Ferocious Feline Bound for the Dodge Durango Den?

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

It seems Dodge, the most flag-wavingly patriotic of all domestic brands, may have something fearsome in store for its aging Durango SUV.

Amid a flurry of Super Bowl ad spots Sunday night, Dodge offered up an orgy of tire-smoking horsepower and Vin Diesel, no doubt prompting its viewership to immediately envision themselves tearing up the local soccer field under the cover of darkness. But did it also offer up a clue?

Again, it seems so, as the spot — titled Dodge House of Power — shows a Hellcat logo pasted to the front fender of a vehicle with unusually tall flanks. No Challenger or Charger, this.

In the screengrab seen above, the wheel arch and fender crease are clearly that of the Durango, which has been luring buyers away from more sedate crossovers for years. The following scene featuring a Durango powering past the camera seems to confirm this. And is that hood scoop just a bit wider than the SRT model’s? Hard to tell.

The current-gen Durango entered production at the tail end of 2010, making it an ancient entry in the marketplace — but a fairly youthful member of the Dodge household. It’s also no stranger to power. Hemi V8s lurk beneath the hood of the R/T and SRT models, but the model has so far avoided the hottest of Dodge’s V8s: the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 found in the Charger and Challenger SRT Hellcat. That mill also found a home in the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.

Making 707 horsepower in its most tepid form, the monster powerplant’s inclusion would be a good way to stimulate interest in an aging vehicle. It’s also been Dodge’s go-to tactic for years.

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • RHD RHD on Feb 03, 2020

    Consumers don't care how old a platform is. If the car is good, the price is fair (or the payments are affordable), a butt will find a seat. Heck, look how long the Beetle lasted with the most incremental of upgrades. The Dodge Grand Caravan would sell for another decade if it's competitively priced and facelifted a bit every now and then. Calling a platform "aging" is relevant to the cognoscenti, but most decision-makers (read: wives) don't care how old a platform is.

    • Steve203 Steve203 on Feb 04, 2020

      >>Consumers don’t care how old a platform is. If the car is good, the price is fair (or the payments are affordable), a butt will find a seat.

  • Flipper35 Flipper35 on Feb 04, 2020

    The JGC and Durango platform had a refresh back in 2014 including the 8 speed transmission and interior updates.

  • Joe This is called a man in the middle attack and has been around for years. You can fall for this in a Starbucks as easily as when you’re charging your car. Nothing new here…
  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
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