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You have to love it whenever a regular-schmegeler pickup truck is recruited to pull out a piece of heavy machinery or, in this case, a literal car carrier. A large semi-truck got jackknifed on a sharp corner on a particularly extreme set of switchbacks in Australia. The truck – completely blocking the road – was stuck until a massively lifted Ram pickup truck decided to crawl over it so it could get in front to pull it up the hill. 

Can a Ram pickup truck pull a semi-truck? 

It can and did. The video is nothing short of amazing. If you are unfamiliar with “axel articulation,” watch this video and take notes. The highly modified pickup truck not only has a huge lift, which is where most people stop, but it also has a killer suspension and axle kit. As the truck climbs the trailer and straddles two very uneven surfaces, you can see this axel articulation at work. 

There is no world where a stock truck makes this climb. Hell, a normally modded truck probably couldn’t have made this recovery happen. The articulation is extreme. Even still, the Ram seems to be pushed to its limit several times. The Drive found the truck owner’s Instagram, which shows a rad King suspension setup with some serious coil overs. Amazingly, the truck makes it over the trailer with only a brief bump on the rocker panel. However, the Ram truck’s job isn’t done yet. 

This Ram pickup truck isn’t playing around

Ram pickup truck off-roading with crazy axle articulation
Ram Truck axle articulation | YouTube: Dodge Ram Projects

The Ram only crawled over the trailer to get in front of the semi-truck so that it could attempt to pull it around the turn and up the hill. The Cummins diesel Ram, still in 4L, spits some black smoke, barks the tires, and slowly pulls the semi-truck up the hill. 

Despite the insane truck and masterful driving done by its owner, The Drive reports that this video, despite it only recently catching viral attention, happened over a year ago. Before the news outlets got a hold of it about a week ago, it only had been watched on YouTube 478 times. Interestingly, it seems videos of goofy dudes building huge trucks only to suck at driving them are more appealing to internet people than a well-built truck being beautifully driven. Thankfully, the coverage is calling attention to this Aussie pickup truck king. 

What is the difference between horsepower and torque?

Horsepower and torque are similar concepts. While related to one another, they describe different aspects of the power being made by our engines. According to J.D.Power, “Torque is the force while horsepower is the rate at which that force works.”

This is a nice, clean way to think about the difference between torque and horsepower. This distinction matters because we often talk about horsepower as it pertains to speed. However, we rarely (at least, people outside of the truck world) talk about how much torque affects vehicles like this Ram pickup truck. This truck’s horsepower figure is far less important than the torque figure in this application. That diesel torque is what allows the Ram to pull the immense weight, not so much the horsepower.