Dodge considered extending the life of its gas-powered muscle car era by replacing its pushrod V8s with the new Stellantis Hurricane inline six, and hasn’t completely ruled out using it in future, CEO Tim Kuniskis has revealed during a media briefing last week.
The Hurricane motor was unveiled earlier this year and will soon find its way under the hoods of various Jeep and Ram vehicles that have so far relied on old-school single-cam, pushrod, 16-valve Hemi V8 power. Though the almost 20-year old Hemi V8 produces plenty of grunt, particularly in supercharged Hellcat form, it’s heavier, dirtier and 15 percent thirstier than the new six.
At 3.0-liters, the Hurricane is around half the size of the V8 and features a lightweight aluminum block, dual overhead cams and twin turbos. It’s currently rated at 400 hp (406 PS) and 450 lb-ft (610 Nm) in standard-output form with 22 psi of boost, and 500 hp (507 PS) and 475 lb-ft (644 Nm) in high-output guise running 26 psi.
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Those numbers would make the two versions of the six ideal replacements for the naturally-aspirated 5.7-liter and 6.1-liter V8s fitted to the current Charger and Challenger, theoretically delivering similar performance but using less gas in the process. And though the power figures are some way off the supercharged Hellcat’s 700+ hp (710 PS), the Hurricane’s forged bottom end means there’s probably plenty more to come in future versions, and it has, of course, been designed to work as part of a hybrid package where needed.
But Dodge ultimately decided not to go to the trouble of re-engineering its existing Charger and Challenger to accommodate the Hurricane engines, or to engineer the next generation cars to take the six, at least at launch. Instead, it will kill off both the current Charger and Challenger, and their much loved V8s, next year. The muscle cars’ radical replacement will be a production version of the Charger Daytona SRT Concept, a two-seat, faintly retro-look EV that was unveiled in August, has been revamped for a SEMA appearance this week, and should be on sale by 2024.
The 2024 Charger will be built on Stellantis’s new STLA architecture and so far the only powertrains Dodge has mentioned have been electric. But speaking to Carscoops last week, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis didn’t rule out the possibility of an ICE-powered, six-cylinder version of the Charger in the future.
“I’ve been very transparent… that our next cars are built on the STLA Large platform, the STLA Large is a multi-energy platform,” Kuniskis explained.
“I can put an ICE engine in there. Doesn’t mean we’re going to. We’re certainly not launching with anything like that. We’re lunching with full battery electric and we think that by the time we get to that point the offering we’re going to have is going to be really attractive in the market place. If some day we wanted to add ICE to that car, could we? It’s totally [possible]. But we’ll maybe never get there.”
Would you like to see Dodge drop the Hurricane into the 2024 Charger, and would you be more likely to buy one if it did? Leave a comment and let us know.
