We love us some muscle cars, there can be no doubt about that. But sometimes life gets in the way of daily driving a 1970 Plymouth HEMI ‘Cuda to work everyday. If you’’ve got a big family, you’ll find that as big as muscle cars are, it can be a tight squeeze to fit four kids and a wife into that HEMI ‘Cuda. That is why so many Americans have SUVs, and Dodge is looking to give car buyers a new option with the 2014 Dodge Durango. And yes, it has a HEMI. 

The new Durango broke cover this morning at the New York International Auto Show, and Dodge engineers have been hard at work making it the best they could. The Durango has always been a bold, strong-looking vehicle, and it got even stronger for the 2014 model year. You can almost see muscle flexing beneath the skin of this new SUV, and the designers included plenty of features to evoke that muscle truck feel.

The most obvious nod to Dodge’s muscle car past are the LED taillights that resemble those found on the Dodge Charger and Challenger. The corporate crosshairs grille is also on board for the ride, and Dodge will offer customers the option of seven different wheel combinations across five different models, starting with the base SXT, the Rallye, the new Limited, the Citiadel, and range-topping R/T model.

The base engine, as you might have guessed, will be the 3.6 liter Pentastar V6 with 295 horsepower on tap, giving the 2014 Durango a 6,400 lb. towing capacity. While Dodge didn’t discuss fuel economy specifics, they did say that a 10% improvement over the 2013 model is expected, which should give the new Durango at least 21 mpg on the highway.

Much of that improvement comes from the eight-speed automatic transmission, which is standard on both the V6 and the 5.7 liter HEMI V8. The HEMI engine is available on the Citadel and R/T model with 360 horsepower and 390 ft-lbs of torque.. With a monochromatic paint scheme, available Napa leather seating, and a host of new technologies including dual Blu-Ray DVD screens, a 7.1 inch LCD gauge cluster and 8.4 inch UConnect touchscreen, the new Durango is the kind of SUV any muscle car driver could love.

And while there are no plans for an SRT8 model right now, we can’t help but imagine how badass a lowered and blacked-out Durango SRT8 would be. With a 470 horsepower 6.4 liter HEMI V8, about the only thing a Durango couldn’t pass on the road is a gas station.