Nowadays, it seems like there are only crossover, SUV, or truck novelties everywhere you look across the automotive industry. Here, we can easily give you a few examples from the latter category if we travel across the Americas in the real world. Or even from other regions if we dare a journey in the imaginative realm of digital car content creators.
In North America, for instance, Ford has finally unleashed the 2024 Ranger series – complete with the all-new Ranger Raptor that towers both above the base truck's 2.3-liter EcoBoost and new 2.7-liter EcoBoost V6 shared with the F-150 and Bronco SUVs, as well as all offerings from mid-size pickup truck rivals. Oh, and it's also the most powerful 3.0L twin-turbo V6 Ranger Raptor everywhere, as the European model only gets 282 hp, the Australians are cutting it close with 392 hp, and the US flavor has no less than 405 ponies under the hood.
Meanwhile, the competition wasn't going to stand idle, so just a few days later, Toyota ushered a new era for the king of the American mid-size pickup truck market with the 2024 Tacoma bringing a 326-hp i-Force Max hybrid model to the stable and also an adventurous Trailhunter guise. Logic dictates that where there are two fighting, the third will come in and snatch the laurels – and that's precisely what Chevrolet tried to do with the less-powerful yet more off-road-capable 310-hp Colorado ZR2 Bison prepared with help from American Expedition Vehicles and a bunch of other performance aftermarket parts manufacturers. And that was only a region that we just discussed.
Just recently, Ram Trucks decided it was about time to enter the compact, unibody pickup truck market with something cool, rugged, and skillful. So, there's a new 2024 Ram Rampage in town – if you live in Brazil, that is. As it turns out, Stellantis maybe didn't have enough courage to take the fight to the best-selling Ford Maverick and ritzy Hyundai Santa Cruz in North America or considered the newly-introduced 2024 Chevrolet Montana easy prey for its flagship Rampage version that touts 268 horsepower and one (very high) top speed of 137 mph (almost 221 kph) for a pickup truck model.
Naturally, everyone fell in love with the new Rampage, even though it's a bit too costly for South America, with prices around the $50k threshold, both in the real world and across the parallel universes of CGI artists. One in particular, Kleber Silva, the Brazil-based virtual artist known as KDesign AG on social media, has developed quite a passion for the latest model from Ram Trucks. Initially, the pixel master decided quickly to entice us to the artistic perspective of a Ram Rampage EV inspired by the Ram 1500 REV. But he soon decided that's way too easy, so in a very short amount of CGI time, the Rampage grew into a veritable Ram family with the Rampage EV, a crossover coupe-SUV inspired by the Fiat Fastback, as well as an unlikely seven-seater family SUV version based on the Jeep Commander.
Photo: KDesign AG / Behance
With all those to ruminate upon, you would think that's enough to call it an excellent virtual day and sign off. Not at all, as far as this CGI expert is concerned. Instead, Ram's Rampage returned Fiat the favor and allowed itself to be transformed into the second-generation Fiat Toro unibody compact pickup truck for South America. Well, that was kind of logical since it is also sold as the Ram 1000 across several Latin American markets. But what if Stellantis decided that the Ram Rampage's DNA was ripe for snatching, and even Peugeot wanted a piece of the 268-horsepower unibody compact pickup truck action?
As such, here is now the entirely hypothetical and most unlikely Peugeot 2008 pickup truck for regions like Europe, among others. Naturally, the author based this unofficial project on the refreshed Peugeot 2008 range recently introduced with sharper design cues and many technological improvements. But the mix between Peugeot's feline styling and Ram's strong Rampage ethos promises "to bring style and toughness to the compact pickup segment," according to the artist. So, do you agree?
In case that's not for you because we already have stuff like the next-generation Mitsubishi Triton (L200) in the pipeline, and we can always also choose the Ford Ranger – Volkswagen Amarok siblings, no worries because the artist has a solution to the 2008 puzzle. So, how about an alternate transformation of the little crossover into a coupe SUV based on the Fiat Fastback that could easily go toe-to-toe with the Renault Arkana?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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