A Ram Rumble Bee Mule Got Caught on a Detroit Hauler Wearing the Wrong Badges
Ram's first batch of Rumble Bee street trucks sold out 90 minutes after orders opened.
Now a pair of the hotter versions has turned up on a car hauler in Metro Detroit.
The badges on one of them tell a very different story than the engine sitting underneath.
Two Rumble Bee Mules Rode Through Metro Detroit Together
MoparInsiders caught both 2027 Ram Rumble Bee test trucks sharing a single hauler in early October.
Riding in back sat a black SRT test truck that somebody had left wearing Hurricane High-Output badges off the RHO.
The production SRT skips the six-cylinder entirely.
Under its hood sits a supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat Hemi V8 making 777 horsepower and 680 lb-ft of torque.
Up front rode a rougher, older 392 Track Pack prototype that looked like it had come straight out of the engineering lab.
Its nose was a 3D-printed stand-in, strapped across the grille holes with reinforcement bands to keep it in one piece.
The wheels weren't production pieces either.
One truck is nearly ready for showrooms, and the other is still getting built on the fly.
Side by side, they show a company that stopped apologizing for V8s and started building them again.
The Rumble Bee Name Goes Back to the Muscle Car Era
The name comes straight from the Super Bee, the late-1960s Dodge muscle car that ruled drag strips and high school parking lots alike.
The bumblebee badge first landed on a pickup with the original Dodge Ram Rumble Bee for 2004.
It showed up in screaming yellow with black trim and packed a 5.7-liter Hemi making 345 horsepower.
It could run with Ford's SVT Lightning, and more than 8,700 buyers drove one home before the truck disappeared after 2005.
The Numbers Ram Could Not Have Printed in 2025
Every Rumble Bee rides on a shortened setup that trims 13 inches off a standard Ram 1500.
It's a Quad Cab with a 5-foot-7 bed, stretched to 88 inches wide for a planted, aggressive stance.
Four-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic come standard, and it still tows up to 8,890 pounds like a real Ram should.
The base truck carries the 5.7-liter Hemi with 395 horsepower and 410 lb-ft.
The 392 models step up to the 6.4-liter Hemi with 470 horsepower and 455 lb-ft.
The SRT runs from zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds, clicks off an 11.6-second quarter mile and tops out at 170 mph.
Pricing starts at $59,995 plus $2,795 destination, and the SRT starts under $95,000.
Longtime Ram and SRT boss Tim Kuniskis said the base truck is "hitting right at the heart of the truck market."
The market agreed in a hurry, snapping up that first 5.7-liter batch in 90 minutes, according to autoevolution.
The base truck lands late in 2026, with the 392, the 392 Track Pack and the SRT following in the first half of 2027.
Kuniskis even took a shot at the internet purists demanding a single-cab version.
"They're posting, but they're not buying," he said.
Ram Admitted It Blew It on the Hemi
The Rumble Bee comes on the heels of one of the worst calls in modern Detroit history.
Under former CEO Carlos Tavares, the company pulled the Hemi from the 2025 Ram 1500 and pushed buyers toward a turbocharged six-cylinder built to satisfy fuel economy targets.
Truck buyers responded the only way they know how.
They left.
https://twitter.com/InsidersMopar/status/2106821197925122187
Edmunds data showed Ram's slice of the pickup market nearly cut in half, from 20 percent in late 2021 to 11 percent by spring 2025.
Kuniskis didn't dodge it when he brought the V8 back as a $1,200 option for 2026.
"Ram screwed up when we dropped the Hemi – we own it and we fixed it," he said.
The payoff showed up fast.
Third-quarter 2026 sales climbed 29 percent for the brand, and the Ram 1500 alone shot up 73 percent.
Ram outsold Jeep, something it hadn't done since becoming its own brand in 2009.
Meanwhile, the all-electric Jeep Wagoneer S cratered 96 percent once the federal EV tax credits expired.
Ram Repented After Stopping Truck Builds To Please the Regulators
The new SRT more than doubles the horsepower of that 2004 original.
Two decades ago, the Rumble Bee was a fun little factory hot rod.
Now it's proof of what happens when an American carmaker stops building trucks for regulators and starts building them for the guys who sign the check.
Detroit just got its answer, and it came wrapped in yellow and black.
Sources:
- Robert S. Miller, "Two Rumble Bee Mules Show How Far Ram Has Come," MoparInsiders, October 4, 2026.
- Ram Trucks, "2027 Ram 1500 Rumble Bee Pricing Announced," Ram Trucks, July 29, 2026.
- Elena Luchian, "Ram Just Became the Best-Selling Stellantis Brand in America," autoevolution, October 4, 2026.
- Byron Hurd, "2027 Ram SRT Rumble Bee Revealed as a Shorty Street Truck With 777-HP V8," The Drive, May 20, 2026.
- Gabrielle Coppola, "Ram Brings Back Hemi V8 Engine in Bid to Reclaim Lost Sales," Transport Topics, June 5, 2025.
- AutoGuide News Staff, "Ram Outsells Jeep for the First Time," AutoGuide, October 2, 2026.
- Ron King, "Everything to Know About the Dodge Rumble Bee," SlashGear, March 4, 2024.
