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The Dodge Demon was developed under a cloud of smoke

The Dodge Demon needs no introduction. The car is so full of superlatives that most of it sounds unbelievable until you see and hear it in action. The car was revealed after months of teasers and cryptic messages, but the public weren't the only ones in the dark. From the start, the Demon's development was a closely guarded secret. There were even some within SRT that didn't know about the project. The people behind the car went through a lot of effort to keep it that way. At an event covering the finer details of the Demon's supercharged 6.2-liter V8, Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis and SRT Powertrain Director Chris Cowland spoke about the smoke and mirrors used to hide the Demon's development. Work on the car progressed for nearly two years before it was made public, with just a small team having full access to the project. Numbers were altered. Secret meetings were held. SRT engineers worked nights and weekends while parts suppliers were given as little information as possible to move progress forward. Preliminary work on the Demon began in April of 2015, not long after the standard Hellcat hit the streets. The goal wasn't to create a faster Hellcat. Kuniskis said that would have been easy. They wanted a single-minded vehicle that could also be driven on the road. It's the same mindset that brought about the Dodge Viper ACR. Dodge wanted a car that could sell the brand to both enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike. 840 horsepower is going to raise anyone's eyebrows, including the Camry owner parked down the street. While preliminary work started in April, the final greenlight wasn't given until September. The project was originally going to revive the American Drag Racer, or ADR, name. When we saw the first hints of the Demon last fall, we labeled the spy photo above the Dodge Challenger ADR. It was set to have 10-percent more power and 20-percent more launch force than the already gut-punching Hellcat. It was also only going to have a quarter-mile time in the 10s, just slightly quicker than the Hellcat. Somewhere along the line, the team realized that the ADR wasn't enough. It was just going to be a Hellcat plus, and that wasn't exciting. The main goal was changed: 9s with light. Translated, that means a 9-second quarter mile with light under the tires (read: a wheelie). From that point forward, everything about the Demon's development, from power to suspension to weight, would be done in pursuit of that goal.

Towing with the 2016 Ram lineup [w/video]

I do not tow things. Ever. Yet I recently found myself at the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles proving grounds in Chelsea, MI, where I'd be testing the hauling capabilities of Ram's current product range. This experience was not only a perfect education for a towing novice like me, but allowed me to tow far more weight than I'd ever consider hauling the real world, and all within the safe confines of the Chelsea Proving Grounds. There was an extremely diverse array of vehicles at my disposal, including Ram's gasoline- and diesel-powered offerings with trucks ranging from the 1500 on up through the 5500 Chassis Cab, as well ProMaster vans. Beyond that, FCA brought out a number of vintage Dodge pickups for me to play with, while also working with Case IH to provide a track-loader I could test. I put together a range of videos covering everything from the classics to the production trucks to the construction equipment. And despite some technical difficulties – you'll notice a distinct lack of in-car videos, with blame going to a corrupted micro SD card – I've assembled ten videos that give an up-close look at Ram's offerings. 2015 Ram ProMaster City Let's start small. The ProMaster City only has a towing capacity of 2,000 pounds. That's a reasonably impressive figure for a van that uses the same powertrain as a Chrysler 200. The 2.4-liter four-cylinder and nine-speed automatic weren't really bothered with the extra weight added by the trailer. Even when accelerating at freeway speeds, the ProMaster City didn't feel out of breath or hampered by its load. That said, the rear of the van was unloaded, which probably wouldn't be the case for most consumers. It's unclear how the City would feel if its driver were taking advantage of the max payload (1,883 pounds) and towing. 2015 Ram ProMaster 1500 To be polite, the Ram ProMaster is a difficult vehicle to like. Its awkward seating position is bus-like and lacks the visibility enjoyed by the Ford Transit or the utter driving comfort of the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. Its 3.0-liter, four-cylinder turbodiesel engine, meanwhile, is something of an anomaly. While it's potent for a four-cylinder diesel, producing 295 pound-feet of torque and 174 horsepower, those numbers don't feel all that impressive when loaded down. The model I tested was barely using half of its 5,100-pound maximum towing weight and was loaded down with just 500 of its 3,620-pound payload. Yet it lacked the pluckiness of the smaller City.

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.