- Aww, I wanted a Busch Light for this video.
That is sad.
All-righty then, let's stretch out.
Bria stop staring at me, I'm trying to film.
I'mma need you to go back in there with Steve,
you're gonna watch a wheel
turn around in circles twenty times, okay?
You're not gonna come out here ever again.
Don't talk to me or my son or my son ever again.
- [Man] The wheel only makes half turns.
- Oh, half turns.
Get your 40 year old looking (beep) in that room,
so help me God.
America, freedom, horsepower, Chrysler, Dodge, Neon.
What?
What is going on boys and girls,
it's Alex from Fitment Industries and on
this episode of So You Want
we're taking you back to an improper domestic
on this 4th of July special.
The bubbly eyed, angry sounding, weird concoction of power,
the one, the only, Dodge Neon SRT-4.
(patriotic music)
(engine revs)
(car backfires)
(engine revs)
Don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell button
so we can make more videos like this
and let's get into this patriotic episode
which probably is leaving a lot of you
just a wee bit, just a wee bit confused.
So if you are confused, I know,
the SRT4, patriotic?
What about the Camaro episode,
what about the Corvette?
Maybe the old Chevys and the old Fords
need a little bit of love.
Well, boys when you're ready for a twenty minute episode
for those models you just
let us know in the comments section
because it seems like (beep) domestic cars
are running 27 generations over 50 years
there's too much knowledge for one day.
It's just too much.
The Dodge Neon SRT4 is a front wheel drive
sport compact vehicle made between
the lovely years of 2003 to 2005.
So not just the Neon but the SRT4, okay?
Back when Apple launched iTunes, J.K. Rowling
was still writing good books, and Finding Nemo was released
which I'm still pretty sure that I'm scarred
from the beginning of Finding Nemo,
it made me very sad when I was young
I think I cried every time.
I stopped crying once I got older,
but it still hits a little bit of a soft spot.
In the foggy night, a man by the name of Tom Gale
wanted to create a performance tuner
for the younger folk.
Something about his Dodge Viper not really being
an 18 year old's most available choice
kind of coming of the gate,
and in all honesty he was just like
"You know, I wanna do somethin' fun and young
"and hip, and nimble, and different,
"and I wanna compete with those tuner boys across the way."
And so he did.
And he didn't wait.
He pulled together as much talent as he possibly could,
in a few short months, which was actually four months,
he was able to introduce a prototype performance
vehicle based on the existing Dodge Neon platform.
Because Dodge don't wait for no one.
If you know anything about Dodge,
they are their own breed of things.
The Hellcat, the Trailhawk, Demon, they have this like
red eye now, or something like that.
Pink eye, maybe, I don't know.
There's some new trim model,
and that one's insane, too.
It's just like what Dodge does.
So, overall it was a success.
Until it wasn't.
Because even with the 2,000 miles of drive time
and a viable production car,
the executive committee was like,
"Nah bud."
So Gale and the team went back at it,
fixing every major issue presented to them,
and then came back because they just didn't wanna give up,
and in fact, they had like a year and a half to
pretty much come up with a fully production car
of the SRT variant.
He was like, "well, how 'bout now, buds?"
And they said, "well sure there, guy, now that you
"did the thing, we can definitely
"take her around the track."
From 2001-2003, the team would work towards
turning the SRT-4 from just an idea to a
fully fledged vehicle that could be actually produced.
They stole parts from the PT Cruiser,
a transmission from the European turbo diesel minivans,
and an auto meter gauge from Auto Zone,
and tires from Michelin to come up with this thing.
This not-Neon Neon.
In all technical aspects, the SRT-4 was quite a monster.
It came out bangin' in the market
and was the second fastest stock production car
in the Chrysler-Dodge lineup.
Second to the good old Snake.
To put the icing on the cake,
Dodge managed to keep almost 85% of the car
made in the U.S., which just propelled the car forward
in the U.S. market.
Pretty much, they had all the cheat codes,
and they were just gunning towards JDM brand
as much as humanly possible,
because the Dodge Neon SRT-4 was going to
take on the import tuning culture in the early 2000s,
which was quite large.
Once it launched, it saw nearly 10 times
the anticipated sales, and only died to make way
for the Dodge Caliber SRT-4.
