A Chevy Corvette is hardly what we’d call a “green” car, by any stretch of the imagination. Even in base form, it packs a 6.2-liter V8, and some versions add a supercharger to up the output. But this rollin’ coal Ram truck makes the ‘Vette look like a veritable tree hugger by comparison.
This short, 20-second video – captured from inside another vehicle in Tacoma, Washington (if our eyes don’t deceive us) – shows what appears to be a big old Dodge Ram pickup (from before the brand was spun off) trying to merge into traffic in front of a C5-generation Corvette. The ‘Vette driver seems hesitant to let the truck into the lane in front of him, so the Ram driver fills his cockpit with smoke.
It’s a ∂!¢k move, to be sure. But it’s hardly unprecedented. Rolling coal is a trend that emerged in reaction to environmentally friendlier forms of transportation like hybrids and EVs. It involves modifying diesel engines to produce more smog, not less. And Ram trucks have traditionally offered some of the biggest diesels on the market.
The automaker has a longstanding partnership in place with diesel-engine manufacturer Cummins to slot big oil-burning powerplants into its bigger trucks. The latest 1500-series pickups have offered smaller, more “friendly” 3.0-liter EcoDiesel V6s furnished by Fiat Chrysler’s VM Motori division in Italy, but the larger heavy-duty trucks have stick with the bigger 6.7-liter Cummins straight-six.
And as low-quality as the footage is, this truck definitely looks heavy-duty to us – sans the particulate filter designed to keep the smog down to a minimum.