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It’s Dodge Velocity Week, and the corporate is saying plans for its current and future muscle automobile enterprise. Over the subsequent few years, Dodge goes electrical, however it’s additionally making strikes to maintain the internal-combustion torch lit amongst lovers.
Monday’s bulletins centered on the aftermarket: a Dodge Challenger physique for eight grand (in case you ball up the one in your drag automobile), a drag-ready rolling chassis, and a few carbon fiber bits to your new Challenger by SpeedKore, identified for its carbon fiber-rich customized automobile builds.
However I used to be in any other case occupied by the imprecise define of a basic automobile beneath a sheet.
In some unspecified time in the future within the speech by Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis, the sheet got here off, revealing a shocking carbon-fiber automobile physique. Simply the physique, on a body, with wheels. That’s it.
It was the physique of a 1970 Dodge Charger licensed to be offered by means of Direct Connection, the corporate’s efficiency components division that is returning after a three-decade absence. Sure.
You’ll be capable to purchase a pre-made carbon-fiber physique in one of many world’s most excellent automobile designs (aerodynamics not included) and put it on no matter you need.
Presumably, you’ll need it on some kind of restomod, or a basic automobile up to date to carry out like a contemporary one.
Carbon fiber builds have been large among the many restomod crowd for a number of years.
They’re principally large ticket, one-off exotics that appear to be they rolled off the road 50-something years in the past. Think about a Nineteen Sixties TV with trendy internals by Samsung, and a case that’s carbon fiber as an alternative of Bakelite.
I don’t know why you’d want that second analogy to image it, however hey, I’m not inside your head.
I’m fairly certain it began a number of years in the past with the carbon-fiber-body Mustang GT500CR by Traditional Recreations. Now, it’s the new setup for those who’re purchasing for slightly one thing within the $300,000 to $500,000-and-up vary. Yeah, I do know that’s loads, however $500,000 is the brand new $150,000, or so I’m informed.
Direct Connection additionally plans to supply our bodies like this for the basic Plymouth Barracuda and Highway Runner by means of Finale Velocity.
Beginning with the Charger makes excellent sense, although. It’s a multigenerational icon that starred in each Bullitt and the Quick and the Livid franchise. It’s additionally, traditionally talking, peak muscle automobile.
Nothing earlier than or after it had the identical mixture of readability, panache, and uncooked emotion. OK, possibly the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Primary Avenue. However not many different issues.
Dodge’s carbon-fiber provider SpeedKore has created a number of high-profile Dodge Charger builds. Vin Diesel’s 1,650-horsepower, 9.0-liter Mercury Marine-powered 1970 Dodge Charger ”Tantrum” involves thoughts. SpeedKore additionally did the “Hellacious” mid-engine 1968 Charger from F9: The Quick Saga.
Each are a bit a lot for my minimalist style, which you would possibly describe as Presbyterian-modern.
Give me the Chevy Nova your grandfather demanded the dealership order from the manufacturing facility, as a result of there wasn’t a single three-on-the-tree allocation available in the whole Northeast, and I’d be comfortable.
Effectively, kind of comfortable, as a result of I’d additionally desire a carbon-fiber physique with that.
Final evening, Dodge, though in all probability not desiring to, gave me an concept. The construct I might go for, if I have been within the Vin Diesel enterprise, was on show.
What I would like is a carbon-fiber bodied 1970 Dodge Charger with poverty wheels and “Fratzog”-logoed, redlined, canine dish hubcaps. Fratzog, for those who have been questioning, is that three-cornered Dodge brand from the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s. It’s a type of space-age designs that transports you to a different period.
Dodge is bringing it again, and it’ll be included into its subsequent era of battery-electric autos. I simply assume it suits the vibe.
For the inside, I desire a bench seat and a type of lengthy speedometers that take up half the sprint. In fact, I additionally need it to have a full unbiased suspension, multilink please, and all the opposite mod cons that signify the restomod scene. Sure, I would like my grandfather-spec automobile to drive like a BMW M5 Competitors. What am I, some type of farm animal?
Proper. I desire a $500,000 automobile that appears like a $3,500 automobile (in 1970 {dollars}). Is that an excessive amount of to ask? Sure, I suppose, on this case, it’s. Nonetheless, kudos to Dodge for giving me choices, and for persevering with to feed the dream.