Muscle Car Fan

Posts Tagged: SUV

Jay Leno owns hundreds of cars, but few tell a story as understated as his 1966 Dodge Coronet, a boxy family coupe hiding one of the most feared engines Detroit ever sold to the public. That small “426 Hemi” fender badge marks the first model year Chrysler offered the Hemi as a genuine street engine rather than a race-only exotic, sold in just three B-body nameplates. Read on to find out why a car this plain-looking still commands serious respect from collectors like Leno.

At the infamous I-15/78 interchange in San Diego County, one driver tried to force her way into traffic not once but three times, ignoring two warning honks from the unmarked vehicle behind her. The dashcam footage, captured on a Yi Dashcam Generation 1, shows exactly how the encounter unfolds once she realizes who she cut off. Viewers have praised the uploader for keeping the twist out of the title. Watch to see how it plays out.

Doug DeMuro reviews the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, a factory SUV packing the same 707-horsepower supercharged Hemi found in Dodge’s Hellcat muscle cars. See how a badge-engineered Grand Cherokee became, for a moment, the most powerful SUV money could buy.

The 2018 Chevrolet Tahoe RST pairs a 420-horsepower, 460-lb-ft 6.2-liter V8 with a 10-speed automatic shared with the Camaro ZL1, hitting 60 mph in a claimed 5.7 seconds while still towing up to 8,300 pounds. Choosing that engine also unlocks Magnetic Ride Control, plus optional Borla exhaust and Brembo brakes. It’s proof Chevy is willing to loan its performance parts bin to the family truck.

Four doors, a trunk, and — in some cases — more horsepower than the muscle cars they get compared to. From Dodge’s 707-hp Hellcat sedan to a Holden-built Chevrolet SS with a manual transmission, these sedans prove the muscle car formula survived long after two-door coupes stopped being the only way to build one. Read on to see which family cars are actually the quickest thing in the driveway.

Wider tires mean more grip — or so every car enthusiast has been told. Engineering Explained’s Jason Fenske put that assumption to the test at NWAPA’s 2017 Mudfest, running sixty-to-zero braking tests across twenty-seven different AWD and 4×4 trucks and SUVs with a Vbox data logger. The results complicate the simple version of the story muscle car owners repeat about tire width, weight, and stopping distance. Commenters, including more than one physics teacher’s former student, dig into exactly why. Watch to see what the data actually says.

At its 2017 Detroit Auto Show press conference, Ford officially confirmed the return of both the Bronco SUV and Ranger pickup, built on a shared body-on-frame platform at its Michigan Assembly Plant. Details were scarce, but the timeline was clear: Ranger for 2019, Bronco for 2020. DPCcars covers the announcement that turned two decades of rumors into an actual product plan.

The Dodge Durango SRT drops a 475-horsepower HEMI V8 into a three-row family SUV, launching to 60 mph in about 4.4 seconds while still hauling six passengers and their gear. It became America’s fastest three-row SUV the moment it arrived, and an even wilder version followed. Read on to see why it belongs in muscle car conversations.

When Fiat Chrysler finally attached a price tag to the Durango SRT, the 475-horsepower, 12.9-second-quarter-mile three-row SUV suddenly looked less like an expensive halo vehicle and more like a genuine bargain. Executive Tim Kuniskis called it America’s fastest SUV, and the numbers backed up the claim in ways few family haulers had ever matched. Read on to find out exactly what the sticker included, and how Dodge justified putting Hellcat-adjacent performance into a school-run vehicle.

A supercharged 707-horsepower Jeep Trackhawk should have no trouble against an electric SUV in a straight line — at least, that is what the horsepower numbers suggest. At Palm Beach International Raceway, a Tesla Model X P100D set a new quarter-mile record for production SUVs against exactly that Hemi-powered Jeep. Watch to see how close the gap actually was, and why the Trackhawk needed a few runs to catch up.

Chrysler built so few Hemi powered E-body convertibles that commonly cited production figures put the entire two-year total at roughly two dozen cars worldwide. Bob Ashton spent nearly a full year on the phone with Mopar collectors trying to get 27 of them into one room at the Muscle Car And Corvette Nationals in Rosemont, Illinois. Read on for why that gathering may never be repeated, and what makes these particular cars so nearly impossible to assemble.

A Lowe’s delivery truck, quite possibly loaded with someone’s new washer and dryer, gets broadsided by a small red car that blows straight through a red light — and one alert driver in a white van manages to avoid becoming the third vehicle involved. Both drivers were hospitalized; neither injury turned out to be severe. Watch the dashcam footage that has viewers still arguing about which vehicle actually came out worse.

Elon Musk first confirmed the Tesla Model Y would share its platform with the Model 3 sedan on a quarterly earnings call — but the crossover didn’t actually reach the public until its March 2019 unveiling, with production following in January 2020. When it arrived, roughly 76% of its parts were shared with the Model 3, and Tesla offered four powertrain configurations plus an optional third row. Here’s how the promise from that call actually played out.

A Ford Explorer launched full-speed into a pond described as snake-infested makes for one of the more chaotic backyard stunts you will see this year, sending both spray and actual snakes flying on impact. Viewers in the comments turned surprisingly technical, debating whether the submerged engine hydrolocked and what a rod-knock repair bill from something like this might look like. It is equal parts slapstick and cautionary tale about what water does to an internal combustion engine. Watch the clip and see the splash for yourself.

Jeep took the supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat V8 out of Dodge’s most unhinged muscle car and bolted it into the Grand Cherokee, then rebuilt the driveline, brakes, and cooling system to survive it. The result runs 0-60 in 3.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 11.6, with a tow hitch attached. At $85,900, the value argument was the whole pitch. Read on for what made the Trackhawk possible and what to know before buying one used.

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