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2014 Dodge Journey Crossroad

Watchers of the auto industry will notice a theme among the formerly bankrupted American automakers, General Motors and Chrysler. There are the post-bankruptcy vehicles, and the pre-bankruptcy vehicles. The former, in the case of Chrysler, include the Jeep Grand Cherokee, as well as the 200 and 300. For GM, there's the Cadillac ATS, Chevrolet Impala and Buick Encore, among others. These vehicles have the freshest styling, with sharp exteriors and well-crafted interiors, as well as advanced powertrains and well-sorted chassis.
As for the pre-bankruptcy vehicles, they tend to be easy to spot. Most suffer from inferior driving dynamics, cheaper interiors, poorer fuel economy and often homely looks (we know, there were some decent cars before the bankruptcy, but they were pretty heavily outweighed by the bad ones). Think late, last-generation Chevrolet Impala or Chrysler 200. Increasingly, though, we're seeing vehicles that split the balance between pre- and post-bankruptcy. Vehicles like the Dodge Journey.
The Journey debuted in 2007 as a 2008 model year vehicle, meaning it should fall into the latter category. But heavily breathed upon in 2011, it now enjoys a new, 3.6-liter Pentastar V6, a big, critically acclaimed touchscreen display and in the case of today's tester, a new-for-2014 Crossroad spec.

Mopar '13 Dart priced from $25,485*

For the past few years, Chrysler's Mopar in-house tuning division has created its own one-off versions of several cars in the automaker's portfolio, including the Mopar '10 Challenger, Mopar '11 Charger and Mopar '12 300. For 2013, the black-and-blue up-do has been given to the new Dart compact, and Chrysler has announced that the limited-edition sedan is now available for order, priced from $25,485, not including *$995 for destination.
Like previous Mopar edition vehicles, the Dart is painted in a signature Pitch Black exterior with an offset blue racing stripe. The sedan sits seven millimeters lower to the ground and gets visual add-ons like a chin spoiler, decklid spoiler and rear diffuser, along with gloss black 18-inch alloy wheels.
Performance wise, the Dart's 1.4-liter MultiAir inline four-cylinder engine remains, producing 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, mated to a six-speed manual transmission. The Mopar car gets a sport-tuned exhaust system along with revised power steering calibration and beefier brakes.

Autoblog Podcast #317

Mitsubishi Mirage, Toyota thinks of beefing up US production, Marchionne on Alfa, Dart and minivans, Ford Atlas concept, Honda Gear concept
Episode #317 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Jeff Ross and Michael Harley bookend the other podcast topics with a pair from the Montreal Auto Show, the Mitsubishi Mirage and Honda Gear concept, and in between we talk about Toyota building all its US-market cars stateside, Hyundai building a Nurburgring test facility, Sergio Marchionne's latest words about Alfa Romeo, Dodge Dart powertrains and the future of Chrysler vans. Some chatter about the Ford Atlas concept finishes up the meat of the 'cast and then we wrap with your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #317: