Here’s how to make a right-hook Ram
We take a peek inside the Australian factory that makes RHD Ram trucks for NZ. Just don’t call it a ‘conversion’, says
Here’s a great pub-quiz teaser: what do Ram trucks have in common with the Toyota Camry? The answer is: a big bit of plastic. The dashboard used in the righthand drive (RHD) Ram 2500/3500 ute created by American Special Vehicles (ASV) in Clayton, Melbourne for the Australasian market is made by Socobell, which also makes dashboards for Aussiebuilt Camrys.
It’s not unusual for different manufacturers to use the same suppliers, of course. But it does illustrate a key point about the Kiwi-market Ram: ASV describes its vehicle as a ‘‘remanufacture’’ rather than a conversion. Key components are remade in RHD by first-tier OEM suppliers.
‘‘Socobell is a major story for us,’’ says ASV joint chief operating officer John DiBerardino.
‘‘They work with the number one car company in the world, making dashboards for Camry and a number of smaller plastic components for Toyota globally. The technology and quality, especially around airbag deployment, is fantastic. I couldn’t be more proud of how it’s come about.’’
The whole Ram RHD project has the thumbs-up from FCA head office in Detroit. Indeed, the Rams destined for ASV out of FCA’s factory in Mexico are built especially for us, with metric instrument clusters and UConnect infotainment systems compatible with local sat-nav and radio settings. It’s the first time Rams have been created by FCA for export outside their home region.
ASV is a joint venture between Ateco, which is the official FCA distributor for NZ, and Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG). It took 30,000 man hours and A$2.8 million in upfront tooling to get the Ram RHD project off the ground. There’s been help from AusIndustry, which contributed to the project under its Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Programme (NGMIP).
The RHD Ram project actually had its genesis in NZ. Ateco Group has distribution rights for FCA among its interests in NZ, but Australian parent company Ateco Automotive does not (over there, the FCA distributor is factoryowned).
It was the NZ distributor agreement giving Ateco access to ‘all FCA product’ that resulted in the lightbulb moment. Negotiations started in 2013 and the first RHD trucks were delivered in late-2015.
The retail experience is also more integrated for Kiwis than Aussies: because FCA is also Ateco domain in NZ, you buy and service a Ram like any other Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge product. All 13 Kiwi Ram dealers are FCA franchisees. That’s not the case in Australia, where some are and some aren’t and Ram is a separate business regardless.
WAG works on a number of projects for automotive brands, not all of which are in the public domain. But literally across the carpark from ASV is another WAG business that’s very high-profile: HSV.
DiBerardino stresses that one has little to do with the other, despite some shared backroom resources. Ateco came to WAG with the Ram project, not the other way around.
Of the 28 full-time employees at ASV, only three have any direct connection with HSV.
But still: it’s undeniable that WAG’s experience with lowvolume, high-quality production at HSV has come to the fore with ASV. The company has also leveraged many of its supplier-connections with HSV for the Ram project.
The Ram’s redesigned firewall pressings are made by an HSV supplier. Many of the smaller plastic components in the Ram’s RHD cabin come from Trident, the same outfit that makes HSV bumper bars. And so on.
The 10,000 square-metre ASV factory, a former Nissan Australia stamping plant, is a fascinating place full of reverse-engineering. For example, the first step in the process is to remove the cab from the chassis completely, a two-hour job. The passenger cell gets lifted and wheeled away on a little trolley. Weird.
The cabs go off to a separate area to be stripped and converted, sorry remanufactured to RHD. The rest of the naked truck-with-tray is rolled down the line for the mechanical work. Chassis and cab don’t meet again until the end.
Safety-critical stuff like airbag assemblies are reunited with their original platforms. But bolt-on bits like grilles and side-steps might end up on a different vehicle. It’s all in the family.
Everything’s done by hand and ASV completes just two trucks per day. But it’s a proper production line in every respect, says DiBerardino. Parts are delivered on a just-in-time basis, there are strict quality controls and everything is done to factory standard. Welders aren’t just qualified, for example – their work has to be Standardscertified and is subject to ongoing external evaluation.
While ASV doesn’t make very many Rams, it’s not technically a low-volume operation. The trucks are built to meet Australian Full Volume Compliance rules.
‘‘I’d say the skill set is actually higher here than at HSV,’’ says DiBerardino. ‘‘We don’t have this type of [welding] work over there, for example.’’ That dashboard is one of the big-ticket items in the ASV Ram operation. The other is the steering box, which was recreated in RHD using data from FCA and is manufactured by the same company that does the LHD component. Like the original, it’s made in China.
DiBerardino reckons there was about A$1m in upfront tooling for the dashboard alone. And another $500,000 for the steering box.
There are about 400 unique parts for the RHD Ram. Not all cuttingedge, of course. But it does show the level of detail required. Buyers have every right to expect that, of course: the entry-level Ram 2500 costs $163,000 in NZ.
‘‘Given who we are, one thing I do emphasise is that there’s no enhancement on this truck,’’ says DiBerardino. ‘‘The core philosophy was to interrupt the design as little as possible.’’
DiBerardino isn’t prepared to say his right-hook Ram trucks are better than the ones coming out of Mexico. That wouldn’t be politically correct. But the quality is impressive and consider this: if you sit in the passenger-side of a LHD Ram 2500, you have to twist your left foot around an enormous hump that protrudes from the firewall. In the ASV RHD model, the hump is not there due to the redesigned firewall and the front-seat passenger can stretch out in comfort. That’s definitely better.