In a new interview, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis paints the future in a much brighter light than things might seem for a brand with two muscle cars on their way out. His comments indicate that competition could be the saving grace of the muscle car long after the V8 has left the building. Positioning Dodge as a major player in that future is already well underway.
The Charger and Challenger might get a lot of worthy flack for sitting atop chassis that are almost old enough to vote, but both are icons. In a world full of wildly overpriced and underpowered boringmobiles, this pair of muscle cars continue to move the needle for Dodge.
How will the brand manage to survive when they finally leave production? After all, Dodge will supposedly only have the Hornet and Durango in its quiver at that point. Tim Kuniskis sees a future where muscle car fans gradually make the transition to EVs and into whatever form Dodge’s upcoming EV muscle car might be.
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“There’s tons of potential in this technology,” Kuniskis said to Automotive News. “I get it: Not everybody is adopting to this technology right away, and not everybody will. It will take many years for everybody to, but people will. Early adopters will, and when they see what we can do with this technology, they will start coming along.
“Eventually people will see that this technology can make something cool and fun. It’s probably going to sound different, but people tuning cars, making cars faster, and competing against each other will not go away. They say the first drag race occurred the second the second car was built. People are going to compete. People are going to compete to have a cooler, faster, funner car and it’s not going to change.”
Of course, in part, he’s talking about the Charger Daytona concept and whatever production vehicle finally comes from it. In addition, he made very light mention of whatever “cars” might come from an electrified Dodge lineup back in March at the unveiling of the Demon 170. We expect to see at least one of the next Dodge production models before the end of 2023.
