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The Dodge Dart Dies Again: It Missed Being A Muscle Car.
Earlier in the year, Chrysler announced that the Dodge Dart and the Chrysler 200 would be no more. The reasons given were that they were going to focus efforts on SUV’s, Ram pickups and their electric vehicle technology.
The modern Dodge Dart was centered into the small car market, with small engines and a small pricetag. The trim was adequate and performance, especially in the GT model was quite good for a small vehicle. However, the small car market is ultra-competitive and especially with foreign makes having focused on small engines and small cars for years, the Dodge Dart had a lot of catch up to do.
But will the modern Dodge Dart fared better as just a pure muscle car?
The original Dodge Dart.
The first Dodge Dart was built between 1960 and 1976. Just like other cars of the musclecar era, you had a range of engines, with the healthiest been the same offerings as the other muscle cars, a 383cu., 440cu. and a 426cu. Hemi V8. However, by 1970, the top engines were pulled from the lineup so Dodge could focus more on the new Challenger (history repeating?), meaning the 340cu. 4 barrel engine was the top powertrain in the Dart’s line up. A few decent models came out up to ’76, like the Swinger and Demon 340, but like the rest of the muscle car world at the time, it became severely neutered.
The modern Dodge Dart
Debuted at the 2012 North American International Auto Show, 2012, the new Dodge Dart looked like it would be a great compact sedan, with a manageable, small engine lineup, but now, the competition seemed to have won the race and the Dart will soon be no more.
This brings us onto the muscle car association. With the success of the Dodge Charger and Challenger Hellcat, along with the increased popularity of modern muscle cars from Ford and Chevrolet, would the Dodge Dart have had more success as a pure muscle car? Maybe even a Hellcat? They are putting the hell Engine into the Jeep very soon, so why not the Dodge Dart?
This is all thinking out loud, but the Dodge Dart could be another one of those vehicles brought back into the muscle car arena, which would further promote their other vehicles and have one more modern muscle car in the pack.
This is all hypothetical, but the public seem to be yearning for more of these classic muscle cars to return.
I would love to see a Dodge Dart Hellcat, but that now seems as likely as a 1.4L Challenger compact and who would want one of those??
More Muscle Cars For Sale – http://fastmusclecar.com/muscle-car-for-sale/
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