Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD
In the past I’ve reviewed a couple of vehicles perfectly suited for Great Lakes anglers with small to medium sized trailerable boats. That includes a large component of GLA readers. Then there’s the guys with bigger boats. I’m talking boats up to 28 feet which wanderlust Great Lakers routinely pull on away trips to two or more Great Lakes each season. I’m talking guys like me with slightly smaller boats who live an hour or more away from a Great Lake but still trailer a hundred miles or more several times per week. I’m talking about guys who keep their even bigger boats in slips during the season, but store them in a remote location in the off season.
Owners of these type boats are also a large component of this magazine’s readers. A family model SUV with a trailering package or even a half-ton pick-up won’t really suit those needs. So I procured the use of a really big-azz truck designed for heavy duty work and still suitable for everyday use. I drove a Ram 2500 Laramie Crew Cab 4X4 model on a fishing road trip last August.
First, a few of the technical details – just a few. This truck came fully loaded with every imaginable bell and whistle. The power-plant was a 6.7 Cummins Turbo Diesel engine. It’s big, powerful and it rode like a Cadillac – a tall Cadillac – but thanks to the “power-deployable running boards” which automatically move into place when a door is opened, it was easy to climb in and out of the cab. Shut the door and the running boards tuck away and become a part of the truck’s trim. It’s available in many colors but the bright red version I tested was eye-popping.
Back to the Cadillac-like (perhaps due to Ram’s Chrysler roots I should say New Yorker-like) ride – and I’m talking about back when Caddies and New Yorkers were luxury car road-boats. I found it necessary to keep an eye on the speedometer since the interior sound and ride changed little between 55 and 75 – probably more. It was easy to let the speed creep up without even noticing. This was with or without my boat in tow.
Why not? My boat is a fly-weight compared to the towing capacity of this beast – 19,680 pounds. That’s enough pulling power to haul a Caterpillar D4 Bulldozer on a trailer.
From built-in Wifi to lights in the truck bed so I could see under the tonneau cover at night, picking which bell or whistle was most worthwhile would be daunting. What I thought was coolest was the combination of a special view on the back up camera to help line up the trailer’s coupler with the truck’s ball hitch. Most trucks have that, but add the feature which lowers the back end of the truck three inches so you never have to crank the trailer’s jack stand up or down when connecting or disconnecting. Lower the truck, back under the hitch and raise the truck. Don’t forget to plug in the trailer lights.
My wife, a fan of heated seats – the Laramie does have heated seats, front and rear – is now equally enamored of seat coolers. Hop into the truck on a hot day, activate the seat cooler and it’s like a cool breeze right at the top of your butt crack. Hoo-wah! I don’t understand just how that works through the soft leather bucket seats, but it does.
With all this plush power, the truck pulled my boat over 500 miles, on two lane roads, interstates, through cities and in and out of marina parking lots. Doing this, it averaged 14.1 miles per gallon. Check out http://www.ramtrucks.com and then head for your closest dealer.
FISHING TOYS 