Today, Stellantis announced renewed investment in India, with four Jeeps to be made there—the Wrangler, Compass, Grand Cherokee, and … Meridian. What on earth is a Jeep Meridian, you may ask? This is a Jeep Meridian. The Meridian is a seven-seat version of the Jeep Compass, complete with front wheel drive origins and similar front styling, …
Back in October 2020, FCA US applied for a trademark on the word Cuda, in the category of “Land vehicles, namely, passenger automobiles.” The trademark was published for opposition on February 23, 2021. It seems there wasn’t any. What happened? As far as we can tell, there was no opposition to FCA US (a division …
Bob Hubbach, Chrysler’s design manager from 1967 to 2001, passed away on the night of May 14 while in hospice. Hubbach was a co-designer of the highly successful Valiant Charger, Australia’s famed “Hemi Six” powered successor to the Valiant Pacer. This car set a long-standing Australian speed record with its 265 cubic inch inline six, …
When Dodge started selling rear wheel drive cars with 485 horsepower, then 707, then 840 horsepower, traction at the rear wheels became a major issue. One answer was Launch Control, which limited tire slip so you could get fairly consistent results every time—even if they weren’t quite what a professional driver could do. Launch Control …
Two days ago, a group of FCA US gained a patent on their fuel-saving alternator system. Some have wondered, while struggling for every last erg of power from their engine, if there was a way to automatically cut power-sucking devices just for those few seconds. Chrysler had already set up a clever system to cut …
The Jeep Wagoneer with rear wheel drive and the base 5.7 Hemi engine is rated at 16 mpg city, 22 highway. Going to four wheel drive drops those numbers to 15 city, 20 highway—which, incidentally, is roughly the same as a 1990 Wagoneer with the four-liter six cylinder pushing out roughly half the power. Move …
Last week, we posted a story on Stellantis’ hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), which are mainly being developed in Europe; but reader RustyDodge reminded us that heavy duty Rams have another path they can follow. Cummins, maker of Ram heavy duty pickups’ acclaimed diesel engines, has for years been working on hydrogen, natural gas, and electric …
A Fox affiliate in Michigan recently issued a story about the death of a mechanic during a Jeep’s oil change—and how the mechanic’s family was suing the owner of the Jeep, rather than the dealership. The original story implied that the Jeep was defective, with the writer noting that it leaped forward when the clutch …
Yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and a number of other dignitaries, Stellantis officials, and Unifor union reps unveiled a major investment in Canadian factories and R&D facilities. Together, these will keep thousands of jobs in Canada, adding a number of research positions and restoring, if all goes well, second and third …
Two years ago, Mopar Minivans, the first biography of the Chrysler minivan which went deeply into the origin story, hit the stands. It was succeeded a year later by a revised version which went up to the Pacifica, The Rise and Reinvention of Chrysler Minivans. 2022 brought a revisiting of the Mopar Minivans book, Mopar …
No April 26 would be complete without at least one Hemi Day story. The 426 (as in 4/26) Hemi was created solely for racing. At the time, the ingenious Mopar cross-ram wedge engines were winning on the street, but failing in NASCAR. In 1963, executives approved engineers’ plan for putting Hemi heads, which were part …
You may wonder how you can stay in touch with Stellpower’s latest Mopar reporting. There are two easy ways. First, you can sign up for email notifications of new stories. Those appear right in your mailbox; the signup is near the bottom of the page (so keep scrolling!) on phones, and in the right side …
