Dodge (Page 35)

File this story under “U” for Unbelievable as less than an hour after I published my piece about the Dodge Viper winning the driver and team championship for the 2014 IMSA United SportsCar Championship series – the Chrysler Group has announced that they will discontinue the factory backed Viper racing program immediately.

The Dodge Viper and the Chevrolet Corvette went head to head this past weekend to decide the champion for the 2014 IMSA United SportsCar Championship in the GTLM class and when the 10 hour race at Road Atlanta came to an end – Team Viper had claimed their 6th podium spot in the last 7 races to win both the team and driver’s title.

Even though the new Chevrolet Corvette Stingray had a slow month while both the Porsche brand and the Dodge Viper had strong months, the GM sports car still outsold its closest competitors in the US market by a massive margin – even if you combine the sales numbers of the Porsche cars and the Viper.

I recently had a chance to attend an in-depth walk-through of the new Hellcat Hemi with SRT drivetrain engineer Chris Cowland and I learned that the true secret to the new Challenger and Charger making 707 horsepower safely all comes down to cooling – with unique features throughout the engine bay working together to keep the most powerful American production motor ever running as cool as possible.

Last month we reported that the 2015 Dodge Viper would get a big price decrease that would also impact 2014 models sitting on dealership lots around the country and not surprisingly, the new lower prices have led to a spike in Viper sales – allowing the Mopar supercar to have its best sales month since being introduced for the 2013 model year.

The Dodge Challenger did something last month that it hasn’t done any time in recent history, beating the Ford Mustang in monthly sales – but the Chevrolet Camaro continued its charge for a 5th straight muscle car sales title by comfortably crushing both the Challenger and Mustang.

When the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat made its grand debut in August, it was announced that it had a top speed of 204mph and a stock-tire quarter mile time of 11 second flat, but a new video clip from the automaker reveals that when fitted drag radial tires, the world’s most powerful sedan can run the quarter mile in just 10.7 seconds while moving out from 0-60 in just 2.9 seconds.

This past weekend saw the auction of 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat #1 and NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick made the winning bid of $825k, which a charitable organization matched to raise the total charitable contribution from the Hellcat sale to $1.65 million – more than has been contributed by any other single car in Barrett Jackson history.

While the 2015 Dodge Challenger is still a little bigger and a little heavier than the competition, the 2015 models improved in every way except for one – the fact that there is still no manual transmission option with the base model V6 and that is one feature that could further help bolster Challenger sales.

The Chrysler Group announced this morning that the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat with 707 horsepower offers a very impressive 22 miles per gallon on the highway, making it far more efficient than the Camaro ZL1 and a collection of other ultra high performance vehicles – although that likely doesn’t matter to anyone who will buy one.

The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is the most powerful American production car ever and while this car has quickly become the unattainable object of desire for many muscle car lovers, there are 7 good reasons why you really don’t want to own the Hellcat Challenger – which should help make everyone who cannot afford it feel a little better.

We already knew from the first published dyno videos that the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat seemingly makes more than 707 horsepower and a new report suggests that the Hellcat Hemi is capable of making as much as 825 horsepower, but that same report also suggests that Chrysler is having problems getting the Hellcat Hemi to pass some emission tests.

While the arrival of the 2015 Dodge Challenger configuration page on Dodge.com had us glued to the Hellcat section, the new Challenger Scat Pack is the model that I foresee making the biggest splash on the American performance market so today, we offer you a detailed look at the pricing for the new Scat Pack trimline.

In addition to being the most powerful American production car of all time, the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat also has one of the best sounding exhaust tones of all time and now thanks to a free ringtone provided by the DriveSRT website – your cell phone can remind you how great the Hellcat sounds every time someone calls you.

Some dealership people will try to lead you to believe that cars like the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat have huge markups because “the dealership doesn’t make any money at MSRP”, but thanks to the folks at Allpar, we know that the dealership makes at least $5,400 on every Hellcat Challenger sold at MSRP.

