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Dodge says three new variants of the Charger and Challenger are on their way

Introduced in 2008, the current Dodge Challenger is one of the oldest new cars on the American market. It's not ready to retire, and documents published by Canadian union Unifor confirm it will remain in production until at least 2023. Better yet, the company announced it will release several new versions of the car in the coming years. Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) narrowly avoided a costly strike by signing a new three-year agreement with Unifor, the union that represents most of its Canadian workers. It pledged to inject $1.58 billion Canadian (about $1.2 billion U.S.) into its local operations while creating 2,000 new jobs in the nation. Some of that money will be allocated to the Brampton Assembly factory located on the outskirts of Toronto, where it will be used to build three new variants of Dodge's Charger and Challenger models. Details about what the company has in store weren't included in the release, but Dodge has shown it's capable of mustering an unusually high level of creativity when it comes to keeping the Challenger and the Charger fresh. Hellcat, Demon, T/A 392, and Super Stock models have joined the range in recent years, and its efforts have paid off, as 60,997 units of the Challenger were sold in the United States in 2019. It even outsold the Camaro and the Mustang during the third quarter of the year. Annual Charger sales jumped by 21% to 96,935 units in 2019. With that said, Dodge's definition of a new variant is murky. It could be alluding to a trim level, an option package, a limited-edition model, or a face-lifted version. Regardless, we're betting they'll be exceptionally powerful. Chrysler will continue to build the 300 in Brampton through 2023, too, but there's no word on what the future has in store for the sedan. It's also relatively old, but it's not faring nearly as well as its Dodge-badged siblings. Sales fell to 29,213 units in 2019, a 37% drop compared to 2018, and the lineup was pared down for 2021. Moving west, the Windsor factory will be retooled to build plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, and it will be assigned at least one new model, but FCA didn't reveal what it will be, or when we'll see it. Industry whisperings claim that's where the production version of the CES-friendly Chrysler Portal concept will be built.

2020 Ford Police Interceptor Utility dominates Michigan State Police testing

The Michigan State Police has released its preliminary findings from testing the 2019 crop of police vehicles, and the results are a bit surprising. The consistent top performer of the bunch was the 2020 Ford Police Interceptor Utility, better known to civilians as the Ford Explorer. Specifically, the top performer was the model with the new turbocharged 3.0-liter V6. The Michigan State Police conducts acceleration, top speed, braking and lap time tests of all the available police vehicles. The 3.0-liter Police Interceptor Utility was the fastest to 60 mph at 5.77 seconds, had the highest top speed of 150 mph, and the best average lap time of 1:36.47. The lap time was particularly impressive as it was just over half a second faster than the next quickest car, the all-wheel-drive V8 Charger. View 13 Photos Still, the 2019 Dodge Charger gave the Explorer a serious run for its money. The all-wheel-drive V8 Charger was only 0.1 seconds behind the Explorer to 60 mph with a time of 5.87 seconds, and the rear-drive version was third quickest at 6.15 seconds. Both V8 Chargers were only 1 mph off of the Explorer's top speed, and the V6 example was third fastest at 141 mph. We already mentioned the all-wheel-drive V8 Charger was half a second off the Explorer's lap time, and the rear-drive variant was just over 1 second behind, giving it the third fastest average time. Dodge also took home braking bragging rights. The V6 Charger won out with a distance of 126.9 feet, followed by the rear-drive V8 Charger with 128 feet, and the V6 Durango Pursuit stopping at 128.8 feet. Now of course where there are winners, there are also losers. The slowest accelerating police car was the Ford Police Responder Hybrid Sedan, better known as the Fusion Hybrid, with a time of 9.24 seconds. At 8.59 seconds was the V6 Dodge Durango, and the V8 Chevy Tahoe with four-wheel-drive was third slowest at 7.98 seconds. Lowest top speed was 106 mph with the Ford F-150 Police Responder with the 3.5-liter turbocharged V6, followed by the V6 and V8 Durangos with 117- and 118-mph top speeds respectively. In braking, the Chevy Tahoes performed the worst with the rear-drive version stopping at 145.7 feet and the four-wheel-drive version stopping at 142.5 feet. The F-150 followed with 141.9 feet. When it came to lap times, the Fusion Hybrid lapped the slowest with a time of 1:46.31. The V6 Durango was about a second faster with a time of 1:45.45.

Dodge Dart getting hatchback variant... sort of

In other parts of the world, Fiat builds and sells a version of the Dodge Dart called the Viaggio, and it appears that in addition to the current sedan bodystyle, a new hatchback version of the car is also in the works. Autocar says that the general manager for China's Guangzhou-Fiat joint venture, John Burton, has confirmed that a new Viaggio hatchback will be revealed by the end of this year before it goes on sale in early 2014.
The Viaggio will soon be joined by the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, which in China will be called the Liberty Light, at the Guangzhou-Fiat plant. While the idea of a Dodge Dart hatchback might be enough to enable most of us to forget about the Dodge Caliber, a North American variant doesn't appear to be in the cards. We reached out to Chrysler PR boss Rick Deneau, and he offered a succinct: "No plans at this time."