and it’d be a shame to see the pickup miss the boat because of a piddly touchscreen and bare-bones creature comforts. There’s no reason to lean into the luxury-lite segment when you’re trying to compete on price, but adding the Ram 1500’s 14.5-inch UConnect infotainment system as a standard feature would be a great choice (or at least a 12-inch touchscreen).

In Mexico, the entry-level is the Tradesman, and the mid-spec is the Bighorn, which includes a rearview camera and fabric/leather upholstery. The clear choice here is to rebrand the Tradesman as the “Fleet” model and make the Bighorn the base model for non-fleet buyers, and then you can add options like heated seats, a leather steering wheel, and an upgraded sound system.

5 An Off-Road Package Like The Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro

At some point in the last fifteen or twenty years, off-roading became a very expensive hobby. A fully loaded 2024 Wrangler will rack up a sale price in the low six figures. A Tacoma TRD Pro sells for almost $65,000, which is a bit more reasonable, but still more than you might want to spend on a truck you’ll only take to the trail once or twice a month.

The top-of-the-line 4×4 Laramie model sells for around $37,600. If they could add a suspension that provides more articulation, all-terrain tires, and skid plates while keeping the price tag in the low $40,000 range, this could easily be the go-to brand for the budget-savvy adventure vehicle buyer. And while we’re writing our wish list, how about some big roof-mounted fog lights?

6 Give It A Cooler Name Than “Ram 1200”

First off, “Ram 1200” is a headache to Google, because Hennessey’s Mammoth 6×6 is hyped-up as “a 1,200-hp Ram 1500,” so that always pops up in the results. Secondly, the name is confusing, because the 1200 has very little in common with the 1500, 2500, 3500, and so on You don’t want people thinking they’re buying a smaller version of the 1500. Finally, Ram 1200 just doesn’t roll off the tongue, and it’s up against compacts with cool-sounding names like Maverick, Ranger, Colorado, and Santa Cruz. Those trucks sound more like Western movies than they do like pickups, and that’s a big part of their appeal.

Some Dodge fans have suggested reviving the Dakota nameplate, but bad memories of rust issues on the second-gen models might make that branding a liability. We wouldn’t mind seeing Dodge dig a little deeper for a nameplate they already own. In fact, we have one already picked out: the Ram Husky. This was a UK-made pickup introduced in 1975 that never made it to the US.

7 Make It Look Like An Actual Dodge

The fact of the matter is that the Ram 1200 doesn’t look like a Ram right now. The biggest problem is the front end. It’s a little too soft and pudgy. We’ve seen at least one comment comparing it to a dog that got stung by a bee.

An obvious choice would be to copy-paste the current Ram pickup front-end to the 1200, but if the goal is to set the 1200 apart from other Dodge trucks, maybe they could go back to the simple, rugged look of the first and second-generation Dodge Rams, with their crisp lines and squared-off grilles, or 4th-gen Ram 1500s with the clean, arched look to the front end.