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Ram Truck's Gear Up! hunting series teaches you how to gut a deer

Ram knows that hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts make up a key demographic of its trucks' sales, so late last year it started an Internet hunting video series called Gear Up! on YouTube hosted by a variety of attractive ladies dressed in camouflage. (Ram knows its target audience, eh?).
This series has been going since October, but it caught our eye with a recent episode that gives instructions on how to properly gut (or dress) a deer. There are no graphic images, but Megan (this episode's host) does provide detailed and frank - if slightly surreal - deer-processing tips in a cheerful tone. For example: "Begin sliding your knife up the deer's belly towards its neck" and "sever the final tubes of the rectum." Oh, and this gem: "At this point, you'll need to get a little limber and actually stick your hand and knife up through the hole that is now visible leading into the deer's throat..."
Keep in mind, this is one of the advanced videos, so if you're really trying to learn how to hunt deer, you should start from the earlier, beginner-level videos in this Hunting 101 series. Scroll down if you'd like to learn how to clean a deer carcass Ram-style, and we've even included a few of the other how-to videos (including how to choose a taxidermist!) in this somewhat bizarre lifestyle marketing series.

Mopar Muscle is Monster Jam's first OEM monster truck in over a decade

New monster trucks seem to join the Monster Jam circuit every year, but it's not often that one gets the official blessing of an automaker. That's about to change, however, as Chrysler's truck division has teamed up once again with Hall Brothers Racing - which already fields the championship-winning Raminator and Rammunition trucks - to field the series' first new Original Equipment Manufacturer monster truck in over a decade.
Dubbed Mopar Muscle, the new Ram monster truck will debut at the Monster Jam in Detroit on Saturday at Ford Field, at the first of six such events in which Mike Miller (who, incidentally, named his son Hemi) will drive the truck throughout the year.
Here's what you need to know: Based on a 2014 Ram HD pickup (or at least made to look like one), Mopar Muscle stands 10 feet tall and weighs over 10,000 pounds, and it's powered by the legendary Gen II 426 Hemi that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. But instead of leaving the massive 7.0-liter engine as is, Hall Brothers Racing enlarged it to 565 cubic inches - a mind-boggling 9.3 liters - and supercharged it to 2,000 horsepower. That's a whole lot of muscle no matter what it's packed into. Check it out in our high-res image gallery above. You can also check out the full schedule of events in the press release below to see if the truck is coming to your area this year.

China-FCA merger could be a win-win for everyone but politicians

NEW YORK — Fiat Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne has said the car industry needs to come together, cut costs and stop incinerating capital. So far, his words have mostly fallen on deaf ears among competitors in Europe and North America. But it appears Marchionne has finally found a receptive audience — in China. FCA shares soared Monday after trade publication Automotive News reported the $18 billion Italian-American conglomerate controlled by the Agnelli family rebuffed a takeover from an unidentified carmaker from the Chinese mainland. As ugly as the politics of such a combination may appear at first blush, a transaction could stack up industrially, and perhaps even financially. A Sino-U.S.-European merger would create the first truly global auto group. That could push consolidation to the next level elsewhere. Moreover, China is the world's top market for the SUVs that Jeep effectively invented, so it might benefit FCA financially. A combo would certainly help upgrade the domestic manufacturer; Chinese carmakers have gotten better at making cars, but struggle to build global brands, and they need to develop export markets. Though frivolous overseas shopping excursions by Chinese enterprises are being reined in by Beijing, acquisitions that support the modernization and transformation of strategic industries still receive support, and the government considers the automotive industry to be strategic. A purchase of FCA by Guangzhou Automobile, Great Wall or Dongfeng Motors would probably get the same stamp of approval ChemChina was given for its $43 billion takeover of Syngenta. What's standing in the way? Apart from price (Automotive News said FCA's board deemed the offer insufficient) there's the not-insignificant matter of politics. Even as FCA shares soared, President Donald Trump interrupted his vacation to instruct the U.S. Trade Representative to look into whether to investigate China's trade policies on intellectual property. Seeing storied Detroit brands like Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and Dodge handed off to a Chinese company would provoke howls among Trump's economic-nationalist supporters. It might not play well in Italy, either, to see Alfa Romeo and Maserati answering to Wuhan instead of Turin — though Automotive News said they might be spun off separately. Yet, as Morgan Stanley observes, "cars don't ship across oceans easily," and political considerations increasingly demand local manufacture of valuable products.