A new compact crossover dubbed Dodge Hornet is destined for sale in the United States in calendar-year 2022. The Hornet will carry a 2-liter dual-cam GME engine, currently made in Italy but possibly to be imported from Indiana if demand is high enough. A plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version is expected—and, really, needed for Stellantis North America … Read more
Earlier this week we brought you the news of Dillon Carter’s Ram 1500 TRX setting the blower-only record for the supercharged half-ton pickup. We specified blower-only, because we heard that there was a TRX that ran 10.70s with nitrous, but when a Google searched turned up nothing. Fortunately, some social media savvy friends found the … Read more
American Stellantis owners are less likely to stay loyal to the company than buyers of GM or Ford cars, by a wide margin, according to Experian data published recently by Automotive News. However, Stellantis is not at the bottom of the automotive field—though its competitors are generally much smaller. Among major manufacturers, GM is surprisingly … Read more
Back in 2019, an F8 Green Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye made big news for catching fire and burning in front of a huge crowd during the Woodward Dream Cruise. This past weekend, while racing at the Modern Street Hemi Shootout HEMI’nsanity event the day after the 2021 Dream Cruise, owner James Golden laid down … Read more
The last major ProMaster upgrades involved a new front grille and some hefty durability-and-reliability upgrades. The next upgrades are aimed at catching up to the state of the art in safety, comfort, and convenience; and increasing efficiency with the old six-speed minivan automatic replaced by a TorqueFlite nine-speed automatic. There is also a new two-row … Read more
The 2021 Modern Street Hemi Shootout ThiTek HEMI’nsanity event was held yesterday at Lapeer International Dragway, north of Detroit. It was a very hot, humid day, but that didn’t stop MSHS racers from setting personal bests. Among the competitors who ran their personal best times was Dillon Carter, who laid down a pair of runs … Read more
It might be the last truly new engine made by Stellantis—the engine coded Tornado, after the British fighter. Four years ago, I wrote about this turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine for Allpar. At the time, people in the company said this powerplant would replace the 5.7 Hemi. There were six advantages of this engine over the Hemi: … Read more
FCA had already started making a strong four-cylinder turbo engine and was near production on a strong turbo six when it merged with Peugeot. So, months later, why are we still seeing Jeeps with low-power four-cylinder engines, and nothing to compete with Ford’s turbo sixes? The answer is production. The Jeep version of the turbo-2.0, … Read more
Earlier this year, the Dodge brand announced plans to offer an enhanced security mode for the Challenger and Charger that would limit the output of the engines to just 2.8 horsepower. That makes it impossible for thieves to make a quick getaway and with so little power, the Dodge muscle cars aren’t able to drive … Read more
Collectors Keith and Denise Neufeld brought together an interesting mix of cars and parts over 30 years; and all of their collection is now being auctioned off, including a 1967 Dart GT, 2008 Dodge Magnum SRT8, Dodge 400, Fargo pickup, Plymouth Special Deluxe, Chrysler New Yorker, and various Brand X and other trucks. Among the … Read more
The Windsor Assembly Plant, original and current home of the Chrysler minivan (and, at the moment, nothing else) has won the Association of Energy Engineers’ Canada Region Energy Project of the Year Award, for cutting the paint shop’s energy use by 8%. That is enough to save 20,250 gigajoules per year—or about the same as … Read more
Yesterday, we brought you the news of the first 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat to run in the 9-second range and today, we bring you news of the new quarter mile record holder for the factory-supercharged SUV. Jeremy Satera, who was the first to put the Hellcat Durango in the 10s, hit the track the … Read more
Last Friday, Tim Kuniskis provided the first plans of the Never Lift program during the media preview for the 2021 Roadkill Nights event in Metro Detroit. That program will detail the timing of the future plans for the Challenger and Charger, indicating when Dodge plans to introduce new trim levels over the next two years. … Read more
Late Thursday, Scott Boegler drove the Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat owned by Tina Boggess and built by American Muscle Performance into the 9-second range, making that the first factory-supercharged SUV to crack the 9-second barrier. After Boegler ran in the low-10s earlier this month, this Durango was the favorite to be the first in the … Read more
This past weekend, Dodge hosted the sixth Roadkill Nights automotive festival at the M1 Concourse road racing facility in Pontiac, Michigan. The event was held on Saturday, but on Friday, Dodge had a press conference to give media a chance to check out the venue and some of the key competitors without the massive crowd … Read more
Ram will be replacing around a quarter of a million airbags, along with some replacement-part inflators, after a single airbag unexpectedly deployed (without injury to anyone). After word of the errant airbag reached the engineers, they conducted an investigation and found possible moisture contamination during manufacturing. The same supplier’s airbags have also been recalled by … Read more