It was a sad day when Stellantis killed the Charger, Challenger, and Chrysler 300. Not only that, Mopar muscle guru Tim Kuniskis took a hike as well. To make matters worse, the HEMI was put on death row. The old Brampton, Ontario plant has long been retooled to build Jeeps and the glory days of Mopar Muscle 2.0 are now in the history books.
Stellantis has released a teaser photo that looks to us like the front end of a 1967 Plymouth Satellite. Aside from a peek at the car’s nose, details about the build are sparse.
Don’t worry, Stellantis execs promised, “We have a new architecture that will accommodate electric and ICE powerplants. Our new Charger will make you forget all about the (admittedly) ancient LX body spin-offs.”
Instead of a HEMI, they extolled the virtues of the new inline, twin-turbo six-cylinder mill called the Hurricane. Sure, 550 hp isn’t chopped liver, but it’s just not the same as a HEMI.
What was once a sad ending for muscle car fans, is now a full-blown crisis at Stellantis. Sales are down 20 percent, with more to go. It’s so bad that the Stellantis board has publicly announced they would not renew CEO Carlos Tevaras’ contract which expires next year.
Killing modern Mopar muscle cars might go down in history as one of the worst decisions ever made by an OEM automaker. The Challenger, Charger, and 300 were cash cows for the company and were the goose that laid the golden eggs for Dodge and Chrysler. These cars were the only good thing that came from the Daimler Chrysler hook-up in 1998.
The tooling for the heavily revised Mercedes 300E platform was amortized long ago and each car sold had a $10K of profit built in. Today, sales at Dodge are in the toilet with the Durango and a rebadged Alfa Romeo “Hornet” as the only models left in the Fratzog family. How the hell did that happen?
Sure, the Charger EV will debut soon and an ICE-powered four-door model will follow in 2025, but how do they stop the bleeding until then? Answer? Rev up Mopar’s parts business and let folks know that you can still buy Pentastar gear to build your next project. What better way to do that than to showcase a factory restomod at SEMA 2024?
The concept is still under wraps, but a keen eye will spot a plug under a gas cap in the video, so that’s a giveaway there. We were hoping for a testbed for the new inline-six HurriCrate engine, with up to 1,000 horsepower. Who knows, it might even be the debut of a one-stop EV crate engine retrofit, like we’ve seen from Ford or Chevrolet.
That will be great news for EV fans, or the end of the world for diehard Mopar fans. Either way, look for this 1967 Satellite from Stellantis at SEMA 2024.
Photography – Stellantis
