Dodge Challenger Srt 8 on 2040-cars

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Jay Leno gets his denim mitts on Dodge's new Challenger Hellcat

The 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is definitely the performance car of the moment. The fact that in the near future, people will be able to buy a 707-horsepower muscle machine straight from a major automaker for $59,995 and with a factory warranty almost seems absurd. We drove it recently and found the Hellcat to be just as much of a beast as its numbers would suggest. Now, it's a certain comedian's turn behind the wheel in the latest episode of Jay Leno's Garage.
This week's guest is Dodge President and CEO Tim Kuniskis, and he's there to drop all sorts of interesting factoids about the Hellcat. For example, its Pirelli P Zero tires retail at around $300 each, he says. That makes its smoky burnouts a rather expensive proposition. Kuniskis, who recently hinted at a mystery Woodward Dream Cruise debut, also talks about the genesis of the 2015 SRT project with a goal to get over some of the standard Challenger's weight and size disadvantages. The fix is a supercharged V8, massive brakes and other goodies to smooth over the platform's more glaring shortcomings.
Leno appears to get a big kick out of the Hellcat. However, he can't seem to stop bringing up his desire to drive one with a six-speed manual. They obviously exist, but Kuniskis has an eight-speed automatic for the retired Tonight Show host to try out. Of course, as with any Hellcat video, there has to be at least one burnout. Despite the expensive tires, it seems like enthusiast's law at this point - and dear ol' Jay wouldn't want to break any rules, would he?

Chrysler set to make $266M-investment into 8-speed transmission production

Chrysler will shortly make a significant $266-million investment into its Kokomo, IN transmission factory in a bid to expand production of its eight-speed automatic transmissions. The gearboxes, which are built under license from Germany's ZF Friedrichshafen, have been well received by customers and critics, and according to an SEC filing obtained by Automotive News, the transmissions will eventually find their way to all of Chrysler's rear-drive offerings (Viper and heavy-duty Ram models, aside). According to AN, a Chrysler spokesman says the investment has not been confirmed, but once it is, it'll mark the company's latest in a growing line of investments at the facility. Chrysler has poured $1.5 billion into Kokomo since 2009.

Junkyard Gem: 1986 Dodge Ram 50

After years of selling the Isuzu Faster with Chevrolet LUV badges here, GM replaced it with the S-10 in 1982. Ford sold Mazda Proceeds with Courier badges for even more years, but ditched the Courier once the Ranger became available as a 1983 model. Chrysler was able to put truck beds on Omnirizons at that time, but didn't have the deep pockets to develop its own rear-wheel-drive small pickup; for this reason, Dodge-badged Mitsubishi Forte pickups continued to be available in the United States all the way through the 1994 model year. Here's one of those trucks, found in a Colorado car graveyard. The first Chrysler-imported Mitsubishi Fortes showed up in the United States as 1979 models. The Dodge-badged version was known as the D-50, while Plymouth dealers got theirs with Arrow badges. The Dodge D-50 became the Ram 50 for the 1981 model year, while the final Plymouth Arrow trucks were sold as 1982 models. Just to make things more interesting, Mitsubishi started selling its own vehicles in the United States beginning with the 1983 model year. That meant that the Ram 50 had to compete for sales with a near-identical twin sporting Mitsubishi badges. Things in the Chrysler-Mitsubishi universe got even more exciting a bit later, when there were four marques selling essentially the same car here simultaneously: the Mitsubishi Mirage, Plymouth Colt, Dodge Colt and Eagle Summit. All of the Dodge D-50s and Ram 50s came with Mitsubishi power under their hoods. This one has a 2.0-liter SOHC straight-four rated at 88 horsepower and 108 pound-feet. For a while, a 2.3-liter Mitsubishi diesel was available in the Ram 50. It had been discontinued by 1986, however. This one has the base five-speed manual transmission. It appears that this truck was being used for long-term storage of many, many boxes of random household stuff when it was banished to this place. Much of the stuff was scattered on the ground nearby. Perhaps it was parked at a rent-a-storage facility and got evicted for lack of rent payments. Much of the contents consisted of stacks of newspapers and magazines from the 1960s and 1970s. Here's an Art Buchwald column about then-Vice President Spiro Agnew from February 23, 1971. Here's a Beetle Bailey strip from the same year. There's plenty of history in the junkyard, if you know where to look. There must have been a half-ton of paper in this truck when it arrived here. Sadly, some family's photo albums were here as well.