News & Reviews- Make: Dodge

When Dodge introduced the Journey in 2008, expectations were that it would soon replace the Grand Caravan minivan. After all, the GC's sales were down significantly, about half of what they were four years prior in the US and some 15,000 units lower in Canada, and minivans overall were a dying breed, with Ford having axed its Freestar a year prior, GM having already announced that its Chevrolet Uplander and Pontiac Montana vans would shortly follow the same fate (they did in 2009), everyone expecting Hyundai's slow-selling Entourage to die an untimely death (it did so in 2010), and somehow through all this minivan carnage the ill-conceived Grand Caravan-based Volkswagen Routan came and went without many even taking notice. All along the Dodge Grand Caravan continued to enjoy overwhelming sales leadership in the minivan sector, while the Journey held its own in the mid-size CUV segment.

That Journey, which has been a top-seller in the mid-size crossover SUV segment since it arrived, Read Full Story

It may come as a bit of a shock to some and will likely be old news to others, but back in May of last year Fiat-Chrysler Automobile (FCA) announced plans to eliminate the Dodge Grand Caravan. This current 2015 model will be the last of an era that's run more than three decades, the first ever Dodge Caravan arriving on the scene in 1983 along with its Plymouth Voyager counterpart.

Many reading this will know why the Voyager was discontinued. It had to go because the entire Plymouth brand was put to rest in June of 2001, but the Dodge brand isn't being discontinued so why would FCA kill off the Grand Caravan? Are sales low? Not exactly. Sales of minivans are much slower than they were at the height of the '90s when they were the darlings of so-called soccer moms (a much-maligned term but seemingly fitting in this review), with one in almost every suburban driveway and every automaker rushing to market with some sort of sliding side-door alternative to the Caravan, the one that Read Full Story

Remember when Chrysler was attempting to be a premium brand and Dodge was targeting a more mainstream market? The company's Auburn Hills team, then under the DaimlerChrysler umbrella, came out with some very nice models including the 300C full-size sedan, which was based on the mid-2000s Mercedes-Benz E-Class, plus the pricey albeit impressive Pacifica crossover-like tall wagon that used a combination of Mercedes and Chrysler minivan underpinnings, and the Crossfire coupe and convertible, a concept turned reality thanks to the Merc SLK it rode upon. Fortunately the 300 sold very well, but unfortunately the others didn't and DC abandoned Chrysler's premium aspirations along with all of its American brands in 2007, leaving the domestic automaker to fight it out on its own with much depleted cash reserves. To make a long story short Chrysler is now under Fiat's umbrella and that Mercedes' based 300 now underpins the Lancia Thema in Europe, a model that previously shared its unibody with an Read Full Story

With the advent of the 707 horsepower 2015 Charger SRT Hellcat, Dodge is clearly saying: We are not the minivan company anymore!

We never got the hyper-powered Dodge Grand Caravan SRT family hauler that many hypothesized about, but yah, whatever. Now that Dodge is officially becoming Fiat Chrysler Automobile's performance/muscle car brand, hellfire is clearly being stoked.

While the Charger SRT Hellcat closely follows the Challenger SRT Hellcat to market, it won't lag behind its two-door sibling on the racetrack. Word has it the slightly smaller but approximately 45-kilo (100-lb) heavier four-door uses its 2,068-kg (4,560-lb) curb weight to hook up the rear wheels more effectively, passing the quarter mile 0.2 seconds sooner at 11.0 seconds flat when shod in its standard Pirelli P Zeros. Zero to 60 mph (96.6 km/h) takes just 3.7 seconds, while the world's most powerful four-door will top out at a cool 328 km/h (204 mph). If you hadn't guessed already, this makes it Read Full Story

A pony car or a muscle car? The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat easily qualifies for the latter thanks to supercharged 6.2-litre V8 that makes a shocking 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque! Or maybe the term "supercar" fits the description more accurately.

Years ago performance car enthusiasts would've needed to pay a tuning specialist tens of thousands for an engine that could muster such performance, let alone a car that could handle such output from zero to highway speeds and back down to standstill again, but now all of this can be yours straight from the factory with a warranty no less. And the best news? A brand new 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat will only set you back a mere $63,995 plus freight in Canada.

This puts Dodge's new muscle car in the same ballpark as the 662-horsepower 2014 Mustang Shelby GT500, which currently can be had for $61,699, plus freight. Chevy's answer to this horsepower war is the $54,775 2014 Camaro ZL1, although at "only" 580 Read Full Story