Dodge Mega Cab 4wd Cummins Laramie Crew Truck Pick Up Nav Cd Leather We Finance on 2040-cars

Auto blog

1970 Hemi Challenger is a family heirloom with serious muscle

Petrolicious turns up the emotion in its latest video about a family's connection to their 1970 Dodge Challenger. The orange muscle car that gets the spotlight here is a remarkably beautiful vehicle, but the story of a father and his sons at the core of this clip might leave you feeling a little misty eyed. Juan Escalante is the current owner of this Challenger, but it belonged to his dad first. Juan's father spotted the iconic muscle car during the 1969 Detroit Auto Show and had to have one. He soon placed an order for the orange '70 Challenger R/T with the rare combination for that year of a 426 Hemi V8 and a four-speed manual gearbox. The family even brought the coupe with them when they moved to Venezuela in 1972, and local fans dubbed it El Hemi. However, parts were scarce for the muscle car in that country, and it returned to the US in 1996 for a restoration. Now, the rumbling Challenger with its Coke-bottle profile and black hood is the world's most awesome family heirloom for the Escalantes. In this poignant video, Petrolicious shows how the coupe connects Juan to his father. Related Video:

Dodge, Hyundai crowdsourced-funding sites deemed successes

What's not to love about crowdsourcing? This idea, after all, has given us Kickstarter as well Local Motors, but automakers are starting to use the social platform to sell more cars (or just drum up a little PR). Both Dodge and Hyundai have used "crowd-funding" recently, and while Automotive News is reporting that neither has racked up big sales with this gimmick, both automakers are pleased with the attention.
For Hyundai, it teamed up with website Motozuma.com to help customers crowdsource money for a down payment, and the automaker matched this amount up to $500. Last year, this helped Hyundai sell an extra 1,600 units, a fraction of its total 2012 sales. That figure is far larger than Dodge fared with the Dodge Dart Registry - it netted only two sales and a small number of individual options. This registry did help University of Southern California fraternity crowdsource $18,000 to buy a Dart for a local Meals on Wheels, however. Despite the low sales figures, Dodge and Hyundai are considering their crowdsourcing programs a success since it helped them connect with younger buyers.

Turn up the volume: Flat out in the Dodge Charger Scat Pack

The 2019 Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack is a rare breed in the car market. It's a reasonably affordable large sedan with a huge honking V8 and rear wheel drive. You know, the perfect car for this Fourth of July. Or any day ending in Y, really. The R/T Scat Pack is the second most powerful version of the sedan with a 6.4-liter naturally aspirated V8 making 485 horsepower and 475 pound-feet of torque. Only the 707-horsepower Hellcat is a more powerful Charger. But power is only part of the story. The other part is the noise. The V8 has a gritty, dirty rumble to it. We recorded it cruising up on-ramps, down shifting, and got a few standing revs out of it. Check out the video to hear for yourself.