“If your truck had a beard, what would it look like?” On the surface kind of a silly question, but turns out it actually served to inspire the first new Ram Truck grille designs since 1994, currently being ‘worn’ by the all-new 2015 Ram 1500 Rebel and the 1500 Laramie Limited. The challenge was daunting from the get-go.
“The truck market is the most conservative, design-wise, market in the world,” according to Michael Gillam, senior creative designer in the Ram Trucks studio. So transforming a beard and other ‘trendy’ textures, shapes and colors into a successful new grille was, according to Gillam, both “a creative exercise but also a personality exercise.”
Ram Exterior Creative designer Deyon Ninov summed up the overriding challenge. “You don’t want to create something that all of a sudden alienates customers, but at the same time you want to take some risks.”
In this video, the Ram Grillemasters take you on a creative ride beginning with the development of the very first Dodge truck grille more than 60 years ago, to the completion of the brand’s latest grille sensations that are hitting showrooms.
