Warning, no specs, pricing, or release date ahead.
In a roughly 15 minute long presentation on Wednesday, we finally got to see the car Dodge has been teasing about for the bulk of 2022, although, it’s hard to say we know much more about it than the day before. With as open of a mind as possible, I listened to Tim Kuniskis talk about being a tattoo on the industry, or for the industry, or of the industry, not sure, and then the big moment was here.
Check out the Hellcat we don't want, but the Hellcat we deserve here.
Time to rip the bandaid off, although, I feel like Dodge is now wearing more bandaids than ever before. So out rolls a car, the Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Banshee, and don’t worry, it makes noise, but like an alley cat looking for a free meal, not a feline from hell. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I would prefer silence over a video game noise track. My mind gets too busy thinking about the exact process which causes exhaust noises and how you can alter that with a header swap, oh but this thing doesn’t have headers, so maybe a y-pipe to replace the x-pipe…oh it doesn’t have that either. So we’re playing make believe and I can’t work on this car without a computer programming degree, that’s depressing.
I want to like this concept, but I don’t know anything more about it today than I did last week. I can admit that I do like that it has some sort of ‘grille’ and the front end isn’t an egg shaped void. Honestly, I don’t hate the way it looks, and if it goes into production, it might not even look anything like this prototype - looking at you, Supra.
There was no discussion of power, top speed, range, price, and no release date has been made available at the time of this article. To be honest, I’m not even pretending to be objective at this point because I know nothing about the car, other than that I’m being told I’m a rebel if I drive it. Kuniskis assures the crowd and viewers at home that this is the electric car "they" don’t want you to have, and if "they" means my kids when they have to be seen with me in public, I guess he’s got a point. Maybe it’s time to get “Banshee” tattooed across my knuckles and get ready to live the life of a Hells Angels meets Jack Kerouac type as someone with no rules. If you didn't watch the stream yourself, this all probably doesn't make a lot of sense to you.
Dodge’s tattooed rebellion aside, what we do know is that it doesn’t have a spoiler, interesting choice for something with the Daytona badge. It makes a lot of noise, as loud as the Hellcat, according to one of the very few details Tim shared. The demonic cat head badge is being replaced with a screaming humanoid, and the wheels might look a lot better rolling faster than 1-2 mph on a set.
Come on Dodge, let’s put this thing on a track, or put it back in its hermetically sealed room until it's ready enough to come with some specs. It’s hard to not feel like they’re playing both sides of the fence. As Dodge enthusiasts, I think we can all agree that we want more than promises at this point. At least all of the people complaining about the four doors on the Charger can sleep easy knowing that problem has been rectified, as the Charger returns to a two-door platform.
We’ve been tracking the future of the Dodge muscle cars since Stellantis was formed, and maybe that’s why I feel so over the whole thing. Since the beginning of 2021, we’ve been fed a lot of empty promises, and the timelines given versus reality couldn’t be more different. Want to know what I’m talking about? We’re doing a special Dodge/Stellantis only podcast today on the Motorious YoutTube channel to cover the situation from start to now.
