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Ram to go on a Rampage with new small pickup?

When people look back at today's automotive industry, what do you think they'll remember us for? The emergence of hybrids? Ever more expensive and exotic supercars? The dawn of the self-driving car? All likely scenarios, but so is the blurring of lines between one bodystyle and another, giving rise to hardtop convertible coupes and crossovers of every shape and size. But one bodystyle the North American auto industry has stayed largely away from in the past couple of decades is a car nose and chassis with a pickup bed.
It's a bodystyle immortalized by the Chevrolet El Camino, but with few exceptions, we haven't seen too many of these automotive platypuses in recent years on our turf. Subaru tried with the Baja and the low-volume Honda Ridgeline soldiers along largely unchanged, but the genre's biggest adherents are still Down Under, where ute versions of the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon live. With a few other examples scattered to the four corners of the earth, that's really about it. But if these spy shots are anything to go by, it looks like Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could be working to bring it back.
Spied undergoing testing in Michigan, what we appear to be looking at is a heavily disguised Fiat Strada being prepared - like the Fiat Ducato-based Ram ProMaster and the smaller Doblo-based ProMaster City - for Stateside duty as a Ram product. The Strada, for those unfamiliar, is a product of Fiat Automóveis in Brazil and is based on the Palio economy car. The nameplate has been around South America since 1996 and was originally designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro (long before Volkswagen monopolized his talents), and takes a more rugged approach in the form of the Strada Adventure.

2013 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists announced [w/poll]

2012 is almost in the books and automakers are spending December gearing up for the 2013 auto show season, which tips off next month at the Detroit Auto Show. Traditionally, the latter opens up with the announcement of the North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards, and this year figures to be no different.
But up until this moment, we didn't know which six vehicles would be parked ahead of the stage as finalists, with executives and engineers waiting for the winners to be disclosed. Whittled down from October's "short list" of nominees (11 cars and 10 truck/utility vehicles), the finalists are as follows:
2013 North American Car of the Year:

Ram and Fiat working on possible midsize pickup for global markets

The midsize pickup segment is enjoying a recent boom globally, with updated models like the new Ford Ranger on the way and a revised Toyota Hilux already testing. The next automaker to take the plunge into the market might be FCA with this recently spotted, highly camouflaged truck. Click through the gallery to see the pickup wearing two different disguises during cold-weather testing. Unfortunately, they keep the truck very well hidden, and even the bed is covered in both of them. Still, it appears that the front end wears a fairly upright design, and the four-door cab is obvious. Also, take a look at the rear to spot coil springs for the suspension, rather than leaf springs. According to our spies, this vehicle's size is larger than the current front-wheel drive Fiat Strada and is closer in dimensions to models like the Ranger and Hilux. Of course, the most intriguing question is whether FCA might bring this vehicle to the US as a Ram competitor against the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon. The company's five-year plan makes no mention of such a model here through at least 2018, though. However, Europe and South America are set to receive a midsize pickup in 2016. Perhaps, that's what we are seeing here. Related Video: Featured Gallery Fiat-Ram Pickup Spy Shots View 14 Photos Image Credit: CarPix Design/Style Spy Photos Fiat RAM Truck FCA