2008 Dodge Charger R/t Sedan 4-door 5.7l on 2040-cars

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The Hemi deserves to die | Opinion

Hi. I'm Byron and I love V8s. I want them to stick around for a long, long time. But not all V8s are created equal, and I will not mourn the passing of the modern Hemi. You shouldn't either. While we may agree that its death is untimely, if you ask me, that's only because it came far too late.  Stellantis’ announcement of its new, turbocharged inline-six that is all but guaranteed to kill off the Hemi V8 has led to quite a few half-baked internet takes. The notion being suggested by some, that automotive media were brainwashed into believing the Hemi was in need of replacement, is so far divorced from reality that I openly guffawed at the notion. Journalists have been challenging Chrysler, FCA and now Stellantis for years to deliver better high-performance engines. The response has always been the same: “Why?” Why replace a heavy V8 with a lighter, all-aluminum one? Why repackage powertrains for smaller footprints and better handling vehicles? Why be better when “good enough” sells really, really well? I too mourn the departure of good gasoline-burning engines, but since when was the Hemi one? HereÂ’s a quiz: Name every SRT model with an all-aluminum engine. TimeÂ’s up. If you named any, you failed. They donÂ’t exist. This isnÂ’t GMÂ’s compact, lightweight small-block, nor is it a DOHC Ford Coyote that at least revs high enough to justify its larger footprint. The Hemi is an overweight marketing exercise that happened to be in the right place at the right time. That time was 2003, when Chrysler was still Chrysler — except it was Daimler-Chrysler and the "merger of equals" was doing a bang-up job of bleeding the company's cash reserves dry while doing virtually nothing to address its mounting legacy costs. "That thang got a Hemi?" was emblematic of the whimsical, nostalgia-driven marketing of the colonial half of the "marriage made in heaven." That was 20 years ago. 20 years prior to that, emissions-choked American V8s were circling the drain faster than a soapy five-carat engagement ring in a truck stop sink.

One Lap of America, with three times the madness

Instead of celebrating last weekend face down in a sombrero full of tequila-spiked OJ and a few lime wedges, 71 racing teams with one set of tires each and no support crews began Cinco De Mayo — and this year's 35th running of the One Lap of America — by hitting the wet skid pad at Tire Rack's headquarters in South Bend, Ind. There were Porsches, Vettes, Camaros and BMWs galore. There was a Miata, a vintage NSX, a Honda S2000 and even an old VW Rabbit. There were GTIs, the odd Evo and, oh yeah, six Toyotas, a couple of Vipers and a couple of GTRs. When the skidding stopped, a 2011 BMW 1M emerged triumphant and led the pack out into the heartland, where it will spend 5,000 miles this week hitting road courses, dragstrips and time trials at tracks as far west as Denver, as south as Fort Worth and then New Orleans. From there, it will barrel north through Mississippi, Alabama, Nashville, Kentucky and back home again to Tire Rack in Indiana. Twenty events, eight venues, with a three-hour window for each event. It's a nonstop, no-sleep, one-week road trip comprising 150-ish friends and brothers, partiers and pro racing drivers, spouses and other family-member combo packs. Some will never speak to each other again, some might end up divorced, some might get married. All of them are nuts. I know this because I made three laps. Three laps I will never forget.LAP ONE: 1984 Vehicle: 1984 Dodge Van Team #0: Jean Lindamood (Jennings), Walker Evans, Parnelli Jones I was present for the inaugural 1984 One Lap of America because I worked at Car and Driver back then and so did Brock Yates. He was the guy who came up with the clandestine, illegal, unsanctioned Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash from Connecticut to Redondo Beach, Calif. It ran five times in the 1970s, with Yates joining Dan Gurney in a Ferrari Daytona for the second run. They won, Gurney insisting that "at no time did we exceed 175 miles per hour." One Lap was born of Cannonball nostalgia (read: Brock was bored), and I was beyond game for it. After securing a van from Dodge and two giant decals for the van sides, along with $5,000 in sponsorship from local Detroit Stroh's Brewery, I coaxed my friend, nine-time Baja 1000 winner Walker Evans, into running One Lap by suggesting he didn't have a hair on his ass if he refused. Then I suggested that if he didn't get his best friend and longtime road trip buddy, Parnelli Jones, to go with us, I would actually have to drive the van, too.

Junkyard Gem: 1964 Dodge Dart station wagon

The Chrysler A Platform, built from the 1960 through 1976 model years for the North American market (and for a few years beyond that in Australia and Latin America), was one of Chrysler's greatest hits, if not the greatest hit. We know these cars best as the 1963-1976 Dodge Dart and the 1960-1976 Plymouth Valiant, and they established a reputation for reliability matched only by the likes of the Mercedes-Benz W123 diesel. I still see many of these cars during my junkyard wanderings, but A-Body wagons have become very rare. Here's a tattered '64 Dart wagon that I spotted in a self-service wrecking yard in San Jose, California. 1964 was the first model year for factory-installed V8 engines in the Dart and Valiant (and the Valiant's sporty sibling, the Barracuda), and the 273-cubic-inch pushrod V8 was a sturdy powerplant indeed. The slant-6 engine, though less powerful, went into most of these cars, and for good reason: It was harder to kill than all the world's cockroaches and rats put together. This car would have come with a 170- or 225-cubic-inch version of the slant-6, optimistically rated at either 101 or 145 gross horsepower (probably about 55 horses at the wheels), but I didn't feel like scraping sludge off casting numbers to see if it's on its first or 11th engine. In any case, slant-6 Darts were on the pokey side but would get you to your destination every time. This one has a lot of rust for a California car (in New Hampshire or Wisconsin, it would be considered pretty solid) and the interior is more or less obliterated, so even dedicated station-wagon lovers wouldn't have been motivated to take it on as a restoration project. So another early Dart is poised to be stuffed into The Crusher, for reasons that make good economic sense. This still makes us sad, though. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Here's the compact you've been waiting for!