Ram might bring back the hood ornament

Stellantis is considering bringing back hood ornaments for its Ram pickup trucks, a new patent filing indicates.

Published by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Jan. 14, 2025, after being filed by Stellantis on March 13, 2023, the filing shows a hood ornament with the familiar Ram’s head design of the truck brand’s logo, which was also used for hood ornaments when Ram trucks were sold as Dodges.

Stellantis is applying for a 15-year patent on this design, according to the document. As with other patent and trademark filings, that doesn’t mean the automaker plans to use the hood ornament on production vehicles during that period. It may simply be renewing protections on what is an important piece of Ram’s brand identity—albeit one that doesn’t have much of a place in modern vehicle design.

Luxury cars aside, hood ornaments went out of fashion a long time ago. Today they’re mainly limited to high-end vehicles from the likes of Bentley and Rolls-Royce. Cadillac brought a classic hood ornament design back for its Celestiq EV flagship, and Mercedes added one to its EQS to help give the electric sedan a more traditional look. But none of these vehicles have much in common with Ram’s pickup trucks.

Some changes are likely in store for Ram—even if it doesn’t bring back hood ornaments. Tim Kuniskis, father of the Dodge Hellcats, was named CEO of the brand in December after a brief retirement. Ram’s operations were previously overseen jointly with another brand, a role Kuniskis performed when he was CEO of both the truck brand and Dodge. But Stellantis now wants a dedicated CEO for Ram, whose pickups are the mother ship’s best-selling and most profitable product.

Ram has also reshuffled its electrification plans, bumping the Ram 1500 Ramcharger plug-in hybrid ahead of the all-electric REV pickup, and dropping a bigger-battery version of the REV that was previously promised to have 500 miles of range. Following additional pressure from the UAW, Stellantis has also recommitted to a midsize truck that will likely be sold as a Ram.