SRT Is Back, But Is It Enough to Rev Stellantis Into the Near Future?

Motor Trend

3 days ago

You can argue the North American brands under Stellantis have been defanged in recent years. Under former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares' leadership, Ram trucks lost their V-8s, Jeep lost volume models and failed to launch promised new ones in a timely manner, Chrysler subsists today on minivans alone, and Dodge slow-walked the rollout of its new muscle cars.
Stellantis revives its Street and Racing Technology (SRT) division under new CEO Antonio Filosa and Tim Kuniskis, aiming to boost North American performance cars. SRT will unify Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and Chrysler's high-performance efforts, promising a wave of powerful vehicles.
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Now there's a new sheriff in town, as Antonio Filosa, a man more sympathetic to North American demands, is the new CEO. And Stellantis brought back retired Tim Kuniskis, a man with petrol and adrenaline comingled in his veins and who had apparently ridden off into the sunset not long ago, in June 2024.
With the personnel moves came a series of quick announcements: Hellcat godfather and Ram CEO Kuniskis was promoted to spread his enthusiasm and supercharge all American products; he is now head of American brands and North America marketing and retail strategy for Stellantis while retaining his role as Ram CEO.
Under his guidance, the 2026 Ram 1500 can now be ordered with the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 as an option, but the bigger-picture news is that Stellantis is bringing back the Street and Racing Technology (SRT) division to unify high-performance efforts at Dodge, Ram, Jeep, and Chrysler. Kuniskis will run this, too.
SRT's revival is guaranteed to crank the driveshafts of performance junkies and Mopar faithful alike. It means factory-built horsepower and street- and track-engineering prowess. Bringing back SRT is designed to jumpstart the revitalization of the North American products and restore Stellantis' vitality in the region where sales, market share, and profits have fallen, trust has been lost, and morale has eroded.
'We're getting the band back together,' Kuniskis said of resurrecting the vaunted SRT division, which was dissolved in 2021 and its engineers scattered. 'SRT is another box we needed to check as we head into a product launch cadence enabling more performance than we've ever seen before.'
SRT will also oversee Direct Connection—Dodge's performance parts and tuning division—which means its tuner catalog and racing involvement are poised to expand. Also under the SRT umbrella are the North American motorsports programs, which include Dodge's NHRA drag racing team and Ram's return to the NASCAR Truck Series in 2026. Ram has already shown a Ram 1500 concept race truck with an engine revving to more than 9,000 rpm. SRT Evolution
SRT has been a prominent in-house skunkworks of sorts since 1989, existing under a number of different names. It began with the Specialty Vehicle Engineering (SVE) team that brought the original Dodge Viper to life and helped create the Plymouth Prowler, two reasons why SRT has always been synonymous with the boldest, most memorable Mopar vehicles in recent years.
Chrysler formed the Performance Vehicle Operations high-performance division in 2004. From the ashes of PVO came the SRT division, which was elevated to official brand status in 2011. Design chief Ralph Gilles at the time added SRT CEO to his duties, an extra task he relished for four years.
SRT was relegated back to a development team in 2014. Then it was quietly phased out as Stellantis consolidated brand operations, dissolving SRT in 2021 but redistributing its engineers and mandates to the parent company's individual brands to continue their work there. Fruits of their labor included the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and 2021 Ram 1500 TRX. SRT is Back, Baby
SRT's return signals a bold recommitment to enthusiast culture at a time when electrification, regulatory pressures, and platform sharing have clouded the future of internal combustion performance. Expect to see a product wave of performance vehicles with an assortment of drivetrains to rival or surpass the Hellcat era in scale and scope. The history of SRT and Hellcat has always been 'go big or go home,' the more outrageous the better.
This should result in off-road monsters for Jeep and Ram, dragstrip-bruising muscle sedans and coupes for Dodge, and gentrified premium power for Chrysler.
There are many vehicles the revived SRT can tap for inspiration. It could begin with the Viper, a wild V-10-powered sports car first shown as a concept in 1989 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. It went into production in 1992 and was discontinued in 2017 when it could not meet modern side-curtain airbag regulations. Before it died, Dodge added the much-revered Viper ACR track special. Even in the electric age, it would be cool to see a V-10-powered snake again, but we won't hold our breath on this one.
At the other end of the spectrum was the 2003 Dodge Neon SRT-4, a cute compact car with a turbocharged engine that offered excellent handling, cheap speed, and riotous (or heinous, depending on your point of view) torque steer.
For curbside cool, there was the 2006 Dodge Magnum SRT-8 wagon. Sure, it had siblings (the Charger SRT8 and Challenger SRT8) with the same 425-hp 6.1-liter Hemi V-8, but the Magnum roamed the streets in a menacing way unlike anything else on the market during its short life from 2006 to '08.
Meanwhile, the 2004 Dodge Ram SRT-10 had the Viper's V-10 stuffed under its hood plus a manual transmission. This is the kind of crazy fun Kuniskis should try to bring back, even if the transmission goes automatic. The Ram 1500 TRX needs a successor.
A more practical SRT was the hot-rodded 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, which took a relatively conventional SUV and dialed it into the realm of absurd during the SUV's third generation. Its successor? The 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk with a fully independent suspension and a 707-hp 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V-8.
The vehicle that cemented Kuniskis' reputation: the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. This dragstrip special boasted a Hellcat V-8 tuned to run on E85 ethanol fuel and a big supercharger for an unhinged but street-legal 1,025 hp and 945 lb-ft of torque.
Our wish list for the new SRT? Today the only vehicle bearing the name is the aging Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat. Fresh lineup additions could and should include a lowered Ram 1500 SRT street truck with a Hemi V-8 to take on the Ford F-150 Lobo. Ram so far is only bringing back the 5.7-liter and says it would be a lot of work to incorporate the 6.2-liter engine into the electrical architecture in today's trucks, but that doesn't sound like the kind of problem that stopped Kuniskis before. Dodge is also working on a powerful electric Charger Daytona Banshee, so we're surely not alone in hoping Gilles designs a new Magnum on the STLA Large platform, with a V-8.
The Grand Cherokee seems ripe for a new performance variant, too. A V-8 won't fit, but you have to think engineers can squeeze more out of the excellent 3.0-liter twin-turbo Hurricane inline-six.
And thinking more about the Viper, at least in name: Maserati has some high-end sports car platforms. Maybe SRT might marry some of those mechanicals with some American muscle? The name alone would likely fuel big interest, and Stellantis as a whole could certainly use the win.