Official Mopar Muscle truck unveiled

This seems like a worthy appropriation of Chrysler's marketing budget - it's a factory Ram Heavy Duty pickup, prepared for the 2014 Monster Truck Racing series. The first factory-sponsored vehicle to enter the MTRS in more than a decade.

Only it's not. While it may bare a passing resemblance to the latest Ram truck, it's actually... entirely different. The spaceframe chassis sits on top of enormous purpose-built tyres, so it's a shade over three meters tall. It weighs 4672kg, and it has a 2000 horsepower supercharged 9.3-litre Hemi V8, based loosely on the Mopar Gen II 426 Hemi engine. The latter of which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

It'll be run by a team called Hall Brothers Racing, and driven by team member, Mike Miller. He says: "The Mopar Muscle Ram is a fantastic ride, and I am really looking forward to competing with it. The iconic Hemi engine has won a lot of races across many categories in motorsports, and I intend to add to that list." Incidentally, Hall has a son called Hemi...

The truck made its debut at the Monster Jam event in Detroit this weekend. Will you be watching the rest of the series?