Never Mind The Inventory, Here's The Dart GT

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

TTAC’s Alex Dykes didn’t fall in love with the Dodge Dart in his initial meeting, although he did refer to it as “class competitive”. In its first half-year on these shores, the Alfa-Dodge has struggled to keep inventory levels down despite great advertising.

Ten or twenty years ago, Chrysler might have let this state of affairs continue for a year or two before adjusting the product mix and/or changing the marketing approach, but in the lean-and-mean era they don’t play that game. The Dart GT is meant to restart the model’s momentum, and it does it the old-fashioned way: with high content and reasonably aggressive pricing.

The GT is powered by the big motor in the Dart lineup — the 2.4L, 184-horsepower “Tigershark” — and it’s pretty well-loaded with everything from leather to the 8.4-inch touchscreen in the center console. It appears that the suspension tuning and components are brought over from the R/T, although the press release doesn’t explicitly state that fact. HIDs and a Garmin nav appear on the option list. Price for the manual-transmission variant is $20,995.

If you didn’t fancy the Dart before, this won’t change your mind, but if you were waiting for a little more visual aggression at a reasonable price, this might do the trick. We’ll see it in Detroit.





Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • Corey Lewis Corey Lewis on Jan 09, 2013

    The interior plastics and their texture really looks nasty. It's too much of a pebbled look, and seems like it'd be really hard and rough feeling.

  • SCE to AUX SCE to AUX on Jan 11, 2013

    The GT still isn't available until Q2-2013, very frustrating. I test drove a 1.4 6MT and a 2.0 6AT. The 2.0 automatic was far more pleasant to drive, but it needed more torque. I'm hoping the 2.4 is the answer. The turbo 1.4 is quite gutless and terrible to drive in city traffic, and the stick was poorly positioned for me. I found interior build quality to be iffy. But the exterior is beautiful.

  • Kwik_Shift Brands that were considered from China include BYD, Dayun, Great Wall Motors, Maxus, Nio, Omoda/Chery, Seres, XPeng, and Zeekr. KG Mobility from South Korea also made the list of candidates.That's a lot of car companies from there ready to head here.
  • Analoggrotto Clean sweep and unanimous victory for the world affluence engine of 22nd century : Hyundai/Kia/Genesis. Toyota and Lexus, for 120 years of history have not been able to capture the zenith superlative status of Hyundai Motor Corporation the most awarded, decorated and revered automotive corporation in the history of historical. Featuring best ever, first ever and greatest ever e-ATPs the Hyundai Genesis Kia lineup is posed to become the envy of every country club, ivy league college and fortune 500 corporation in the world. I've been taking a roadtrip in my loaner Elantra N, visiting colleges from east to west, elite universities of higher learning to inspect their parking lots. WHat did I find? Leagues of Genesis models, outnumbering Lexus 3 to 1. When I interviewed faculty and staff at these places of greater learning, their response was unanimous : they chose HMC for the ATPs.
  • Mikey 2019 Chevy Impala Premier FWD with 20 inch factory Bridgestones. I'm looking at replacing tires at the 65,000 KLM's (40,000 miles ) mark ....It doesn't thrill me .. I'm pricing Michelin Cross Climate 2 tires ouch !! ..Up here in Canuckastan ....Big $$$$$
  • ToolGuy Honda was robbed.
  • ToolGuy "Honey, someone is trying to cross the moat again"
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