1967 W300 Dodge Power Wagon Cab Off Restoration (1000 Mi Since Resto) on 2040-cars

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2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat [w/videos]

Darrell Waltrip once said, "If the lion didn't bite the tamer every once in a while, it wouldn't be exciting." The sentiment behind that aphorism is causing my adrenal gland to wake up as Dodge and SRT drivers and engineers - somber-faced to a man - give me the track talk that will precede my driving the 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT on the circuit at Portland International Raceway. PIR might not be Daytona, and the 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat might seem tame to a legend like ol' Jaws, but there's a not-small part of me that's thinking about how hard Dodge's fire-breathing kitty might bite.
Just a few hours previous, I'd gotten behind the wheel of the Hellcat for the first time, letting its hyperbole-spitting, supercharged V8 Hemi pull me yieldingly through Portland's morning commuter traffic. Lulled into a cocky certainty by the Challenger's good manners at low speed, I drove the throttle just a hair too deep, too fast when I ran on to the highway ramp. For just an instant the rear tires were utterly drenched in torque, and the back end of the big Dodge loosened up like a drift car on a wet track. Throttle steer lives at the fleeting whim of your right foot in this car.
It was no big thing to lay off the gas and pull the Hellcat back in line as I entered the highway, but the incident did get me to thinking: What will this car do to me on a road course?

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.

Chrysler expecting up to 200,000 9-speed transmissions for 3 models this year

Striving for improved fuel economy, we already knew that Chrysler will begin using a nine-speed automatic transmission in some of its new products this year, but what we haven't known is that volume at which this gearbox will be used. According to Bloomberg, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been quoted as saying that the automaker expects to sell close to 200,000 units equipped with this new transmission in 2013. Those gear-rich trannies will be spread out across three models, consisting of the redesigned Chrysler 200, the still-unnamed Jeep Liberty replacement and the Dodge Dart.
This transmission should play a pivotal role in making Chrysler vehicles more competitive in their respective segments. Just for comparison, one of the Dart's key competitors, the Toyota Corolla, still uses a four-speed automatic, and a previous report indicates that the next-generation 200 could get up to 38 miles per gallon on the highway, which is better than most non-hybrid midsize sedans on the market. Marchionne says that the new Jeep model is expected during the second quarter of this year, but there is no word as to when the new 200 or nine-speed Dart will debut, but clearly Dodge would like to have the transmission in its compact yesterday. As for that volume figure, it definitely doesn't seem out of reach since the Dart, Liberty and 200 combined for a total of more than 225,000 units in 2012.
How many more gears can we expect in future cars? Probably not many more, since the CEO of transmission-builder ZF, Stefan Sommer, previously stated that nine speeds was the "natural limit" for transmissions.