New management revives SRT performance division that developed Hellcat V8 engine
Antonio Filosa, who took charge of the French-Italian-American automotive conglomerate in late June, has been slowly announcing his executive and senior management team.
He has promoted Tim Kuniskis, currently head of Ram, to oversee all of its North American brands, which also include Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler.
Mr Kuniskis will also head up the revived Street and Racing Technology (SRT) division that was shuttered in 2021 not long after Fiat Chrysler merged with the PSA Group — parent of Peugeot, Citroen, DS, Opel and Vauxhall — to form Stellantis.
SRT will once again be put in charge of engineering performance models for all four North American marques. It will also take over Stellantis North America's racing operations, which include drag racing and, starting next year, the NASCAR Truck Series.
In its past life SRT made vehicles like the Dodge Neon SRT-4, as well as the V10-powered Dodge Viper. Its most recent efforts were concentrated around the 6.2-litre supercharged Hellcat V8 engine, which was installed in the Dodge Charger sedan and Challenger coupe, Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, and Ram 1500 TRX.
The division also worked its magic on less fire-breathing V8 models, including those used in the Chrysler 300.
Although the SRT division was disbanded in 2021, the company continued to develop the Hellcat engine up until the demise of the third-generation Dodge Challenger and seventh-generation Dodge Charger. The Hellcat soldiers on to this day under the bonnet of the Dodge Durango Hellcat.
No plans for SRT have been announced so far, but it's widely hoped it will try to find a way to insert V8 Hellcat engine into the new Charger coupe and sedan, which are currently only available with electric drivetrains and turbocharged 3.0-litre straight-six Hurricane petrol engine.
Hopes have been raised since Mr Kuniskis returned to run Ram in late 2024. In June he announced the 5.7-litre Hemi V8 would return the 1500 ute range after year-or-so away.
'Everyone makes mistakes, but how you handle them defines you. Ram screwed up when we dropped the Hemi — we own it and we fixed it,' he said at announcement.
This week announcement of SRT's revival and the elevation of Mr Kuniskis to oversee Dodge, Ram, Jeep and Chrysler is a real back-to-the-future moment. Mr Kuniskis held a similar role in 2014 when these brands were part of Fiat Chrysler, and is widely credited with championing the Hellcat V8 project.
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Even if such a collapse doesn't happen on its own, says Hamilton, the US debt burden leaves it in a precarious position to deal with a crisis, such as a future pandemic, war with China, or some sort of crisis arising from the advent of artificial intelligence technology. 'There are all sorts of things we don't know,' he says. 'We're exposing ourselves to enormous risk.' Much of that risk depends on what happens to interest rates in coming years. Low rates between the GFC and the COVID-19 pandemic made US debt more affordable. That era is now over. Trump has been badgering Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for months to lower interest rates, saying it is costing the US government hundreds of billions of dollars a year in interest payments on its debt. Loading But it is the long-term trajectory that matters, and Block says the consequences could be disastrous. 'If those interest rates continue to go up, that could be by far the most drastic threat to the American economy and America writ large,' he says. More than the threat posed by Russia or China? 'I don't think that's an exaggeration.'
