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FCA announces the winners of its Design Sketch Battle contest

Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) designers Ralph Gilles and Mark Trostle announced the winner of the first Design Sketch Battle on their respective Instagram accounts. The 24-hour contest invited designers and enthusiasts from all over the world to submit their "wickedest and most outrageous designs for a Ram truck." Participants flooded the company's various social media accounts with creative submissions that did not disappoint. Ralph Gilles, FCA's head of design, selected submissions sent by Paul Piliste, Rezo Lomaia, Michael Stanfel, Morten Rabiee, and Joshua Reese. The sketches he selected all put a decidedly futuristic spin on Ram's design language, and one is a tribute to the original Power Wagon introduced in 1946. They embrace the company's rugged side with oversized wheels and ground clearance measured in feet, not inches. Don't look for street-oriented, low-to-the-ground performance -— like Gilles' own Tomahawk GTR sketch from 1995 — here. We've embedded his winners below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Mark Trostle, the head of design for Ram and Mopar, published his top picks an hour after Gilles. He selected work by Bryan Johnson, Robin Mathew, Ricky Ryan Goimarac, Jon Sibal, and Sean Smith. His attention gravitated towards futuristic designs, too, but he channeled his inner hot-rodder by choosing what looks like a slammed quad-cab Ram with a front fascia and fender flares from a wide-body Challenger. His fifth pick is one we'd love to see in showrooms: it blends retro-inspired and modern styling cues in a street-oriented high-performance package. His winners are embedded below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. In the world of Lego, designers can compete for the chance to add their one-off creation to the company's catalog of current and classic cars. We don't know if FCA will give the Design Sketch Battle winners the same distinction. In the meantime, Gilles and Trostle both said they'd post more stand-out designs on Instagram over the weekend. Spoiler alert: Someone Photoshopped a Ram 1500 Rebel grille onto a Tesla Cybertruck. You've been warned. Related Video:

Dodge vs. Chevy tug-of-war taken to the extreme

They say "idle hands are the devil's playground," but said playgrounds grow to Disney-sized proportions when a pair of jacked-up trucks, two egos, a chain and an empty mall parking lot are involved. Proof of this is the video below, which shows a Cummins-powered Dodge Ram circa 2006 to 2008 chained tail-to-tail with what looks to be a gasoline-powered Chevrolet Silverado from the late 1990s or early 2000s.
We don't necessarily have to tell you who wins this battle, but we'll let you see for yourself the lengths the "winning" driver goes to prove his point. There's plenty of foul language in the video below, so beware that this might be Not Safe For Work, and not that we should have to tell you, but please, do not try this at home.

Full-size trucks are the best and worst vehicles in America

You don’t need me to tell you that Americans love pickup trucks. And the bigger the truck, the more likely it seems to be seen as an object of desire. Monthly and yearly sales charts are something of a broken record; track one is the Ford F-Series, followed by the Chevy Silverado, RamÂ’s line of haulers, and somewhere not far down the line, the GMC Sierra. The big Japanese players fall in place a bit further below — not that thereÂ’s anything wrong with a hundred thousand Toyota Tundra sales — and one-size-smaller trucks like the Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger and Chevy Colorado have proven awfully popular, too. Along with their sales numbers, the average cost of new trucks has similarly been on the rise. Now, I donÂ’t pretend to have the right to tell people what they should or shouldnÂ’t buy with their own money. But I just canÂ’t wrap my head around why a growing number of Americans are choosing to spend huge sums of money on super luxurious pickup trucks. Let me first say I do understand the appeal. People like nice things, after all. I know I do. I myself am willing to spend way more than the average American on all sorts of discretionary things, from wine and liquor to cameras and lenses. IÂ’ve even spent my own money on vehicles that I donÂ’t need but want anyway. A certain vintage VW camper van certainly qualifies. I also currently own a big, inefficient SUV with a 454-cubic-inch big block V8. So if your answer to the question IÂ’m posing here is that youÂ’re willing to pay the better part of a hundred grand on a chromed-out and leather-lined pickup simply because you want to, then by all means — not that you need my permission — go buy one. The part I donÂ’t understand is this: Why wouldn't you, as a rational person, rather split your garage in half? On one side would sit a nice car that is quiet, rides and handles equally well and gets above average fuel mileage. Maybe it has a few hundred gasoline-fueled horsepower, or heck, maybe itÂ’s electric. On the other side (or even outside) is parked a decent pickup truck. One that can tow 10,000 pounds, haul something near a ton in the bed, and has all the goodies most Americans want in their cars, like cruise control, power windows and locks, keyless entry, and a decent infotainment screen.