Dodge Is Taking a Lot of Crap About its “eMuscle” Pitch
All of the naysayers are making fun of Dodge and its eMuscle EV Day 2021 extravaganza. It’s what boy racer keyboard critics do. But what none of them think about is what Dodge has done over the last 20 years.
Dodge should have gone away after it truck division was taken
Dodge got its arms and legs chopped off when Dodge Trucks became Ram Trucks. Dodge was left with some pedestrian sedans, a minivan, and an overweight retro muscle car. That would be a Dart, Charger, Avenger, Caliber, Caravan, and Challenger. Oh, and Durango SUV, with its nine miles per gallon.
In other words, it was in a world of hurt. When it sloughed off the real turkeys, old platforms like the Challenger, Charger, Durango, and Caravan remained. So what was Dodge to do?
In the Fiat Chrysler world Jeep and Ram were swinging, Chrysler was its prestige brand, and Dodge was drip, drip, dripping into Desoto days. In other words, the end of the brand.
Will “eMuscle” save Dodge like Hellcats and stupid performance?
Instead of drying up and blowing away, it got hip to the Hellcat program. And from there it ramped things up into hyper-Hellcats and Drag Pak Challengers. Plus, it did all of this with 67-year-old platforms. Well, not really. But platforms that were created back when Mercedes Benz skunked the company back in the early 2000s.
And it not only made some money on performance, but it created what performance looks like in the 2020s. And with electrification and environmental advocates coming at automakers from both sides, that is astonishing. It even made a Hellcat Durango.
Now it is making money off of platforms it amortized 23 years ago. Well, maybe not 23 years, but definitely before the 2020s. When you hear the phrase “like printing money,” that is what Dodge is doing. Right now.
Yes, Dodge’s goofy eMuscle phrases and dorky marketing could be better
Yet, there are those anti-fan boys that want to make fun of some of the goofy phrases and bad marketing lines. Yes, they do make one cringe a bit. But don’t forget-these originated in the midwest. Michigan is not exactly San Francisco or Manhattan. Cut them some slack.
So, with the brain trust not only keeping Dodge’s head above water but thrashing the current muscle car category, you would question how it markets EVs? To its own peeps? Please. It has the performance bro, speed head, quarter-mile madness down. You don’t get into marketing cars because you’re stupid.
When Dodge comes out with an EV that smacks down a Tesla Model S Plaid, everyone will take notice. Nobody will look at these efforts as weak sauce. Because they won’t be.
Whether you like it or not EVs are the future of everything including eMuscle
Right now, almost any EV will flush an internal combustion twin-turbocharged Belchmobile down the toilet. And they’re not even trying or marketing EV’s ability to do that. It is the nature of electric motors. Instant power, and instant torque.
Right now it seems like Dodge and the whole of Stellantis is behind the eight-ball on electrification, and we concur. But it is aiming for 2024 when its first EVs will hit the showrooms. If it can turn crappy, old sedans into desirable, fast-performance cars in the 21st century, it will be ready in 2024 to turn some heads. We can’t wait.
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