If you're a truck person, the State Fair of Texas is the place to be, and as it turns out, this year is no exception. America's Big Three truck manufactures have used the occasion to drop big news about their heavy-duty trucks: Chevrolet with its 2024 Silverado HD, Ford with its 2023 Super Duty, and now Ram with its 2023 Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel. Fried food, hot tubs 'n new heavy duty trucks. Go Texas.
The Ram Rebel isn't new; Ram introduced its half-ton Ram 1500 Rebel for 2016. However, until now, there has never been a ¾-ton Heavy Duty 2500 Rebel. The 2022 Ram 1500 Rebel—the OG Rebel—sits sits between Laramie and Limited Longhorn and is available as a Crew Cab with the 5-foot 7-inch bed. Its price tag starts north of $50,000. The Rebel 1500 has a sporty, athletic demeanor with off-road attributes, but slots below Ram's alpha half-ton off-roader, the 1500 TRX.
The big 2023 Ram 2500 Rebel sits between Laramie and Power Wagon and is available as a Crew Cab with the 6-foot 4-inch bed. It'll comes with a $68,940 price tag when it goes on sale in the fourth quarter of 2022. This super-sized Rebel has the same basic nature as the "smaller" Rebel, but it slots below the iconic 2500 Power Wagon, actually yanking the Power Wagon's underpinnings. Think of it as a Power Wagon lite.
The biggest differentiator between the Rebel and Power Wagon comes with the powertrain. Whereas the Power Wagon only comes with the 6.4-liter V-8 Hemi gasser under the hood, the Heavy Duty Rebel can be optioned with the 6.7-liter Cummins I-6 (the standard one with 370 hp and 850 lb-ft of torque backed by the 68RFE six-speed). Before you get too excited—no, you still can't get the factory-installed 12,000-pound Warn Zeon-12 winch with the Cummins. The turbodiesel's low-slung CAC (charge-air cooler) just doesn't play nicely with the winch setup. If you want the winch, you'll need to stick with the standard 6.4-liter Hemi V-8 (410 hp, 429 lb-ft of torque) backed by the 8HP75 eight-speed. The Rebel Heavy Duty can tow 16,870 pounds and haul 3,140 pounds.
As mentioned earlier, the Rebel shares the Power Wagon's off-road underpinnings: things like shocks, springs, factory lift, and the Articulink in the front. It's exclusively four-wheel drive like the Power Wagon. There are some caveats, though. The Rebel lacks the front locker (rear only) and also lacks the electronic sway bar disconnect. It gains optional rear air suspension. Whereas the Power Wagon has several 17-inch wheel offerings (one being beadlock-capable), the Rebel has 20-inch wheels, with optional 18s coming. Both sport (approximately) 33-inch tires, meaning the big Rebel loses some sidewall. The Rebel has skid plates protecting the fuel tank and transfer case.
The Heavy Duty Ram Rebel has unique badging and a Mopar sport performance hood in addition to its distinctive grille that looks like a jumbo-sized iteration of the 1500 Rebel. A spray-in bedliner, LED bed lighting, and bed step are available, while cargo tie-downs are standard. And of course, Cummins-powered variants will sport the Cummins badge, presumably a big selling point for the Cummins-loving off-roaders. There is a surprisingly a big following for off-road desert or overland-style heavy duty diesel trucks.
Cloth, Bristol leather, or a snazzy Natura Plus leather provide of variety of interior material options for the 2023 Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel. A 360-degree Surround View camera and digital rearview mirror with tow mode help with visibility, and a host of available safety features—adaptive cruise control, full-speed forward-collision warning plus, Lane Keep Assist, blind-spot monitoring, and cross path detection, for example—add confidence. The 12-inch frameless digital gauge cluster and big 12-inch Uconnect vertical touchscreen are available.
This is a rare case where the advancement of a rebel is applauded. Maybe a Rebel variant of a mid-size Dakota replacement will round out a Rebel trifecta someday.