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Ram is trotting out a crew-cab street truck concept for SEMA that’s also sort of a nod to Mr. Limpet’s ’70s “Dodge Dude” (more on that in a second). As an appreciator of cutesy creativity, I dig the prototype dashboard cowboy hat holder Mopar’s design team invented for this thing.
The basic rundown on Ram’s new “The Dude” concept is that it’s a lowered Ram 1500 with a really intense lime-green paint job and some ’70s-style graphics. I mention Mr. Limpet because the original 1970 Dodge Dude was endorsed by Don Knotts, the actor who, of course, played the US Navy’s talking tactical fish called The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
Is this jogging a dusty memory for anyone? I promise I’m not making it up—in fact, my friend Jason Torchinsky did a whole history of Don Knotts as a Dodge pitchman post on The Autopian earlier this year. It’s real, I swear!
Anyway, the 1970 Dude was a trim package for the single-cab Sweptline pickup. Here’s a period ad explaining why the new Dude is electric green.
Dodge
Dodge also revived the “Dude” moniker in 2004 with a somewhat sleek single-cab street truck, which I bet almost nobody remembers, but looked pretty decent for the era:
Dodge
The new truck concept has a few visual connections to the old one, but the vibes are very different. Take a look:
Ram
The cowboy hat holder could have been an afterthought, but it came out well. Ram is undoubtedly not the first to invent the concept of mounting a hat like this on a dashboard—state troopers and ranchers have had various hat-mount solutions for cars and trucks for decades. But the idea of it being an OEM part is cool and cute.
Ram
As for the The Dude concept truck itself, I don’t mean to offend the folks who worked on it personally, but it landed in an uncanny valley and is ultimately ugly and pointless.
This hot lime color added intensity to the simple vehicle designs of the ’70s. But it just doesn’t feel right with the super-aggro lines of the 2025 truck. It looks like a child’s toy, but like, in more of a 40-year-old-virgin way than a freewheeling young-at-heart way. Fox’s aftermarket Ram street truck, which came out earlier this month, felt a lot more aesthetically cohesive.
One more thing, then I’ll wrap up my rant—multiple mascots on one vehicle is wack. If you’re going to have an engine-with-animal-head fender emblem, you can’t also have a cowboy character on the back fender. Dodge and Ram have worked hard to position themselves as the Saturday morning cartoons of the car world, which is cool and fun, but like, there’s a point at which over-the-top really does become too much.
Still, if anybody’s going to give us a true, hardcore, factory street truck this decade, it’s probably Ram. Does the world need one? Would you drive it?
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Automotive journalist since 2013, Andrew primarily coordinates features, sponsored content, and multi-departmental initiatives at The Drive.
