Dodge Challenger Forums - Challenger 4.0L V6 Hemi

Quote:

ORIGINAL: Yankee

Well anything IS possible and it is an intriguing idea, but I don't see anything like that ever happening. If gas hits $5-6 a gallon and stays that way (which could happen) and the V8 sales take a major dump as a result... MAYBE I could see Dodge investing in that kind of money and technology for a V6. But the Hemi V8 is clearly the star of the show in the Challenger and, barring a bizarre unforseen economic circumstance, is very likely to stay that way.

Well a few points. First of all, the oil bubble is going to pop sooner or later as well as the rest of the commodity market the only way I can see it staying that high is if the gov't raises taxes on gasoline, which is certainly also a possibility. The rumors hold that Chrysler is pouring a lot of money into their replacement V6s, so I don't see this as being so unlikely. The advantage of investing in this technology is it would share this technology with the Hemi V8 and make that even more competitive in power & tq as well as help it out in the fuel economy department.

As far as anyone having concerns that this will cannibalize any Hemi V8 sales, I don't see this happening considering how many of you complain about them offering a V6 base model to begin with despite the fact that is it far more powerful than the slant six and 318 offered in the originals. People who want V8s will get V8s, and people who want more power will get it. Why else do you think that people will opt for the 6.1L over the 5.7L Hemis in the LX cars? Also a way to prevent this from watering down the Hemi nameplate as what happened to the Magnum name when they called engines like the 2.0L I4 in the Neon a Magnum and the 3.0L Mitsubishi used in the Stratus/Sebring twins Magnums (which makes no sense since it isn't even a Chrysler engine), they could instead call it the FirePower or Fire Dome which were names given to the Chrysler and DeSoto variants of the original Hemi small block.

Jeremiah, what generation was the Mustang? If it is the current one, I don't think he was the best driver because a car that can do 0-60 in about 6.9 secs should have no problem beating a vehicle that does 0-60 somewhere between 9.4-10.1 secs (depending on the year and who the source is). If it was an 94-04 model, that would be an interesting and potentially close match. The fact of the matter is Chrysler could use either a better transmission or more powerful engine to compete against the V6 Mustang to cover for the weight as well as the Mustang's short gearing if they want to maintain their fuel economy.