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2020 Dodge Charger Widebody First Drive Review | Wider is better

NAPA VALLEY, Calif. - The guy in the white Silverado is already pissed off. He didn’t appreciate the first two times we blazed the rear tires of this 2020 Dodge Charger Widebody Hellcat through three gears, so we might as well do it again. ThatÂ’s right, sir, we are number one. Dodge seems to be playing by a different set of rules than the rest of the industry. While everyone else is worried about small crossovers and CAFE regulations, miles per gallon and electrification, autonomy and Elon Musk, the gang at Dodge is building AmericaÂ’s best muscle cars ever. Unapologetic, loud, in your face, tire-smoking muscle cars. Hellcats, Demons, Scat Packs and Redeyes. For 2020, the brandÂ’s list of Hemi-powered, rear-wheel-drive tire fryers now includes Widebody versions of the Charger Scat Pack and Hellcat, borrowing parts and inspiration from Widebody Challenger models, which began showing up for 2018. Dodge will also offer the 2020 Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody Daytona 50th Anniversary Edition to commemorate the 1969 Charger Daytona, a NASCAR homologation special with special aerodynamics for the superspeedways, including a massive rear wing and pointed beak with pop up headlamps. 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody Daytona 50th Anniversary View 14 Photos Just 501 will be sold, the same number of Daytonas Dodge had to build back in the day to satisfy Big Bill France. ItÂ’s available in four colors, and for 2020, itÂ’s the only Charger to wear B5 Blue, which was also originally offered in 1969. ItÂ’s a favorite color of classic Mopar muscle car enthusiasts. “Customers said we were giving too much love to the Challenger and ignoring the Charger,” said Jeff Strauss, the senior manager of Dodge/SRT Sales Operations. “ThatÂ’s not the case anymore.” The Widebody Package will be optional on the Charger Scat Pack (the white car in the above photos), but itÂ’s standard equipment on every 2020 Charger Hellcat and only adds about 30 pounds to the car. Just as on the Widebody Challenger, the plastic wheelwell flares widen the sedan's 3.5 inches, and their wider 20x11-inch forged aluminum wheels wear massive 305/35ZR20 tires front and rear. All-seasons are standard, but the cars are best on the available Pirelli Summer tires. There are also new front and rear fascias, rocker trim and a reshaped rear spoiler.  “My main goal was to make the cars look bad ass,” said Mark Trostle, FCAÂ’s head of performance, passenger and utility vehicle design.

CEO Sergio Marchionne curses FCA spokesman for emissions cheating denial

WASHINGTON — Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne reprimanded the company's top U.S. spokesman for issuing press releases about Fiat's vehicle emissions practices days after Volkswagen's disclosure in September 2015 that the German automaker had used illegal software to evade emissions tests, documents released Monday show. Lawyers suing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a securities case filed excerpts of an email from Marchionne to Gualberto Ranieri, then the company's U.S. spokesman, in a filing in federal court in New York criticizing him for saying that the company does not use defeat devices. "Are you out of your goddam mind?" Marchionne wrote in an email on Sept. 22, 2015, adding that Ranieri should be fired and calling his actions "utterly stupid and unconscionable." The company said in a statement on Monday it was "understandable that our CEO would have a forceful response to any employee who would opine on such a significant and complex matter, without the matter having been fully reviewed through its appropriate channels." The statement added that Ranieri's comments came just days after VW's emissions issue became public "and before a comprehensive internal review and discussions with component suppliers was possible." Fiat Chrysler was sued in 2015 along with Marchionne and other executives over claims it defrauded shareholders by overstating its ability to comply with vehicle safety laws. An amended version of the complaint filed in 2017 added claims about its compliance with emissions laws. The shareholders accused the defendants of inflating Fiat Chrysler's share price by hundreds of millions of dollars from October 2014 to October 2015 by downplaying safety concerns. They said the shortcomings materialized in 2015 when the automaker was fined $175 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and took a roughly $670 million charge for recalls. Plaintiffs filed the excerpts seeking approval to take up to 40 additional depositions, including Marchionne's. The U.S. Justice Department sued Fiat Chrysler in May 2017, accusing it of illegally using software to bypass emission controls in 104,000 diesel vehicles sold since 2014. Fiat Chrysler has held numerous rounds of settlement talks with the Justice Department and California Air Resources Board to settle the civil suit, including talks as recently as earlier this month. It faces a separate criminal probe into the matter.

FCA seeks partner to keep building Dodge Dart, Chrysler 200

Mere weeks after FCA announced it was shutting down production of the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200, new hope emerges to give the sedans a stay of execution. Speaking at the Geneva Motor Show last week, Sergio Marchionne said that the company was looking for a partner "who is better at it than we are and who has got capacity available" in order to continue building the models on its behalf. "There are discussions going on now," said Marchionne, according to Motor Trend. "I think we will find a solution. We continue to talk. It's both a technical solution and an economic one. We need to find a solution that works economically." Contracting vehicles to be manufactured offsite is more common practice among European automakers than it is with American ones. Chrysler's former patron Mercedes, for example, has the G-Class built for it by Magna Steyr in Austria, the A-Class by Valmet in Finland, and the R-Class by AM General in Indiana (even though it's no longer sold in the US). This arrangement would, on the surface at least, appear more similar to the deal that Toyota struck with Mazda to build the Scion iA, drawing on the contractor's expertise and capacity to build the small sedan on the client company's behalf. Only rather than basing a new model on one of the partner's existing ones, this deal would ostensibly continue building FCA models on FCA platforms using FCA components. We'll have to wait to find out with whom FCA strikes up the manufacturing deal, but we wouldn't be surprised to see Marchionne turn to a partner he already knows. The company is, after all, at the center of an intricate web of joint ventures and manufacturing contracts. The Fiat 124 Spider, for example, is built by Mazda. The Fiat Sedici that preceded the 500X was built by Suzuki. Models like the Dodge Stealth and Eagle Talon were built in Illinois at the Diamond-Star Motors joint venture before Mitsubishi took it over altogether. And Dodge continued selling the Mercedes-made Sprinter long after DaimlerChrysler split. The Ram ProMaster, though built by FCA in Mexico for the North American market, stems from a partnership in France with PSA Peugeot Citroen. And the ProMaster City is built in a joint-venture plant in Turkey, from which it's also sold by GM as an Opel in Europe and a Vauxhall in the UK. With all those deals coming and going, after all, what would one more add to the complexity?