If you thought the cheapest new half-ton 4×4 was a Toyota Tundra or Chevy Colorado, it’s not. It is a Ram Classic 1500. To get it cheap, you have to be tenacious to save money. Bait-and-switch prices, questionable tactics, and dealers being in the driver’s seat means sometimes the price isn’t “the price.” So this is the absolute cheapest half-ton with 4×4 you can get in 2022.

How can a full-size truck be the cheapest?

At least, according to the guys over at The Fast Lane. They found an absolute rock-bottom 2022 Ram half-ton with a sprinkling of options including four-wheel-drive. Before discounts and incentives, and with a bit of prodding, it got a new Tradesman 4×4 cheaper than any new half-ton. 

Ram doesn’t have a midsize or compact truck. Shame on you Ram. But with an entirely new 1500 waiting in the wings, it chose to build an entirely new factory. So what happened to the factory building the previous 1500? It didn’t go away and it didn’t change.

Ram made a brilliant decision to continue producing its former half-ton trucks as the “Ram Classic.” The tooling was amortized way before 2019 when the new 1500 was unveiled. So it could afford to lower the price to that of a midsize. The result is a full-size truck for a midsize price. 

How is this Ram truck optioned?

This has continued right up to 2022. And most of the same options that come with the Classic back when it was Ram’s only pickup you can still get in 2022. That includes four-wheel drive. So The Fast Lane sought out the cheapest Ram Classic they could find, not order, to see if they could beat the smaller half-ton trucks out there. 

Naturally, this is a fleet truck. It is a single-cab, which is becoming a unicorn unto itself, and has a 6 ½-foot bed. Yes, it has limitations, but we’re talking about the cheapest half-ton 4×4 here. It comes with the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 with 305 hp and 269 lb-ft of torque. The gross vehicle rating is 6,300 lbs. 

But it has some options to lift it slightly above the status of one. It started as a Ram 1500 Classic Tradesman Regular Cab. It includes options like the $695 Customer-Preferred Package which adds a chrome grille, bumpers, and 17-inch alloy wheels. 

Also, it features the $480 Trailer-Tow Group, $735 Power and Remote Entry Group, and $825 Popular Equipment Group which gets you carpet and a six-month SiriusXM subscription. Including destination charges, the price was $41,725. But again, this was before incentives and discounts. 

So what’s the bottom line?

The dealership offered $2,500 off the price, and a $1,800 incentive also lowered the total even more. So the final price was finalized at $37,425. But there is a small caveat. There can be a lot of mumbo-jumbo between the price and the bottom line. You either pay attention and know when to fold, or you’ll never come close to the cheapest price in America. 

Do your homework, check available inventories, and cross your fingers. After scouring the internet, this truck popped up in Boise, Idaho. So that’s the other thing, you have to be willing to venture out from your hood.