Hellcats At The Dream Cruise

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

If all the Hellcat news has whetted your appetite for an in-person meeting, here’s your chance.


Come see the man who pretended to set the cross-country illegal top speed record yo at Woodward and 13 Mile. While you’re at it, you can see both the Hellcat models and over sixty Dodge Vipers. Yeah, it’s only Friday, and personally I wouldn’t go to the Dream Cruise if you threatened my life — but if you want an early look at the 707-horsepower monsters that might go down in history as the apex of the second musclecar era, that’s the spot.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • SexCpotatoes SexCpotatoes on Aug 16, 2014

    Personally, I don't like the exhaust note. It sounds like it's idling at 4000 rpms with all the fast popping. If you want a lopey idle, and mean sounding exhaust the old 5.0 mustang H.O. engine with 2.5" exhaust and no mufflers is music to my ears.

  • I chatted with Dodge chief Tim Kuniskis who said there was more like this (Challenger/Charger) to come; chatted with Ralph Gilles, said hi to Richard Rawlings and various other folks. Chrysler/Dodge had great area at Woodward

  • Analoggrotto I don't see a red car here, how blazing stupid are you people?
  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
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