We all grew up reveling Walker: Texas Ranger as the standard in action entertainment. Or was it just stoners watching the Hallmark channel between classes? Whatever, remember that badass silver Dodge that Chuck Norris drove in the show? Ram's brought it back! Kinda. Actually, I think, unintentionally.
If you have no clue what I'm talking about you probably didn't read this far, but here's the bad ass Walker intro sequence and song (sung by Chuck Norris):
The roundhouse kicks. The eyes in the sun. It's so classic I almost forgot why I started writing this story! Oh yeah; the Ram "Texas Ranger Concept Truck."
Ram just trotted this thing out along with a $100,000 donation to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum in Waco at the Dallas Auto Show, "because Texas" I guess.
It's pretty much the same silver-on-silver as Walker's pickup, disappointingly lacking the light bar but it does have a smooth natural leather interior with (Western style?) embroidery somewhere between "vines" and "barbed wire," plus galvanized steel trim pieces, a few choice lone star Texas Ranger badges, and a lock-box (pistol case?) in the center console.
Four Mexican "five peso" coins are inlaid into the doors because, fun fact, that's what the actual original Texas Ranger badges were made out of when the department was founded in 1923.
Okay, so Ram denies intentionally attempting to draw a connection between this truck and the legend that is Chuck Norris, clearly missing the real marketing opportunity here. Do we need to be reminded of how hard he looked in that mid-90's Ram? Okay:
Hell yeah he smoked that semi-truck. And what about the time he faced off against a Cobra gunship?!
...I guess the truck didn't make it out of that one, but Walker did. With nothing more than a scraped knee and his seriously unbelievably bad excellent acting talent intact. Ergo: a Ram will keep you safe in a helicopter attack.
Point is, this is a great opportunity for everyone to share their favorite Chuck Norris clips in the comments.
Andrew P. Collins is Jalopnik's off-road and adventure guy. Shoot him an email at andrew@jalopnik.com or hit him up on Twitter @andr3wcollins to talk trucks.