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.

  • SCE to AUX I've never been teased by a bumper like that one before.
  • 3SpeedAutomatic R&T could have killed the story before it was released.Now, by pulling it after the fact, they look like idiots!! What's new??
  • Master Baiter "That said, the Inflation Reduction Act apparently does run afoul of WTO rules..."Pfft. The Biden administration doesn't care about rules. The Supreme Court said they couldn't forgive student load debt; they did it anyway. Decorum and tradition says you don't prosecute former presidents; they are doing it anyway. They made the CDC suspend evictions though they had no constitutional authority to do so.
  • 1995 SC Good. To misquote Sheryl Crow "If it makes them unhappy, it can't be that bad"
  • 1995 SC The letters on the hatch aren't big enough. hard pass
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