It’s a battle of the V8 off-road trucks: Which of these two is best in the mountains?
Over the past week or so, we’ve had the Hemi-powered Ram 1500 back at the TFL base. It’s a momentous occasion since you can now order a V8 Ram half-ton pickup once again, so Andre and the team has been putting this Warlock through its paces on the road, on the drag strip, and now, off the pavement. In this video, Roman and Andre check out whether the 2026 Ram 1500 Warlock offers up a better off-road package (including on the subject of value) against our 2025 Ford F-150 Tremor.
Let’s look at things by the numbers, as we so often do. The Ford F-150 Tremor, for its part, carries on relatively unchanged from its 2024 refresh. And even before that, it still packed the same eight-cylinder powertrain: a 5.0-liter Coyote putting out 400 horsepower and 410 lb-ft of torque. The Ram, for its part, started off with the downsized 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged Hurricane inline-six. That unit is still available, of course, including in the top-spec RHO. However, we’re specifically looking at the revived 5.7-liter Hemi V8 with eTorque, which manages 395 horsepower and 410 lb-ft of torque. That maintains the same power output as the previous 2024 model, when Ram initially decided to scrap the Hemi engine from its half-ton lineup — a decision which it’s obviously reversed since.
Granted, in this comparison, we’re looking at the Tradesman-based Ram 1500 Warlock, and not the Rebel, which is more closely equipped and priced to the F-150 Tremor. However, the Warlock is a compelling option to look at because it does get notable off-road-worthy upgrades over the base trims. Specifically, this truck gets a one-inch suspension lift with Bilstein shocks, it still gets all-terrain tires and it gets a blacked-out grille and surround with the Warlock decal on the back. If you do spec it with the 5.7-liter Hemi (a $2,895 upgrade over the base V6 and $1,200 over the Hurricane), Ram also fits the G/T exhaust as standard equipment, as it does with all Hemi-equipped Ram 1500s from 2026 onward.
The $595 Towing Technology Group, $945 Bed Utility Group and $1,345 Trailer Tow Group, among a couple other standalone options like the bedliner, put this Warlock pretty close to our Tremor on price ($60,830 versus $67,510 MSRP for the F-150 Tremor — we paid about $62,000 for ours).
As for the Ford F-150 Tremor, you again get off-road tuned suspension with an inch lift, 33-inch all-terrain tires, and off-road tech including Trail Control, Trail Turn Assist and different selectable drive modes to suit the terrain.
In the video below, the guys take both trucks up to 12,000 feet on Deer Creek Trail , and you can check out their determination on which truck is best:
