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1968 Dodge Super Charger is a super Charger with a supercharger

Mopar's latest custom creation is sure to be in the running for coolest car at this year's SEMA show. It's a 1968 Dodge Charger, a car selected in part because this year marks the car's 50th anniversary, but taken to the extreme and renamed Super Charger. The headliner of the car's radical upgrades is the new "Hellephant" engine. It's a take on the original car's 426-cubic-inch Hemi V8. But this new engine, with the same displacement, is based on the current Hemi V8, and adds a supercharger. All told, it makes a whopping 1,000 horsepower and 950 pound-feet of torque on 93 octane pump gas. It will be available as a crate engine, too. The engine is far from the only impressive change to the car. All over the body are mild to wild tweaks. The wide, uninterrupted grille from the original is still here, but it's a one-piece example now. And instead of hiding the headlights behind doors that have to open for illumination, the lights simply shine through the grille, retaining a clean look even at night. The whole car sits 2.5 inches lower than stock, and it's now four inches wider thanks to the huge fender flares. They house 305-mm-wide tires up front, and 315-mm tires in the rear. Likely the most complicated change to the car is the lengthened wheelbase. There are two more inches between the wheels now, something Mopar did to reduce the front overhang. A close second in complexity are the taillights. They're the same shape as the originals, but now the round elements are actually exhaust outlets. The tips also happen to be the same as those on the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. There are other details that help bring together the exterior. The rain rails have been smoothed out on the roof, the vent windows removed, special 426 stickers have been added, and the fuel door now has a Hellephant badge with a blue background with lots of little Mopar Ms. The interior gets some attention, too. The rear seat has been removed, Dodge Demon style. It gets a custom roll bar designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, even getting the hoop around the seats to roughly line up with where the windows meet. Gauges come from the Mopar catalog, and the steering wheel and seats are from the dearly departed Dodge Viper. They're particularly relevant, as the six-speed manual transmission comes from the Viper, too. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Dodge PHEV due in 2022 expected to be the Hornet

A relatively new saga involving hornets in the Pacific Northwest begins with the adjective "murder" and gets worse from there. A relatively dated saga involving hornets in the automotive industry begins with the name "Dodge" and is — or could be — much friendlier to plant and animal life. Last year, former Dodge parent company Fiat Chrysler trademarked the term "Dodge Hornet" for the first time. Two months ago, an Italian publication credited its sources with news that current parent company Stellantis will create a Dodge version of the Alfa Romeo Tonale (pictured) and call it the Hornet. Now, Mopar Insiders picked up on Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares sharing a roadmap of the 20 PHEV and battery-electric vehicles coming our way in the next two years between the company's 14 brands. Dodge merits a single PHEV entry in the 2022 column. MI says this will be the Hornet.      As FCA recast its U.S. lineups to give Dodge more focus and give Chrysler a reason to exist, Dodge lost the Caliber, Nitro, and Journey. The way this new report is put, and as we mused a year ago, the coming Hornet will replace the Journey — a space Dodge could do well to return to. Never given much love by the parent company, the Journey turned into a hoary old thing over its 13 years on the market, but sold in remarkable numbers to the end. According to Car Sales Base, sales increased nearly every year for the first nine years of the Journey's life. Even during the sales decline over the last four years of its production life, the Journey found 298,594 homes in the U.S. More than 12,000 zombie units have been moved off lots this year. A Dodge Hornet likely wouldn't offer the Wal-Mart rollback pricing the Journey was known for. Also, the Hornet would pack in just two rows, whereas the Journey offered three. Nevertheless, we're now talking about three vehicles sharing major internal organs; the Alfa Romeo Tonale leans heavily on the Jeep Compass platform and internals, and the Dodge is expected to be built at the same Naples, Italy plant as the Alfa Romeo. The economies of scale are there. As for powertrain, we know there's a Tonale PHEV coming, but it's thought to get its plug-in system from the Jeep Renegade 4xe that's based around the smaller 1.3-liter four-cylinder with either 190 or 240 total horsepower instead of the larger 2.0-liter engine in the Wrangler 4xe.

Dodge Vipers selling for $480k in China

Want to get your hands on a new Dodge Viper? Be prepared to pay dearly. It starts at nearly $90k here in the US, but that's nothing compared to what you'd have to pay for one if you lived in, say, China. CarsNewsChina.com reports on one Viper available in Beijing for an eye-watering 298 million yuan – equivalent to about $480,000 at today's exchange rates and representing more than a 500-percent markup. Part of that premium comes down to the Chinese tax code that charges a reported 60 percent for anything with an engine displacing over four liters. And the Viper's, we needn't remind you, is more than twice that. It naturally costs some to import a car to China as well, but most of the rest is pure profit. The Beijing dealership reportedly gets the cars from dealers in California, has already sold three and plans to import several more. The dealer can also get you (or wealthy Chinese individuals) a Corvette Stingray for a comparatively cheap 1.73 million yuan (or $280k). Related Video: