Search the Community

<Dodge Sets 2024 Death Date For Charger And Challenger To Make Way For The Brand's "eMuscle" The best selling muscle cars in America will be gone in the next two years as Dodge transitions EVs Dodge Charger and Challenger Jailbreak models. Image: Dodge It’s finally happening: The Dodge Charger and Challenger muscle machines will be no more by 2024. Motor Trend spoke with Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis about the brand’s plans for the next two years as the company tries to appease muscle fans and appeal to EV buyers. Kuniskis is aware that a lot of people won’t be happy with the direction the brand is taking (he’s already receiving death threats for the changes). He calls it, “feeding the beast.” Image: Dodge The discontinuation of the Charger and Challenger, and the start to the brand’s EV models are all a bigger part of its “Never Lift” plan. Within the 24 months of the plan, Dodge plans to release special editions of each departing model: Editions they think will get people talking like the recently introduced Jailbreak. It’s really more of a softening of the blow to muscle car fans who will soon be robbed of their Hemi fix from the brand. Image: Dodge So, you’re asking, “what’s replacing the Charger and Challenger?” Those of you waiting for an EV muscle car won’t have to wait long. Kuniskis says a concept version of the “muscle EV” is coming in the next four or five months. And in a surprising nod to automotive outlets, it’ll be able to be driven and tested. Dodge also has a plug-in hybrid expected to go into production at the end of 2022. We speculate it may be a version of the Durango, but Kuniskis didn’t say whether or not the Durango would be moving to a new platform or if the model would be around at all. A third new model is also in the works. Kuniskis is light on details, but says “The third one is going to be a very, very, very, significant car at the end of the year.” And in a move that should make our very own Jason Torchinsky very happy, Dodge’s made up Fratzog badge will be used exclusively on EVs. Whatever floats your boat, or rather, charges your batteries. So you muscle car fans who are mad about this: calm down. Chances are the power output is even better than your Hemis anyways, and it needs to be done for the planet. You can expect these new models to take the stage at major auto shows next year, presumably in Dodge’s Detroit home, at the North American International Auto Show.>

<A 670-HP Lancia Delta Integrale EV Will Tackle World Rallycross in 2022 With the FIA's WRX series going electric, now's the time to revive a true classic. Ahh, rallycross going electric. It feels like someone invents a new version of it every week, probably because rallycross sort of has the ideal format for cars with limited range. The races are just 6-9 minutes long, but it's also tough actually making electric cars you can rattle the absolute hell out of around a jump track while keeping the safety standards somewhere north of acceptable. And then there are the costs. The FIA World Rallycross championship is, after years of skirting the issue, finally taking the plunge next season. One of the entrants, French outfit GCK Motorsport, is bringing things back to the old school by using the 500-kilowatt, dual-motor electric powertrain and battery from Kreisel (the people who are also bringing you insane hydrofoil racing) and fitting it to a Lancia Delta Integrale. That car's a volatile legend of rallycross' past, as well as a six-time World Rally Championship title winner. GCK Although there's obviously gonna have to be a fair amount of screwing around with it, this really will have a Delta Integrale chassis, somewhere in its base. The Integrale wasn't the Group B Lancia–that was the completely haphazard Delta S4, a beast with, as you'd expect in rally, more horsepower than sense that could reportedly pull up to 800 hp in a final race. Instead, the Integrale was a Group A competitor that still won over everyone's hearts. But rallying and Lancia Deltas go together like me and standing by the side of the course getting a face full of gravel, so this is more than a welcome development in any case. GCK already made a restomod version of the Lancia Delta Integrale that looks mighty lovely zooming around a smooth circuit because it's a car that's shaped like the most satisfying box and it's got the handling of a modern EV. That's all nice and good and I definitely wouldn't be angry if someone offered to let me (or preferably Stef) hoon one round the Nordschleife. But it's not the roaring, angry, roughness of whatever makes people want to snout rallycross cars around dirt tracks like 670-horsepower truffle hunters. LANCIA The WRX series is very keen to make some, frankly, fairly wild claims about the cars accelerating faster than F1 (yes, for a short period and if the F1 car doesn't have ERS). To be honest, when you're as obscure as rallycross has ended up these days, you can pretty much say absolutely anything and it'll either please all 15 incredibly passionate Estonians following the championship or everyone will just ignore it, anyway. For sure, at least, WRX has a decent grid put together for next year with 14 entrants to the 2022 title. And y'know, 671 horsepower and 880 newton-meters of torque in cars this size is going to be rude and fun as hell whatever you do with it. It took less than that to impress Ken Block, after all. At the very least, this is a more dignified progression of the Delta into the future than what Lancia actually did with it, which was to take on a very 2021 process way back in 2009 and turn what used to be the symbol of manic, gutsy handling into a completely vile crossover it hurts to look at. Please don't bring this one back as electric, Stellantis—you're on watch. LANCIA>

FCA and PSA merged to save cash. Earlier this year, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group finalized their merger, creating Stellantis. The two joined forces in an effort to cut costs while also creating the world’s fourth-largest automaker. The new conglomerate has promised not to cut jobs or close plants, but those savings have to come from somewhere, and Stellantis is looking everywhere, including the toilets. Reuters is reporting that in Italy, Stellantis is cutting cleaning services and the number of toilets available at some of its factories. At the company’s Mirafiori factory in Turin, Italy, where the new Fiat 500 is being produced, Stellantis has reduced the number of available toilets and cut cleaning services, FMI union member Davide Provenzano told the publication. The company has also reduced temperatures and reorganized transport facilities. Provenzano voiced concerns about such cost-cutting measures during the coronavirus pandemic. Similar cutbacks have happened at the company’s Atessa plant, where the UILM union noted there’d been a 35-percent cut in cleaning services, though that excluded services for disinfecting against the coronavirus. The number of toilets there were left unchanged, though the company is operating at near full capacity. FOIM union member Edi Lazzi told Reuters that he believed the cost-cutting measures were coming from local management. The merger has given Stellantis a monumental task managing more than a dozen brands, some of which now overlap each other in some markets. The merger has already seen the company cancel plans to return Peugeot back to US shores, which began in 2017. Instead, the company will focus on revitalizing the Alfa Romeo brand in the US. Chrysler will also get renewed focus. Other changes have seen Stellantis disband the SRT team, though there will be future SRT models.