Although Chrysler doesn't have a comment, Cummins director of public relations, Mark Land, claims it's not a surprise. Sure, for you. For diesel loving light-duty hauling buffs, they're simply crushed. But, the expectation is Chrysler wants to resurrect the engine plan under the new Chrysler LLC with new terms. Mmm, cheaper pricing. More over at PickupTrucks.com!

Although we have in our possession all of the embargoed information (thanks to two different media outlets), including pictures of the new heavy-duty Dodge Ram's pig-like lipstick, we've decided against running them. Here's why.

The not-so-much re-engineered, but certainly restyled 2010 Dodge Ram heavy-duty pickup, set to be revealed on the Chicago Auto Show floor later this week will go on sale in the fourth quarter of this year. The new heavy-duties — the 2500, 3500 and 4500 series — will be offered with the same engine lineup you're currently able to get on a 2009 Dodge Ram heavy duty. Yes, that includes, as Automotive News reported this morning (incorrectly we might add), the same 6.7-liter Cummins inline-six diesel already producing 350 HP at 3,000 rpm and 650 lb-ft of torque at 1,500 rpm, mated to the same six-speed automatic transmission Dodge has had available since 2007.

In fact, the only noticeable difference from the 2009 model year will be the look of the sheet metal and interior. But wait, we've even seen that before — in the Ram 1500 revealed at last year's Detroit Auto Show. We're told to expect this new truck to adopt the same interior design and exterior sheet metal.

As you can see, we'd like to tell you all about it. We've always desired the chance to give Chrysler and their product lineup a fair shake, but Chrysler continues to deny us, and any other outlet unwilling to suck at the corporate teat of Chrysler messaging, embargoed access to product information. But denying us advanced product information isn't the only action the government-funded automaker's taking to stop our 2.6 million monthly readers from seeing their new heavy-hauling pickup trucks. Chrysler's also spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars individually watermarking photos for journalists in order to determine the dastardly outlets supplying us with embargoed photos and product information.

It didn't work. Within an hour, we defeated the Digimarc watermark on two sets of three photos. But, while readying a post for launch, we realized we'd only be doing Chrysler a favor in publicizing their new product for them. And why should we do that? Frankly, from every indication we've seen, the new Ram HD doesn't look different enough, isn't engineered differently enough and isn't providing better options than the competition. Frankly, it's out-moded and outmatched truck and doesn't appear to be worth the time of readers of Jalopnik or any other media outlet and most certainly isn't worth consumers spending money on it.

I know this may come off as a whiny rant to some. That's fine if it does, but I'm not doing this for the people who work at Jalopnik, myself included. I'm doing this for our readers who deserve better than this and because I'm so disappointed in the leadership of Bob Nardelli and Jim Press, who've allowed their product PR team, headed up by Rick "Luddite" Deneau, to continue and spend taxpayer dollars in playing hard-to-get with the very product they're trying to sell. It's just sad.

The heavy-duty Ram 2500 and 3500 are currently available (and evidently will continue to be) with a 6.7-liter straight-six Cummins diesel; the new five-liter mill should be for light-duty Rams, to go up against GM's 4.5-liter Duramax diesel, Ford's 4.4-liter diesel, and maybe even a diesel V8 from Toyota. Whether or not Chrysler will be sharing this engine with Nissan as they are with the Hemi remains to be seen. Let the diesel muscle truck wars begin!
[PickupTrucks.com]