Working Dodges and Rams

Dodge sold the Power Wagon on what it could do: a wartime chassis, a 126-inch wheelbase, a power take-off and a winch, bought by oil companies, rural electric co-operatives, forestry services and fire brigades who kept them for decades. The W-series carried that trade into the 1970s and 1980s with crew cabs and one-ton duallies.

The Cummins of 1989 changed the market: a commercial diesel in a pick-up made the W250 and W350 the towing trucks of farms, horse transport and construction, and the revived Power Wagon of 2005 — lockers front and rear, a disconnecting anti-roll bar and a 12,000 lb winch — is the working heavy-duty 4x4 of today.