Is there room for Hemi V8s in Mopar’s post-2024 future after all?

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Opinion. Back in 2019, I wrote about the “Tornado,” as the turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine then being development was coded. At that point, the GME 2.0 turbo, coded “Hurricane,” was still in planning. The code names were based on warplanes, as were the Eagle, Apache, and so forth—not past Jeep engines. The Willys/Jeep Tornado engine was an inline six-cylinder with an overhead cam, an advanced design which did not last long on the market. The Willys/Jeep Hurricane engine, in contrast, was a four-cylinder, replacing the “Go-Devil” engine, made from 1950 to 1971. (There was also a Jeep Hurricane concept car in 2005 which is unrelated.) 

Could a Ram 1500 Dakota fill in for a midsize pickup? (Updated)

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Making a Ram Dakota?

Stellantis has a trademark on the name “Dakota,” and is hard at work on a vehicle that would replace the Ram 1200 (Mitsubishi L1200). Compact and midsize trucks are a hot market in the United States now, with the Tacoma, Ranger, Colorado, and Gladiator all fighting it out—but the Gladiator isn’t a practical high-volume truck for Ram. 

Could the company create a transitional truck to fill in for a midsize, while it waits for its engineers to finish? It might be a bit expensive, and maybe it wouldn’t work; but it would also be a recession-fighting pickup, if times got worse and pricey pickups suddenly lost their buyers. … [more]

STLA had a good quarter, promises new 2023-2024 vehicles

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Jeep and Stellantis leaders: Carlos Tavares, Christian Meunier, Jim Morrison

The first quarter of 2023 was good for Stellantis, but not great; while net revenues were up 14% over Q1 2022, with a 7% increase in sales and high net prices, market share fell in North America and Europe. This was somewhat offset by small gains in South America and Africa/Middle East. Globally, low-emissions vehicles sales rose by 25%, driven by the Jeep 4xe series. BEVs were up by 22% year-over-year.

Awaiting STLA profits, we see GM is down and Ford is up

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Chevy Corvette E-Ray

GM’s pretax profit in North America rose by 14% in the first quarter, to $3.6 billion, but the company as a whole saw net income drop by 19%, to $2.4 billion. This was largely due to $875 million for employee buyouts; the company also set aside $99 million to buy out those Buick dealers who are leaving rather than supporting electric cars. Like Chrysler, Buick sees itself as all-electric in the future.

Jeep gets a Ward’s Ten Best award for interiors/UX

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inside Grand Wagoneer

Ward’s Automotive is one of the older journals covering automotive news. Its Ten Best Engines awards have been eagerly followed each year, and there is usually at least one Mopar engine on it. A newer award is the ten best interiors and user experiences; Stellantis has one winner, a Jeep, which would likely astound a time traveler coming in anywhere from 1941 to 1990.

Dodge Charger Daytona BEV PowerShot Feature Could Be Amazing

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Dodge Charger Daytona

When the Dodge Charger Daytona BEV Concept debuted last year, one of the unique features of the upcoming electric muscle car that brand boss Tim Kuniskis discussed was PowerShot. Described as a “push-to-pass” system, this feature “delivers an adrenaline jolt of increased horsepower for a quick burst of acceleration”. In layman’s terms, the electric drive … Read more

Retro Friday: Making pistons, inspecting engines

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B engine block department (361-383)

Dave Van Buren sent in these two photos from Trenton Engine’s archives. The first shows final inspection of engine blocks for Department 72 Main, which made the low-deck B-engine blocks—the 361, 383, and later 400. The bore sizes were painted onto the blocks because there were variations in the diameter of both blocks and pistons … Read more

Why Jeep Wranglers caught fire on the Indiana car carrier

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A couple of days ago, photos from the Illinois Toll Road’s social media feed made a stir as a car carrier loaded mainly with new Jeeps was clearly on fire. Two Wranglers were most badly burned, and one of them was a 4xe, which could have stirred some anti-EV hate. An inquiry to Stellantis North America media relations yielded no answers.

33,500 buyout offers—how many lost jobs?

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Brampton plant workers

Stellantis is asking over 33,500 employees in the US and Canada to take a buyout or early retirement, according to the Detroit News. The breakdown is 31,000 hourly workers and 2,500 salaried ones, though not all of those will be lost jobs: there are numerous workers on indefinite layoff at the moment, and the actual … Read more

4-26 is Hemi Day 2023

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426 Hemi

Created solely for racing, the famed 426 Hemi was a cross between Chrysler’s first V8 engines, which had hemispherical heads, and the big Cross-Ram Wedge engines which were winning on the street but failing in NASCAR—the company’s second completely new V8 design.The engine people believed that the wedge engines would have an edge if they could … Read more

1989 Plymouth Voyager Runs a 10.74 Quarter Mile

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Badass Performance 1989 Plymouth Voyager Turbo

The Mopar community knows that the 1980s Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler cars got their biggest performance numbers from turbocharged four-cylinder engines. The Shelby Charger, Daytona, Omni GLH, Shadow, Spirit and Laser all benefited from the turbocharged engine program, allowing them to keep up with (if not beat) the Mustangs and Camaros of that era, but … Read more

Early retirements, buyouts for 3,500 FCA US people

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Brampton - final Dodge Demon

A UAW local just announced that Stellantis is seeking 3,500 early departures from FCA US via buyouts and retirement offers, according to Automotive News. The company has around 40,500 hourly workers. (See update.)The news comes via a letter to members from UAW Local 1264, which reported that the cuts will be widespread (AutoNews posted a … Read more

Meet the 2023 Dodge Journey

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2023 Dodge Journey (Trumpchi) in Mexico

It’s the 2023 Dodge Journey, but you can’t buy it in the United States.

There is very little information available on Dodge’s web site. The Stellantis North America media site doesn’t mention it at all. But the 2023 Dodge Journey is on sale in Mexico, with over a thousand sales reported in March. There are three trim levels, SXT, Sport, and GT; the Sport raises the price to MX$667,900 and the GT to over MX$700,000. It’s not a new story, really—the ’23 follows a 2022 model.