The order banks have opened for the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and this leads many to question how Chrysler will decide which dealerships get Hellcat models during the early rush – and today we examine the allocation rules that will likely help keep dealerships from adding a huge markup while helping buyers save money.

The information for the 2015 Ford Mustang, 2015 Dodge Challenger and 2015 Chevrolet Camaro is pretty much all available and while the world is focused on the higher performance models, I thought that this would be a good time to compare the most affordable versions of the three American muscle cars – in their entry level, V6 forms.

The configurator page for the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat officially went live last night so you can now price out your dream Hellcat, but far more importantly, the automaker is now taking dealer and consumer orders on the most powerful American production car ever.

In order to help boost lagging sales, the Chrysler Group has cut the 2015 Dodge Viper pricing by $15,000 across the entire model lineup while also re-issuing pricing for the 2014 model year SRT Vipers that are currently unsold and to help cushion the blow of this huge price cut, the company will also issue $15,000 new car vouchers to those 2014 Viper owners who paid the old price.

The 2015 Dodge Viper Time Attack 2.0 has gotten a handful of features that are reminiscent of the previous generation Viper ACR and a few more ponies – all of which should help make this street legal/track purposed supercar a bit faster around the world’s road courses in an effort to back up records set by the old ACR package.

Since the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat was introduced before Detroit’s Woodward Dream Cruise, the popular topic of discussion has shifted to the pricing of the world’s most powerful 4-door sedan so using what we know of 2014 Charger pricing, 2014 Challenger pricing and 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat pricing – I offer you my estimates of what I expect to show up on the bottom line of the 707hp Charger’s monroney.

The embargo on 2015 Dodge Viper information has finally lifted, meaning that I can now talk about the return of the Viper to the Dodge brand, the two new colors, the new GT trimline and the improved aerodynamics of the Time Attack package – all of which combine to improve an already stunning American supercar lineup.

The Chrysler Group has offered up the first information and images of the 2015 Dodge Challenger Drag Pak, a purpose built race car that is based closely on the production road model right down to the Hellcat-like front end, but rather than the supercharged 6.2L Hemi, the 2015 Drag Pak test car is powered by a naturally aspired 426 cubic inch race Hemi.

The Dodge community has collectively mourned the loss of the Magnum sport wagon since it was killed off in 2008, but the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Shooting Brake rendering done by Hansen Art could be a 707 horsepower muscle wagon that we could all love…albeit only in our dreams.

We were so busy drooling over the fact that the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat is the world’s most powerful sport sedan at the recent media debut that we forgot to mention one piece of very disappointing news – neither the Hellcat powered Challenger or Charger will be offered in Europe.

The performance world was surprised to hear that the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat would fall short of a 200 mile per hour top speed, but a video of the 707hp Mopar muscle car on the K&N dyno shows the beast hitting 202 miles per hour – leading many to question the seemingly official top speed of 199 miles per hour.

Shortly after the first 2015 Dodge Challenger Hellcat models were introduced to the media, a report surfaced suggesting that the 707hp Hellcat Challenger would see just 1,200 examples – a report which Dodge boss Tim Kuniskis insists is 100% inaccurate and unfounded, as the company plans on building as many Hellcat powered Chargers and Challengers as they can sell.

The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is the most powerful American production car of all time so it is clear that the price starting under $60,000 is a smokin’ deal – but this cool graphic from the folks at BBC Autos shows just how great of a deal buyers of the 707hp Challenger are getting.

The Dodge Viper has always been the top dog in terms of performance from the Chrysler Group until the introduction of the new Hellcat Charger and Challenger, but if some rumors floating around the Mopar world prove to be true – the next generation Viper could pack a supercharged V10 that will blow away anything that has ever been built by an American automaker.

Sales of the Dodge Viper SRT have gotten bad enough that the Chrysler Group has extended production downtime, leading many to question the future of the Mopar supercar but I have the solution – put the automatic transmission from the Challenger and Charger Hellcat in the Viper.