Ram 1500 sales jumped nearly 73% in the third quarter as the Hemi V8 came back

Stellantis sold 76,650 Ram 1500 pickups in the United States in the third quarter of 2026, against 44,349 in the same quarter of 2025, a gain of 72.8 percent that the company rounds to 73 percent. The jump arrived with the return of the 5.7-liter Hemi V8, which Ram had dropped for 2025 and restored for the 2026 model year.

It was the strongest number in a quarter when the rest of the automaker’s U.S. business was flat: Stellantis as a whole sold 324,277 vehicles, essentially level with 324,825 a year earlier.

76,650 Ram 1500s in the quarter

Stellantis’s Oct. 1 sales release lists the Ram 1500 up 73 percent from the third quarter of 2025, total Ram pickup sales up 34 percent and the Ram brand up 29 percent. The unit counts behind those percentages, as tabulated from Stellantis’s data, are 134,072 Ram deliveries against 103,717, and 117,757 pickups of all weights.

Heavy-duty trucks did not share in it. Ram’s heavy-duty pickups, the 2500 and 3500 models, sold 41,107, down 6 percent from 43,717, which means the gain sits entirely in the half-ton: the Ram 1500 added more than 32,000 sales while the heavy-duty line lost about 2,600. Through nine months the 1500 has sold 202,147 units, up 41 percent, according to the same tabulation. Michael Orange, Stellantis’s head of U.S. retail sales and network performance, said in the release that retail sales of the Ram 1500 rose 42 percent, which means the surge was not confined to fleet deliveries. The release adds that the Ram 1500 ranked first in the large light-duty pickup segment of the J.D. Power 2026 Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) study, a quality ranking that gives dealers a second selling point beside the engine.

Hemi V8 back in the 2026 Ram 1500

The engine’s timeline matters to the comparison. Ram announced in June 2025 that the 5.7-liter Hemi would return, and Ram brand CEO Tim Kuniskis said at the time that eliminating the Hemi had been a mistake and that customers had asked for it back, according to ClubAlfa’s report of the announcement. The engine makes 395 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque, against up to 540 horsepower from the twin-turbo 3.0-liter Hurricane six-cylinder that replaced it, and Ram lists towing of up to 11,470 pounds.

The first Hemi-equipped 2026 Ram 1500s left the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in Michigan around Aug. 29, 2025, MoparInsiders reported. That date falls at the very end of the comparison quarter, so third-quarter 2025 had almost no Hemi trucks to sell, and the 73 percent gain is measured against a weak base. Kuniskis said the return of the Hemi “was managed in record time by the Ram team and the employees at SHAP.”

The sales release itself gives no reason for the increase and does not credit the engine. The causal link comes from analysts and the trade press: Autoblog ties the surge to the Hemi’s return and to a 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranty that Ram extended through the 2026 model year after planning to end it in January.

Rivals slipped as Ram gained

Competitors went the other way. Autoblog’s third-quarter comparison has Ford’s F-Series down 1.9 percent, the GMC Sierra down 2.5 percent and the Toyota Tundra down 0.7 percent, with Ford and Chevrolet offering 5-year, 60,000-mile powertrain coverage against Ram’s 10-year, 100,000-mile terms. The article adds that Ford is putting V8 options back on the F-150 and that General Motors is investing $1 billion in a new generation of V8 engines.

Money also moved. AutoGuide put Ram’s average September discount at $7,941 per vehicle, up more than 10 percent, which shows pricing moved alongside the engine, though the release itself names no incentive program and does not say how much of the volume discounts explain.

The brand picture changed too. Ram’s 134,072 deliveries put it ahead of Jeep, whose sales fell 20 percent to 128,542 in the quarter, though Jeep still leads for the year to date by about 44,000 vehicles. MoparInsiders’ tally of the release has Ram at 369,379 through September, up 20 percent, against Jeep at 413,793, down 8 percent, with the Wrangler up 5 percent and the Grand Cherokee down 30 percent in the quarter. Ram’s lead in momentum, not volume, is the part the quarter settled.

The figure that settles how much of this is the Hemi will come from the fourth quarter. Ram is taking orders for the 2027 Ram 1500 Rumble Bee 5.7, a Hemi-powered truck whose initial 2026 calendar-year allocation sold out in 90 minutes and which is due at dealerships in Q4 2026, the release says.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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