- I've got bad news for fans of Dodge V8 muscle cars.
You see, the V8 is going away, and it's being replaced
across the board by electric systems.
But at Dodge, that's not necessarily gonna be a bad thing
because Dodge isn't gonna create a boring electric car.
Check this out.
This is the new Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept.
And it's supposedly a look
into what is coming to replace the Charger
and the Challenger, maybe about two years from now or so.
And there's three things
about this electric concept
that really make it interesting.
Three patented ideas that you're not gonna find
on any other electric car, and they have to do with
how it goes, how it looks and how it sounds.
When we talk about how the Charger Daytona SRT Concept goes,
well, we don't really have a lot of the details
about what is under the hood.
We don't know what powers it,
we don't know necessarily how big the battery is.
Dodge says that it's gonna have a 400 volt
and 800 volt system when it comes into production.
But the more interesting part
about the concept is it has an actual transmission.
They're calling it the eRupt transmission.
It's a multi-speed geared transmission.
And when we asked them
why would they put a transmission in an electric car
which typically doesn't have one,
we asked is it good for efficiency?
Is it good for speed?
And they said, "No, it's just badass."
Let's talk about how this thing looks.
Obviously there's a lot of homage
in the design to the 1968 Dodge Charger.
You can see it in the overall profile of the vehicle,
the flat front end, these high fenders,
the belt line that goes very horizontally along the car.
You've got these long flying buttresses in the rear.
And it comes back to this really squared off rear end.
Now this is a two-door Charger, and that's not lost on us,
they took a lot of flack
when they named the four-door a Charger
back when they replaced the Dodge Intrepid.
So does that mean
there's gonna be a two-door charger coming back?
We don't know yet, but the more interesting part
about the design of this car is this, this is the R Wing.
What this is, is an aerodynamic aid
that allows air to come through the grill and over the hood.
The hood is actually a lot lower
than it looks like from the side profile.
And you can do that when there's no big stonkin' V8
under the hood.
One of the coolest aspects of the new Charger Concept
is inside.
Yeah, this is a concept car,
so everything in there is kind of ticking
with a grain of salt.
Much of it really doesn't work because it is a concept car,
but look at the design, look at the shapes of everything
in here.
This is the future of what the Dodge brand
is going to look like.
And really, the best way to describe this is wicked.
When we saw the concept design boards
for how they were creating this interior, one of the most
prominent figures they had out there
was the movie character, John wick.
And I think you could pretty much see
from the red and black interior, from all the carbon fiber,
from all the leather and all the colored stitching,
that, that idea carries over pretty well.
But the most extraordinary thing about this concept car
is the way it sounds.
that is the Fratzonic chambered exhaust.
Yep, it's an electric car that has exhaust pipes,
specifically so that it sounds like
a great big V8 muscle car,
but with kind of a "Tron" aspect to it as well.
Now, what does it sound like?
It sounds like this.
(car revving)
That's ridiculous, and I love it.
Well, I don't know about you, but if this is indicative
of what is going to be replacing
the big fuel sucking V8 engines in Dodge's lineup,
I'm actually feeling a lot better
about Dodge's electrification strategy
than I was before I saw this thing.
Now, we don't know exactly how much
of this Dodge Charger Daytona Concept is going to translate
into something that you're going to be able to buy
in about two years time.
But frankly, they tell us
that this is not a science project.
This is really close
to what you are going to see coming out of Dodge factories.
Now, you know, I thought I wanted a new Corvette
for my 50th birthday in a couple years,
but if this is what they're gonna be making instead,
I might have to reevaluate where I put my down payment.
If you'd like to learn more
about the new Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept,
or any of the new Dodge products
you can look everything up on cars.com.