1977 Dodge W200 Power Wagon 4x4 on 2040-cars

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Junkyard Gem: 1991 Dodge Monaco LE

When Chrysler took over the American Motors Corporation in 1987, the hot-selling Jeep brand was the big prize of that deal. At a stroke, Iacocca's company got the XJ Cherokee (which remained in production into our current century) plus its Comanche pickup sibling, the Wrangler, the Grand Wagoneer, and the AMC Eagle as bonuses. The Eagle gave its name to Chrysler's new marque, which worked out well for quite a few years, and of course the PowerTech V8 engine began life as an AMC design. Yes, Chrysler made out like a bandit on the AMC purchase, but one of the most important acquisitions that came with that coup ended up being a Renault design from the last gasp of Kenosha: the Eagle Premier. Genetic material from this car made its way into Chrysler products for decades to come, and the Dodge Division got the opportunity to slap Monaco badges on the Premier for the 1990 through 1992 model years. Here's one of those super-rare cars in a Denver self-service yard. Dodge sold plenty of Detroit-designed Monacos from the 1965 through 1978 model years, and so the name seemed ripe for a revival in 1990. We rated the 1974 Dodge Monaco "Bluesmobile" #3 on the Best Movie Cars of All Time list, and Monacos may be found in countless cop movies and TV shows over the decades. Did the name belong on a Renault design? Absolutely! The radical-looking and big-selling Chrysler LH cars were built on a modified Eagle Premier chassis, enabling Chrysler to print money from a 1980s Renault design all the way through 2004. After that, Mercedes-Benz engineering (with a dash of Mitsubishi thrown in for good measure) got stirred into the mix, but I'm told by a Chrysler engineer that you can still see the Renault 25 structure beneath the dashboard in modern Challengers and Chargers. All of this comes thanks to Lee Iacocca's score of that advanced European car way back in 1987. One thing from the Premier that Chrysler dropped like a monkey dropping a red-hot penny once production of the Premier/Monaco ended: the PRV V6, a sophisticated-but-flaky overhead-cam V6 originally developed by a partnership between Peugeot, Renault, and Volvo (hence the acronym). This engine achieved its greatest fame as the powerplant that went into the DeLorean DMC-12. You could get the chugging AMC 2.5-liter straight-four in the Eagle Premier, but all the 1990-1992 Monacos got the 3.0-liter PRV, rated at 150 horsepower.

2019 Dodge Charger SRT revealed in spy shots before reveal

Last month, Dodge teased the updated 2019 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat and its new grille with air intakes. Now we get to see it before its full debut thanks to these spy shots. We can see that the grille is one of the few things that has changed for the 2019 model year. It also appears to have a new hood that has extractor vents farther back than on the current model. We can also see that this new grille is on an SRT 392 Scat Pack model, not the Hellcat teased a month ago. This seems to imply the grille will be applied to all Charger SRT models, or at least offered as an option. Aside from the grille and the hood, the rest of this new Charger looks like the outgoing version. The bumpers, spoiler, side skirts and lights all seem to be carryover. As such, we're not expecting anything else to change radically under the hood or chassis. There's a possibility one or two engines pick up a few horsepower, but we don't expect much more than that. If anything else changes to the 2019 Charger, it will probably consist of colors, options and maybe even another trim level. We'll know more about it when it makes its official debut this summer. An updated version of the Challenger will be revealed at the same time. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Featured Gallery 2019 Dodge Charger SRT Scat Pack View 9 Photos Image Credit: SpiedBilde Spy Photos Dodge Performance Sedan dodge charger srt hellcat scat pack

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.