Sme pics to show you guys I had no idea until the two were side by side. The same thing was evident with the 98 and 75 I have when I get it up and running from wither storage I'll post some more...

That is a big difference. Even the van behind the truck looks tiny.

they had to make it bigger to fit on those donk 22" wheels. really it's just higher with more "plastic" I wonder what a non-optioned 2wd short box would look next to your 98.

The '13 looks thicker in every angle.
Great looking truck though.

Local dealer had a crew cab dually long bed on showroom floor that took up the whole showroom.

I went from a 99 model 2500 4x4 quad cab to a 2011 2500 crew cab 4x4 last year. There is a huge difference between the two.

My picture has an angle to it that amplifies the difference but I always get a kick out of the size differences from old to new trucks.

Even my 89 Dakota is almost as big as my 79 Lil Red but the SRT-10 just swamps the Lil Red; the tires really look funny next to each other.

Yeah, if they keep making the trucks bigger and bigger pretty soon they'll be as big as semi tractors with boxes.

R.

The last Dakota made was longer, taller and heavier than my '73 D100, but the box was too narrow to carry a sheet of plywood flat on the floor. Too big...less useful...too expensive.

I recently shopped for a new Ram, but you can't get half the options I want with a standard cab...I have to get a four-door...so that means I'm not in the market for a new truck. I just don't understand the decisions made by modern auto manufacturers.

Give me a Mopar truck with the same dimensions as the early Dakota, but wide enough to haul 4'x 8' material, and let me option it with goodies to pamper and entertain a retired old man with a bad back and skinny butt, and I'm writing a check tomorrow

seems like the frontal area of the
1994 to 2001 Rams
was about 34.5 square feet

Chrysler has been bragging that the Ram's
aerodynamic Cd
which measures slipperiness through the wind
for the 2013 Ram
dropped to
0.38
but from the comparison photos above
the frontal area must have gone up
... perhaps enough to do away any improvement in the Cd.

Cd times Frontal Area
determines how much
horsepower it takes to drive high speeds

The grill openings have been increased over the years to allow better cooling capability for the increased horsepower and egr on the (reduced emissions) Cummins powered rams. This same thing has happened on medium and heavy duty trucks.

These mandatory changes have of course carried over to the 1500 series.

Gee, you'd almost think that if a guy put a late model engine with all the fuel efficiency into a 70s dodge pickup, it would improve mileage, but I bet even though the size dimensions are bigger it's probably the same weight? With all the EPA regs for fuel economy we're gonna have to make "tiny" pickups again!