2015 Ram 1500 Laramie Limited Pricing – A Closer Look

Yesterday, I published a story on the pricing of the new Ram Rebel and Laramie Limited. During the story, I called out the $50k price tag on the Laramie Limited as surprising. I got a few phone calls and changed the wording of a few things to reflect what I intended to say. Yet, the $50k price point is still on my mind. Is it absurd? Is it based in fantasy land? Not really.

The 2015 Ram 1500 Laramie Limited takes luxury to another level.

For those who don’t know, this little Tundra blog gets attention and has grown in importance quite a bit over the years. I’m pretty proud of that. Yet, sometimes I get phone calls because I goofed something up. This may sound odd, but I love these calls from those guys (you know who you are). It simply makes me a better journalist – something I’m always striving for.

With the above in mind, let’s take that closer look at the Ram Laramie Limited. For the record, the Ram Rebel is comparably priced to the TRD PRO (within $1,500k or like $15 of a monthly payment). The Ram Laramie Limited, though, starts at $50,675. While the 1794 starts at $44,925 ($5,750 less) than the Laramie Limited – for the record, Ford’s  F-150 Platinum starts at $51,350 and the F-150 King Ranch starts at $48,885.  Is the $5,750 my “beef” with it? Heck no.

If you think the 1794 is luxurious, you haven’t sat in a Ram 1500 Laramie Limited.

Is my “issue” with the additional content on the truck? Heck no.  Marketing and product people will gladly point out the amount of additional “content” the Laramie Limited has over the 1794. They are ABSOLUTELY correct. On paper, the Laramie Limited offers a bunch more content and this is likely all written down somewhere in a board room at Ram with charts and pictures comparing features and models. What exactly is this additional content? Try luxurious “best in class” leather interior (yeah, we said it), LED lighting accents and taillights, really cool removable Berber carpet pads (yes, that Berber) with a rubber underlayment so you can remove the carpet when the weather is bad and, not only all the goodies like heated/cooled seats, navigation, leather wrapped wheel BUT heated rear seats. Yeah, the rear seats are heated. Like HOLY COW cool.

Now, I’ve spent a week in the 1794 and I sat in the Laramie Limited at the Chicago Auto Show. I won’t hold back – the Laramie Limited is SPECTACULAR.

Is that my issue? The Laramie Limited is so spectacular that the 1794 can’t compete? Nope. That’s not it either.

My issue is simple. Will consumers notice? Have we gone too far off the deep end? Consider this, people buy lots of luxury trucks. Ask any manufacture and the “take rate” (or the percentage of that model sold against the entire lineup) is growing dramatically for luxury full-size trucks. These trucks fly off the lots and have some of the shortest turnaround times in the industry. Sure you could argue that is primarily a by-product of the limited amount of them that are made, but sorry Charlie, consumers have spoken. They WANT these trucks.

Yet, does that same customer understand the difference between Berber carpet and other carpets? Does the Chanel-like interior of the Ram Laramie Limited grab their attention? Or do they look at the 1794 as having similar interior quality? That is a big question that marketers are trying to figure out.

Make no mistake, Ram didn’t hold back on the Laramie Limited. I have NEVER sat in a truck like it. Seriously, never and my butt is in different truck seats all the time throughout the year. The Laramie Limited is gorgeous and should really have a luxury badge on it. It is a little absurd this truck will share the lot with a Ram 1500 SLT. Nothing against the SLT, the Laramie Limited is just in a league of its own.

For the record, I applaud Ram for giving a shot. Nobody has figured out how large the luxury truck market is and where the line is with charging too much. Toyota found that out when their luxury truck take rate was a LOT larger than expected. Here’s hoping Toyota follows Ram’s lead on product development here. There is a LOT of profit to be made here, because we have learned, if you build it, they will buy it.

On the other hand, Toyota has been bashed by some reviewers as having an “expensive” truck. If the Ram 1500 Laramie Limited does anything, it should serve as proof, the Tundra is anything, but expensive. Hell, the 1794 is a luxury BARGAIN compared to these other trucks!