Slt Flexfuel Mp3 Sirius Xm Bed Liner Alloy Wheels Cruise on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Highway To Hellcat: Dallas to Vegas with 2,000 HP

Fort Davis, TX. Early November. Late Sunday afternoon. The 1,200 residents of this small town are using their day of rest to quietly enjoy the breeze rolling off the hills. There's an older couple walking down the street, holding hands. A young lady working at a general store, where milkshakes and antacids are purchased at the same counter. It's a peaceful, quaint scene, right down to the tumbleweed rolling across the street and the rickety wooden porches outside the old storefronts. I hit the throttle of the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat while turning left onto the road leading toward the town square, sending the sedan's rear end swinging to the right with a few puffs of rubbery smoke. I coast down to the 25-mile-per-hour speed limit and spot the line of Challengers, Chargers, and Vipers in my rear-view mirror, the drivers all mimicking my quick jolt of enthusiasm before pulling up the reigns on their V8s and V10s and idling into Fort Davis. Our posse would roll some 5,000 horsepower of pure American muscle into that small Texas town that day. It was only the first stop on an epic journey that would take us from Dallas to Las Vegas, on a winding route down toward El Paso, up through New Mexico, Arizona, and finally north into Nevada, ending at the ritzy Palazzo casino and hotel on the Vegas strip. It was an opportunity to see parts of America I never knew existed, and a chance to bond with some American cars that until recently, I sort of failed to understand. And most importantly it was an opportunity to drive really, really hard. Charging Through Texas Unless you've driven across it, it's hard to understand the massive space that is Texas. In places, scanning 360 degrees of horizon reveals absolutely nothing. Nothing. On its own, driving from Dallas to El Paso covers some 630 miles. Veer south to Fort Davis and you'll add another 70 onto that, not including the 75-mile Davis Mountain Scenic Loop where I found bliss behind the wheel of this insanely powerful sedan. I always expected to like the Charger Hellcat – comfortable seating for four (five in a pinch), equipped with the latest tech, wrapped in a stylish yet muscular body, like a quarterback in a tux. And it moves. The supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat V8 pumps out 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, which makes for one quick sedan, especially considering its heft.

FCA inline-six rumored to be real, headed for Jeep Wagoneer

In September, Allpar reported that that clues being dropped at Fiat- Chrysler headquarters, in the carmaker's factories, and on engineer resumes pointed to the development of an inline six-cylinder engine. The site has just proclaimed the rumor is reality, writing that the straight-six, "turbocharged to meet or beat 5.7 Hemi power ratings, with a smoother torque curve, is on the way." The motor's first outing is expected to be either the next-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee, debuting perhaps next year, or the Jeep Wagoneer, debuting in 2020 or 2021. "Tornado" is the purported codename for the power plant said to be just under three liters in displacement, expanding the family begun with the Global Medium Engine 2.0-liter turbo codenamed Hurricane. Engine bay constraints and a long use horizon mean engineers won't simply add two more cylinders to the GME, however. Allpar says the brief is to keep the Tornado GME-T6 — the alphanumeric for "turbocharged six" — no more than three inches longer than the Tigershark 2.4-liter four-cylinder. That means "major design changes" that could include a space-saving head, more closely spaced cylinders, and no cylinder liners. An FCA division called Comau could be called on for its "SmartSpray" plasma lining technology. Allpar muses that the standard version of the engine for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram could get a single twin-scroll turbocharger. Performance trims for Alfa Romeo and Maserati could get different heads and maybe twin turbos, an SRT version might also get both those tweaks. History shows that the Italian versions would make changes to the block, as well. Even so, the Tornado would be less expensive than any Ferrari-supplied V6. A straight-six would put FCA in company with current adopters BMW and Mercedes-Benz, future users like Jaguar, and perhaps Aston Martin. The engine would span the widest range of use cases in the U.S. carmaker's portfolio, though. Potential applications include being a base engine for Ram trucks, serving double duty as a base engine and 5.7-liter Hemi replacement for the Dodge Charger and Challenger, working in the high-end Jeeps, and as a properly hot trim — with Ferrari-designed heads — in the luxury Italian sports cars. The Alfa Romeo Giulia begs for just such motivation to fill the gap between the 280-hp, $42,695 Ti Sport RWD and the 505-hp, $73,700 Giulia Quadrifoglio RWD. And a twin-turbo inline-six in a Maserati Alfieri would stack up nicely with the Germans.

Dodge Dart Mopar '13 special edition recalled over airbag woes

Dodge is only building 500 examples of the black-and-blue Mopar '13 Dart, but the majority of them are now being recalled. Part of the Mopar upgrade included replacing the stock seat skins in the Dart with black and blue Katzkin leather, but the seat-mounted side airbags were reinstalled improperly during the upfitting process, which could affect the performance of the front seat side airbags.
According to the official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration bulletin, a total of 374 Mopar '13 cars are being recalled due to side airbags that might not deploy in a side-impact collision. There have been no reports of the airbags not going off, but Chrysler will still need to reinstall the bags to ensure proper deployment. The recall notice is posted below, which gives information for Mopar '13 owners to contact Chrysler and NHTSA.