Those who appreciate V8 power have to hand it to Ford’s cross-town rival Dodge these days. While much of the rest of the automotive industry continues to shy away from eight-cylinder powerplants, Dodge continues to stuff its supercharged 6.2L Hemi engine into just about everything it makes. The latest is the Durango SRT Hellcat, which should make Ford fans just a little jealous, since The Blue Oval doesn’t have a direct rival for it.
Dodge calls the 2021 Durango SRT Hellcat “the most powerful SUV ever,” which is a bold but seemingly accurate claim. Its engine, shared with the Challenger and Charger Hellcat, produces 710 horsepower and 645 pound-feet of torque, which is oddly enough 7 horsepower and 11 pound-feet less than its passenger car brethren. Shifts are are handled by a TorqueFlite 8HP95 eight-speed automatic transmission.
Nonetheless, that’s enough juice to propel this three-row SUV from 0 to 60 miles-per-hour in a blazing 3.5 seconds. The quarter-mile takes a mere 11.5 seconds, and if the driver keeps their foot to the floor, the Durango SRT Hellcat will reach 180 miles-per-hour. For a kid-hauling grocery-getter, that’s quite impressive.
The souped-up utility also packs a tuned suspension, Brembo brakes, a new front fascia design, chin splitter, updated engine oil cooler duct, air guide, and a snorkel for cold air induction. A new, unique rear spoiler creates an improved aerodynamic balance with the new front-end design, resulting in an increase in rear downforce of 140 pounds at 180 miles-per-hour. Interestingly, Dodge is only planning on building the Durango SRT Hellcat for one model year – 2021.
Unfortunately, the closest rival Ford has to the Durango SRT Hellcat is the Explorer ST. And that’s not even really a fair comparison. The Explorer ST features Ford’s 3.0L EcoBoost V6, which produces 400 horsepower and 415 pound-feet of torque, and takes 5.2 seconds to go from 0-60. That’s obviously impressive, but nowhere near the Dodge SUV.
And that’s a shame, really, because these days, more and more people are interested in performance-oriented SUVs. The Blue Oval could certainly stuff a supercharged 5.0L Coyote V8 in the Ford Explorer and have an immediate rival for the Durango Hellcat, but whether or not it would sell in any sort of quantity is hard to say. Regardless, we’d love to at least see Ford try.
We’ll have the latest on what Ford’s rivals are up to moving forward, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for the latest Ford news coverage.
Comments
Given the existing competition is selling performance versions of their full size SUV’s, I have wondered for some time why Ford didn’t offer a coyote powered Expedition? Is it really such a stretch?
I don’t think that a couple of thousand of these niche market SUV would ding the sales numbers for the Lariet versions of the F150 to any measurable degree.
The upside of offering a performance Expedition is that it could raise the visibility of Expeditions with buyers who are considering an SUV, even if they are not looking for a $70 grand sporty version. It would definitely create showroom traffic.
Quite difficult to believe that with the vehicle sitting that high off the ground, that it would ever make it close to 180 mph without floating the front end…I’d have to see testing results to confirm that one…there’s a reason why high performance cars are low to ground…
Who cares about hellcat, the only thing DODGE has goes in straight line and fast , not many straight roads off the interstate in the southeast .
When they can run the road course and turn like MUSTANG AND CAMERO then they can come cross town and talk. it takes more creative engineering to make a small cubic inch engine put out power Dodge is living in the past . Let ford put one of the new 500 cubic inch engines in a expidition see what happens.
The closest FORD came to this was back in the 90’s it was called Explorer Saleen which had a 5.0 some where even SuperChargered. It would be nice but,Not going to happen today WRIONG people running FORD. DODGE is Establishing itself as the American Muscle Car Co. Am not made at you DODGE there’s a lot of DragRaces out there Competition is good for the market
Over 700hp but still not any faster than the 617hp X5 M comp. 😂 they ran it at 3.4 to 60 and 11.6 1/4.
FPVfan, Six cylinder engines sound like crap. REPEAT: SOUND LIKE CRAP! The nameplate on them doesn’t matter. Ford has been missing the boat for nearly a decade by not offering an EcoBoost V8 in ANYTHING.
Ford invented the affordable V8. It kickstarted grassroots motorsports and hot rodding. And it should have done more to stay true to that heritage. Sadly, the current management couldn’t even buy a clue.
Ford missed the boat when it didn’t engineer a four-valve DOHC head for the Boss V8. Thus all of Ford’s performance V8s gave up cubic inches and bore-center width to GM and FCA, hurting the popularity of Ford in the aftermarket and many high-performance niches.
Ford could have destroyed the GM LS and the Gen III Hemi with a DOHC Boss, but the bureaucrats, steady-Eddies, and bean-counter lifers that bloat the Ford bureaucracy JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT’S HAPPENING ON THE STREETS AND SPORTSMAN RACE TRACKS OF AMERICA. They’ve been mostly out of touch for (excluding a few exceptions) since the days of the Flathead V8 (which, incidentally, the GM cast-offs, has-beens, and “Whiz Kids” assembled by the Deuce wanted to replace V8s with buzzy sixes to “match Chevy” in the early ’50s — so myopic stupidity in the Ford ranks is hardly a new phenomenon).
Ford admitted it missed the boat when it released the Godzilla pushrod V8 — apparently to compete better with the GM LS/LT and FCA Gen III Hemis. Although a two-valve pushrod engine is antique technology, they still dominate the aftermarket and many enthusiast sectors and among the Luddites who value cheapness over efficiency.
So it’s not surprising that Ford missed the boat in competing with the many variations of the Hellcat, including without limitation the newest headline-grabbing SUV. The list of such misses would take pages and pages to recount. Just. More. Of. The. Same. “Buddy” (can’t) Hackett . . . .
And one more thing, V8s don’t have to be huge. There were 1.5 liter V8s in Formula 1 in the early ’60s. The legendary Ford-Cosworth DFV was 3.0 liters (the Indy Car derivations even smaller). Ford’s V8-60 Flathead which essentially lived on for decades in, inter alia, the Simca Vedette, was a petite 2.35 liters.
So while I disagree with the inane premise that all big V8s should all be discontinued, the future of small engines doesn’t have to be awful threes, fours, fives, and sixes. A small-cube turbo-hybrid DOHC V8 with cylinder deactivation (or Variable Displacement Engine (VDE) in Ford-speak), could be a spectacularly efficient powerplant with massive power density, a symphonic repertoire of sounds, and great adaptability to many forms of motorsports. Such an engine would quickly establish its dominance over similarly-sized fours and sixes.
Of course the company that first made V8s affordable hasn’t, won’t, and probably can’t — barring a management sea-change — do even half of that! The future doesn’t have to be crap-sounding sixes. It doesn’t have to be poor fours or threes either. V8s forever!