If you look at the whole history of performance models, you’ll find that muscle trucks rarely have a long run. The Ford Mustang has been around for more than 60 years, but the Ford SVT Lightning only showed up for a few years at the start of the 1990s, and again in the 2000s.
One of Dodge’s muscle truck masterpieces, the Ram 1500 GTX, was a true limited-time offer, hitting the market for a solitary model year in 2004, only to disappear without a trace. Here’s why we think it deserves to be remembered.
The Ram 1500 GTX Was Ram’s Rarest Attempt At A Muscle Truck – And Almost Nobody Knows It Existed
2027 Ram 1500 Rumble BeeRam
While street trucks and muscle pickups have never maintained enough momentum to become a mainstay of the auto industry, the segment definitely has its moments. In the mid-2000s, we had the Ram 1500 GTX, as well as the Ram SRT-10, from 2004 to 2006. Then you had the second iteration of the SVT Lightning, and the Chevy Silverado SS, from 2003 to 2007.
Muscle trucks seemed to disappear for much of the 2010s, aside from a performance trim here and there, like the 5,000-unit 2009–2012 Chevy Colorado V8. Dune-jumpers like the F-150 Raptor were all the rage in those pre-pandemic years, while muscle trucks fell out of vogue.
The Rumble Bee Revives What the GTX Started – But Who Remembers The Original?
As big fans of overpowered street trucks, we’ve been happy to see what looks like a full renaissance for the segment in the mid-2020s. The Ford F-150 Lobo is one of the coolest-looking trucks Ford has ever built, and the Ram Rumble Bee is a 395-horsepower beast. We’ve made the argument that electric pickups are street trucks by their very nature, only lacking the stylistic touches and lowered suspension, because what else would you call a 452-hp pickup with a low center of gravity?
It seems like the street truck segment flourishes every 15–20 years or so, before receding into obscurity once more. There’s no telling if the Lobo and the Rumble Bee will stick around for more than a few short years, but the Ram 1500 GTX would certainly fit right in alongside them.
The Plymouth-Inspired Ram 1500 GTX Is The “Gentleman’s Muscle Truck”
2004 Ram 1500 GTXBring a Trailer
Plymouth was no more by the time the Ram 1500 GTX arrived, but the name was intended to honor the Plymouth GTX, an upscale muscle car from the late 1960s, known as the “gentleman’s muscle car,” producing 375 hp in the 1967 model. The original GTX was scrapped in 1971, just before the Oil Crisis would squash the muscle car golden age.
Ram’s version of the GTX has nothing in common with the original muscle car, mechanically speaking, but in spirit it’s very much a full-size pickup take on the forgotten Plymouth, with a muscular Hemi under the hood and a swanky black-and-orange interior with custom leather seats and embroidered Hemi GTX logos on the headrests.
2004 Ram 1500 GTX
Engine
5.7-Liter Hemi NA 8-Cylinder
Power
345 hp
Torque
375 lb-ft
0-60 mph
7 Seconds
Ram only produced 433 units, selling the GTX as a dealer-ordered performance package. The modifications were handled by LA West Luxury Vehicles, which is not located in Los Angeles or Louisiana. The shop was actually stationed in LaGrange, Indiana.
So if only 433 were made and the company that built them is gone, what does it actually cost to own one today?
LA West Kept It Stock Enough To Source Parts At Any Junkyard
2004 Ram 1500 GTXBring a Trailer
Here are some of the key upgrades on this truck.
- Four-wheel disc brakes
- Chrome 20-inch Prime wheels
- MagnaFlow cat-back exhaust system
- Cowl hood
- Serialized plaque in the door jamb
The truck rides on standard Ram 1500 suspension. You can split hairs over whether a truck needs to be lowered to qualify as a true street truck, but the upside is that replacement parts are easy to come by, being shared with standard Ram 1500s.
The same goes for the engine and the five-speed automatic transmission. LA West didn’t do much in the way of performance mods, so almost anything that breaks in a GTX, you can replace with spare parts snagged from one of those pull-and-pay junkyards.
Good Luck Buying One Of These
2004 Ram 1500 GTXBring a Trailer
We were only able to find one recent auction listing for a 2004 Ram 1500 GTX. The truck in question has just 13,000 miles on the odometer, a new set of shocks, and a door plaque identifying it as #0020 of 433 units. The seller provided a lot of records for Bring A Trailer, proving that this truck has been very well cared for.
Bidders got the price up to $18,000 in April this year, failing to meet the seller’s reserve price, so the truck remains unsold. We can’t say we blame the seller for refusing to be lowballed on the deal. The team in LaGrange didn’t make very many of these, and who knows how many are still in one piece? It’s a true “I know what I’ve got” scenario. And because LA West filed for bankruptcy in 2007, not only are these trucks incredibly rare, you can’t even have any more of them produced by the original team.
On the other hand, there aren’t a lot of buyers who are even aware of the truck’s existence, and fewer still who will regard it as anything more than a historical novelty. If you happen to find one of these for sale, chances are you’re going to be one of maybe a dozen people willing to place a bid on it.
If you’re a good negotiator, you might be able to leverage the truck’s limited demand in your favor, but as rare as potential buyers for this truck are, sellers are even scarcer. There are supercars that are easier to get into your garage than this truck.
You Can Build A GTX Tribute For Under $15,000 Using A Common SLT
2005 Dodge Ram 1500 Daytona Regular Cab 5.7l hemi v8 engineBring A Trailer
The 2004 Ram 1500 SLT packs the same 5.7-liter Hemi as the GTX, it produces 345 hp, and it clears 60 mph in about seven seconds. For all intents and purposes, it’s basically the same truck. It’s missing some key upgrades — a cowl hood, a MagnaFlow exhaust system, and some chrome 20-inchers — but all these features combined shouldn’t cost you more than $2,000 in parts.
Best of all, the SLT is an incredibly common mid-range trim. Browsing the used market, we were able to turn up the following listings:
- A 4,725-mile 2005 SLT is selling for $22,495 in Ohio.
- An 84,088-mile 2005 SLT is selling for $10,975 in Minnesota.
- A 97,682-mile 2005 SLT is selling for $13,287 in Oklahoma.
- A 154,160-mile 2004 SLT is selling for $9,995 in Texas.
- A 167,068-mile 2003 SLT is selling for $7,000 in Oklahoma.
As these numbers illustrate, SLTs are easy to come by and cheap. Unless you want something with low miles. We aren’t able to find very many listings under 100,000 miles, and some of those are selling for new-Nissan pricing, which can feel a bit steep for a 20-year-old mid-range pickup.
That said, this is about as close as you’re likely to get to a Ram 1500 GTX of your own. If you’re looking for the perfect project truck, converting an old SLT into a GTX tribute sounds like a fun way to restore a 100,000-mile beater.
Of course, if you really want an iconic muscle truck, the Dodge Ram SRT-10 might not be as rare as the GTX, but it packs a 500-hp power plant thanks to an 8.3-liter V10 borrowed from the Dodge Viper, and it clears 60 mph in just under five seconds. Good-condition models can easily sell for more than $60,000, though, so it may be a lot of things, but it’s not exactly a bargain-hunter’s best friend.
Sources: Ram,KPC News,Bring A Trailer.
