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Posts Tagged: Dodge

Over a thousand cars showed up to a fountain-side park in Fountain Hills, Arizona, and somehow a Lamborghini Miura still wasn’t the car everyone in the comments wanted to talk about most. Vipers, a genuine Ferrari Testarossa, and a rare Aston Martin continuation car all made appearances, but it’s the sheer variety packed into one Arizona morning that keeps viewers coming back to this exact upload every year.

This episode of the long-running documentary series turns its attention to the 1969 Dodge Dart GTS, the compact A-body that Chrysler quietly loaded with 340 and 383 big-block power while keeping curb weight hundreds of pounds under its Charger and Coronet siblings. Overshadowed for decades by its Hemi Dart cousin and the flashier E-body Challenger, the GTS built a devoted following on handling alone. Watch to see why period road testers ranked it Chrysler’s best-driving muscle car of the era.

Dodge’s Super Bee ran a full four-year spread of engine options, from a stout 383 all the way up to the legendary 426 Hemi, but the rarest combination of them all was the mid-1969 A12 Six-Pack. Only 1,907 of those 440 Six-Pack cars were built, and the Hemi option was even scarcer at just 125 units. It’s a lineup that proves not every muscle car icon needed a household name to earn its reputation.

Dodge tried the Challenger name once in 1958 and quietly shelved it. Twelve years later, the name returned on a pony car built to dominate a segment Dodge had arrived at late. Read on to see how the Challenger’s engine lineup, from the 318 to the 426 Hemi, tried to make up for lost time.

When Dodge unveiled the Challenger SRT Demon, the rumor mill had been running wild for months, and the real numbers still managed to shock: 840 horsepower, 770 lb-ft, a 9.65-second quarter mile, and a Guinness-certified wheelie. Then came the strange details, like passenger seats priced at $1 each and a car so quick the NHRA effectively banned it in stock form. Read on to find out how Dodge built a showroom drag car that broke the rules on purpose.

In late 2016, spy shots and a leaked mapping image convinced enthusiasts that Ford’s fiercest Mustang nameplate was coming back for 2017. It wasn’t — the real Shelby GT500 didn’t arrive until three years later, and when it did, it packed nearly 100 more horsepower than anyone was rumoring at the time. Here’s what actually happened between the rumor and the reveal, and why the wait ended up worth it.

Dodge promised the Challenger SRT Demon would be both the fastest and the most advanced muscle car ever built, and the New York auto show debut in April 2017 had to prove it. The 840-horsepower figure handled the fastest part, but it was the technology, from Performance Pages and tire-specific launch control to a factory TransBrake and drag-mode suspension, that made the second claim stick. Read on to find out how Dodge made brute force and sophistication work together.

This 1968 lineup photo puts three very different Dodges side by side: the lightweight Dart GTS, the full-size Coronet R/T, and the radically styled Charger R/T. Each one represented a different bet on what muscle car buyers wanted that year, light weight and agility, big-block brute force, or head-turning design. The Coronet R/T’s Hemi option was built in numbers so small that survivors are among the rarest Mopars around today. Which one would you have driven off the lot in 1968?

Rumors chasing the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon’s horsepower figure climbed past 900 before SRT’s engineers had finished their own testing. When the official SAE-certified rating finally landed, it told a different story, one backed by an NHRA-certified quarter-mile instead of forum speculation. Read on for what the real number turned out to be, why the rumor overshot, and why the certified figure ended up being the better story.

This triple black 1971 Dodge Challenger R/T carries the paperwork of Mr. Norm’s Grand-Spaulding Dodge, the Chicago dealership famous for building factory Hemi muscle cars regular buyers could special-order off the showroom floor. Under the hood sits a 425-horsepower 426 Hemi, built in the final model year before compression ratios and horsepower ratings changed for good. Mopar fans in the comments call it a dream car outright. Watch to see why documentation matters as much as horsepower on a car like this.

The SRT Demon captured headlines with 840 horsepower and a waiting list that filled overnight, but Dodge had quietly been selling something nearly as ferocious for years before the Demon ever existed. The Challenger SRT Hellcat skips the race fuel, the stripped interior, and the six-figure markups while still delivering 707 horsepower you can drive to work. Read on to find out why buyers chasing supercharged Hemi drama might already have the better deal.

A 383-cubic-inch engine putting down almost exactly 383 horsepower is the kind of coincidence that doesn’t happen often enough for anyone to plan around it — but that’s exactly what this blue 1968 Dodge Charger did on the dyno at a Mopar show in Avondale, Arizona. Three pulls, real numbers, and an exhaust note commenters called worth hearing all the way to redline.

Behind the muscle cars rolling through the South East Moparty Picnic is a Hollywood footnote almost nobody knows — the 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible Don Johnson drove in Nash Bridges wasn’t really a ’71 at all, because Plymouth only ever built eleven or twelve of the real thing. Here’s how three modified 1970 convertibles became one of TV’s most famous muscle cars, and why Mopar loyalists still argue about it today.

The first car ever to wear the Dodge Charger name was built to introduce America to the 426 Hemi, but the engine slated for it got pulled at the last minute to save a race team’s season. What actually powered this showcar for years was a secret hiding in plain sight. Decades later, a full restoration finally gave it the Hemi it was always supposed to have, and turned it into a seven-figure piece of Mopar history.

Nick’s Garage pulled a rare 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A Six Pack out of nine years of storage and waited until after closing to attempt the first start alone. A 340ci engine that’s sat that long can seize, hydro-lock, or simply refuse to catch — and the only way to know is to turn the key. Watch to see which way it goes.

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