2013 Dodge Avenger R/t on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Dodge, Hyundai crowdsourced-funding sites deemed successes

What's not to love about crowdsourcing? This idea, after all, has given us Kickstarter as well Local Motors, but automakers are starting to use the social platform to sell more cars (or just drum up a little PR). Both Dodge and Hyundai have used "crowd-funding" recently, and while Automotive News is reporting that neither has racked up big sales with this gimmick, both automakers are pleased with the attention.
For Hyundai, it teamed up with website Motozuma.com to help customers crowdsource money for a down payment, and the automaker matched this amount up to $500. Last year, this helped Hyundai sell an extra 1,600 units, a fraction of its total 2012 sales. That figure is far larger than Dodge fared with the Dodge Dart Registry - it netted only two sales and a small number of individual options. This registry did help University of Southern California fraternity crowdsource $18,000 to buy a Dart for a local Meals on Wheels, however. Despite the low sales figures, Dodge and Hyundai are considering their crowdsourcing programs a success since it helped them connect with younger buyers.

2013 Dodge Charger SRT8 Super Bee

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I fell in love with this car. It was starting down a nearly straight entrance ramp at 15 miles per hour when I buried the throttle. In a moment, I was thrown back into my seat as the big SRT8's engine came to life with commensurate sound, fury and force, bringing me up to 75 mph in what felt like two blinks of an eye. This thing feels so much quicker than its 470 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque would lead you to believe. And mashing the right pedal never, ever gets old.
But beyond sheer speed, I found a whole lot to like about the Charger SRT8 during my week with the Pitch Black test car here in Detroit. And while the whole Super Bee kit isn't really my style, it's really easy to overlook those badges for a package that offers so much for so little.
Driving Notes

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles: The next five years

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, you've no doubt read about all of the big future product news coming out of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles today. We had individual brand reports from Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Maserati and even Ferrari, but in the interest of simplifying and summarizing, we're going to list out the hard facts once more. Of course, with all of this still off in the future, there's still the possibility that a few changes will be made. But as of what we know right now, here's what's coming, and what's going away.
Chrysler
2014: Refreshed 300/300C, debuting at Los Angeles Auto Show