I Drove a Ram Longhorn and Now It Won’t Leave Me Alone

I went looking for a pickup bed. I came home wondering whether I’m simply a sucker for riding a horse inside a truck.

There is nothing particularly wrong with my Yukon.

That is the annoying part of this whole story.

It is a 2003 Yukon Denali that I’ve owned for about five years. It has taken us on road trips, camping trips and all the usual family adventures. It starts every time, drives properly and has been remarkably reliable for a 23-year-old vehicle with more than 275,000 kilometres on it. I just serviced it. It has brand-new tires. I know what has been repaired, what still needs attention and which noises are simply part of the furniture.

I had planned to keep it forever.

Then I bought an e-bike.

The e-bike did not expose a catastrophic flaw in the Yukon. It exposed the fact that a pickup bed would be handy. A bed would be easier for bikes, kayaks, camping gear and all the assorted crap that follows a five-year-old around. It would save me from trying to turn the inside of a reasonably nice SUV into a muddy equipment locker.

There is an obvious, inexpensive answer to this problem: buy a really good bike rack.

Naturally, I started shopping for trucks.

This was supposed to be research

One of the trucks I found was a local 2014 Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn. Black over tan, crew cab, 5.7-litre Hemi, four-wheel drive and just under 200,000 kilometres. It was close enough to home that there was no good reason not to drive it.

This was meant to be useful research. I have spent plenty of time around trucks, but I had never actually driven this generation of Ram. I wanted to see how it compared with my Yukon and with a GMC Denali I was also looking at.

The Ram was not perfect. The black paint showed the normal scratches and marks that black paint collects if anyone so much as thinks about touching it. There was a little rust beginning on part of the painted bumper. A wheel bearing was making itself known, which the dealer disclosed before I drove it. It is a 12-year-old truck. Anyone expecting a crystal decanter and a handwritten apology over every stone chip is shopping in the wrong part of the market.

Mechanically, the GMC I drove that day may have felt a little tighter. The Ram clearly needed a bit of work.

And then I opened the door.

Apparently, I want to ride a horse inside a truck

The Longhorn interior is ridiculous.

It is saddle-brown leather, contrast stitching, real-looking wood, embossed logos, western details and enough cowboy theatre to make you wonder whether the owner’s manual is stored in a saddlebag. The backs of the front seats have buckled leather pockets. The leather is everywhere. Even the gauges seem like they should be telling you how many cattle are left in the herd.

It is somewhere between a high-end tack room and a steakhouse that serves bourbon in a boot.

I absolutely loved it.

I should probably admit that I have watched Yellowstone all the way through more than once, along with every spinoff they have managed to rope together. The amount of Carhartt in my wardrobe has also grown noticeably over the last few years. I do not own a horse, any cattle or enough land to store either one, but clearly the marketing has found its mark.

So yes, I am one of those guys. I admit it.

Parked back at home, the Longhorn would saddle up quite nicely to the hitching post—which, in my case, is a numbered parking stall at a condo. Nothing says rugged western independence quite like carrying your groceries in from an underground parkade.

There is a fine line between distinctive and cheesy, and the Longhorn gallops over that line without looking back. But it commits to the idea so completely that it works. This isn’t another black interior with silver plastic and a trim badge doing all the heavy lifting. It has a personality.

That drive made me realize I am not just looking for a truck. I am apparently looking for a special-edition truck with a faintly absurd interior theme.

Longhorn. King Ranch. Possibly a Toyota 1794 Edition. Give me brown leather, unnecessary stitching and the vague sense that I should own boots. Apparently that is my weakness.

I always thought the western editions were a bit much. It turns out I meant they were a bit much for other people. For me, they are exactly enough.

Blake has only seen the Ram in a video so far, but I am reasonably confident a five-year-old will support the idea of riding a horse inside a truck. His enthusiasm will not improve my decision-making.

And the damn thing drove well

The interior would have been easier to dismiss if the truck had driven like an exhausted old workhorse.

It didn’t.

The Hemi sounded and felt exactly like a Hemi should. More importantly, I loved the eight-speed automatic. It shifted cleanly, made good decisions and gave the truck a much more modern feeling than my Yukon’s old four-speed. I noticed the transmission because I wasn’t noticing the transmission, which is usually the best thing you can say about one.

The cooled seats were less life-changing than I had imagined. I expected refrigerated buttocks. What I got was a polite suggestion of ventilation. Maybe I was wearing thick shorts. Maybe the fans need attention. Maybe cooled seats are simply one of those features that sounds more glorious in a classified ad than it feels in real life.

The heated driver’s seat worked, though, which already puts it ahead of the Yukon at the moment.

There was also something appealing about the size and layout. Huge back seat, useful storage, proper bed and enough comfort that it could take over road-trip duty without feeling like a punishment. At the amount I drive—probably 5,000 kilometres a year—the mileage would barely move. It is not a disposable commuter. It would be a family and adventure vehicle that occasionally gets asked to do truck things.

Unfortunately, that is a pretty coherent argument.

The Yukon has committed no crime

This would all be much easier if the Yukon were broken, unreliable or generally pissing me off.

It isn’t.

Yes, it has aged. The paint needs help. There are clear-coat problems, a few minor rust spots and the usual list of things a 23-year-old vehicle can offer if you stare at it with a flashlight for long enough. But the important parts have been good to us. I know the truck. I trust it. I still like driving it.

Replacing a known old vehicle with an unknown old vehicle is not automatically an upgrade just because the unknown one has a bed and smells faintly of a leather goods store.

The practical voice says to detail the Yukon, install the replacement driver’s seat parts I already own, buy a serious bike rack and carry on. That solves the immediate problem without turning one useful old vehicle into an entirely new set of jobs.

The other voice keeps showing me that Longhorn interior.

That is the problem with driving something instead of merely looking at the ad. An ad is easy to close. A truck that you have sat in, driven and mentally loaded with bikes is much harder to dismiss.

Now I’m haunted by it

Since the test drive, I have looked at other Longhorns. There aren’t many. I looked at a local King Ranch and, predictably, liked that too. I have learned something unfortunate about myself: ordinary luxury is not enough. If I am going to own a truck, I want the version with a story, even if that story was written by a marketing department wearing brand-new cowboy boots.

The Longhorn is still sitting there. The Yukon is still sitting in my driveway, having done absolutely nothing to deserve replacement. A bike rack remains the intelligent answer.

And I remain haunted by a black-and-tan Ram with a noisy wheel bearing and an interior that looks like Yellowstone opened a furniture store.

Maybe I keep the Yukon. Maybe somebody buys the Ram and solves the problem for me. Maybe I decide that a bed, a newer cabin and a truck I genuinely enjoy are enough to justify moving on from something I once planned to keep forever.

There is no grand conclusion yet. This is the uncomfortable part in the middle, where the sensible choice is obvious but the other choice keeps looking better every time you think about it.

At least I know what I want now.

Apparently, I want to ride a horse inside a truck.