Which, if I'm gonna be honest, I probably would've
preferred just a few more years of the good old Dodge Neon,
'cause it was only there for a couple years.
The SRT-4 came in full swing for the aftermarket
community, which because it was a modifiable domestic
that had a turbo, what the hell is this?
This was before the days of the Focus SD,
and more achievable than the Type-Rs, and it could
hang out with the cool kids in the V8 category
for the most part, the unfortunate thing was for
a lot of people, it was still a Neon.
Like, it was a weird guy.
Even though automotive enthusiasts were initially floored,
everyone really wanted one,
and they were quite literally all the rage,
over a couple years it died off just as fast as the initial
great reception was kind of coming behind the brand.
It did a weird thing, where after a few years
people began to turn on the vehicle,
and now the SRT-4 isn't touted as much
as it probably could be or should be.
So you want a Neon SRT-4?
Well grab a Busch Light and sit down
as we chit chat about the stepbrother of a domestic tuner.
The SRT-4 is known for about three things.
Its exhaust note, its Neon-esque styling,
and its modification capabilities.
Now, starting off, the exhaust note is just dreamy.
Just angelic.
Beautiful.
Not entirely sure why or how Skittles sound
the way that they do, but it's definitely
probably one of the strongest selling points of the car.
It just consistently sounds pissed off and/or angry.
(car engine revs)
(car backfires)
(car engine revs)
Or it might just be about to blow up.
Pair that with some exhaust modifications,
open up the intake and an inner cooler,
and each pull sounds like
an angry rainbow vacuum on steroids.
It's actually pretty killer.
And if you love rainbow vacuums,
and you love SRT-4s, you're gonna love this combination.
The interior, on the other hand,
is less than to be desired for most.
Which is why you'll see plenty of them with
swapped steering wheels, race seats, deleted rear seats,
and not much of anything when it comes to comfort,
because it was still, unfortunately, a Neon.
The interior still didn't really have the stuff
that a lot of other competitive brands did.
And in terms of creature comforts,
the Neon was still a little bit on the back end for that.
I mean, they still had the cranky windows
in the back to save costs.
Tunes and mods for your car, though,
are actually pretty well versatile.
They're not too expensive, and they're not too cheap.
You'll see people mostly doing
show stuff to these cars, though,
as their heyday of being on the drag strip
or auto cross track aren't necessarily their home.
There's a couple people out there that try
to make them the drag day demons that they want them to be,
and they are pretty cool,
but unfortunately they're just not too common.
Angry headlight covers and everything from
NKs to Works will pretty much litter on all of these cars.
Throw on an inner cooler, bigger turbo, and wider tires,
and you'll be smiling ear to ear when the front end
starts to do a little bit of torque steer.
But just like Limp Bizkit's outfits,
they car didn't age very well.
Third years have a tendency to go out,
axle shafts can only handle about 400 horsepower,
and so if you're at the 500 horsepower on stock axles,
you're gonna have a bad time.
The car was prone to rusting quite a bit,
and they whole thing would just kinda feel like
it'd shake apart the moment you actually gave it
just a little bit more power than anything that was stock.
And that's pretty much every car though, I suppose.
The SRT-4 is quite the platform,
with most of its value being in the driving experience
and the exhaust note.
They are a car that performs fairly well
within the right hands, and is pretty decent
bang for your buck car, as long as you can get
past some of the interior plastics and creature comforts,
and the fact that it's front wheel drive transmission,
and the million of automotive enthusiasts
telling everybody that SRT-4s are still just a Neon.
In fact, SRT-4s are actually pretty fun.
And if you really think about it,
coming down to picking one up
and having some fun on a summer day,
it's a pretty good car to do it with.
So you want an SRT-4?
Well, you're gonna have a pretty good time.
All your neighbors are also going to probably hate you.
You're gonna wanna get all the aftermarket
modifications for the interior of your car done first,
then you're gonna wanna go into the wheels, tires,
suspension, at fitmentindustries.com because it's your boys.
You know what I'm sayin'?
Thanks for watchin', and don't forget to subscribe.
Drop a comment on what brand you'd like to see us
talk about next.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries,
and if you haven't subscribed just please.
I say it like every time.
It is our livelihood.
We will see you later.
Peace.
(slow hip hop music)