2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat review: Fire and brimstone

The 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat is stupid. Silly speedy, stupid loud, stupid thirsty and, at situations, stupid enjoyment. I am not likely to lie, I sort of like stupid. This a few-row brute will haul ass down a freeway onramp or quarter-mile monitor as very well as it hauls your brood of young’uns to socially distanced outside pursuits. With ludicrous electricity and enough poise to deal with that mayhem, this Dodge is the final flag-waving, red-meat-eating, all-American SUV.

Apart from some rather substantial enhancements produced to the complete Durango assortment, for just one product year only, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is dropping its famed six.2-liter supercharged Hellcat Hemi into the prow of this growing older SUV, a battle strategy that to date has worked famously with the brand’s Charger sedan and Challenger coupe. Furnishing the fireworks, a 2.4-liter blower is strapped to the best of this V8, pushing out up to eleven.six psi of strengthen. All that is needed is your right foot to light the fuse. And when you do, the V8 delivers an astonishing 710 horsepower and 645 pound-ft of torque. This SUV is completely ready to rain down hearth and brimstone on even unique automobiles in the next lane.

Matched to a ZF 8-pace automated transmission, which is often on-issue, offering well timed shifts the two promptly and effortlessly, this drivetrain can deliver sixty mph from a standstill in a supercar-rivaling 3.five seconds. The Durango Hellcat can also annihilate your neighborhood quarter-mile dragstrip in as minimal as eleven.five seconds and accelerate to a hundred and eighty mph, a pace Dodge claims tends to make the SRT the world’s swiftest a few-row SUV. Guaranteeing this SUV under no circumstances slips or slides (except you want it to, of training course) is a common whole-time all-wheel-generate system, which delivers unflappable composure, even when executing really hard launches on very poor surfaces, like dust roads. The Durango Hellcat just spins all four Pirelli Scorpion Zero all-time tires mounted on trendy twenty-inch wheels right until it scrabbles enough grip, then rockets in advance, straight as a laser beam, no squirming or lurching for the ditch on possibly facet.

When it can be time to sluggish your roll, the Durango Hellcat’s Brembo brakes are a lot more than up to the challenge. With six-piston calipers up front clamping down on fifteen.8-inch rotors and four-pot units out again squeezing a pair of thirteen.8-inch discs, they can drag this SUV down from sixty mph to a standstill in a curt 116 ft. Regardless of their immense electricity, the brake pedal itself is straightforward to regulate, without grabbing or sensation as well comfortable. That stopping prowess also aids grace the Durango with an remarkable tow ranking. When appropriately outfitted, it can drag up to 8,seven-hundred lbs, a determine Dodge claims is most effective in class.

Equally, the Durango’s steering is nicely dialed in, offering unforeseen crispness, which aids this massive SUV sense far a lot more agile than you could possibly be expecting for anything with a few rows of seats. The steering’s weighting is also straightforward to alter by switching through different driving modes, anything you can do promptly on the snazzy new-for-2021 Uconnect five infotainment system(a lot more on that a minimal afterwards). Damper stiffness can be altered, as well, enabling this Dodge’s ride to alter on a whim from clean to starchy.

With this SUV, you’d much better be in really like with V8 noises (and intoxicating supercharger whine!) since whilst the powertrain eagerly broadcasts an interior-combustion symphony, its exhaust also drones annoyingly at reduce speeds, enough, in reality, to make the Durango’s floor pans reverberate. Mercifully, the Hellcat V8 pipes down on the freeway to a quiet, contented purr. A driver-selectable active exhaust system would be great so you can have that rumble when you want it without getting a headache in hurry-hour traffic.

Of training course, you’d much better not be frightened of pumping gas, possibly, and loads of it. The Durango Hellcat burns gasoline like a cruise ship and it demands at the very least 91 octane to be joyful. Official EPA figures have not but been unveiled, but be expecting them to be someplace between atrocious and appalling. In screening, I averaged just thirteen.nine miles for every gallon in mixed driving and I wasn’t even terribly irresponsible whilst driving.

This supercharged SUV’s safe dealing with and straight-line functionality are definitely praiseworthy, but the novelty of 710 horsepower can totally wear off right after a whilst. And once you start off taking into consideration other areas of the Durango, its attractiveness does fade a minimal.

This is an previous vehicle and in some strategies it feels it, from the high-exertion exterior door handles to some of its abnormal secondary controls. Underscoring this issue is less-than-stellar small-overlap crash-check functionality and an iffy headlamp ranking from the Insurance Institute for Highway Protection. I bear in mind reviewing a Durango approximately ten many years and two positions back and it was typically the same as this illustration, which, regardless of its age, still sells remarkably very well. To its credit rating, FCA has carried out an admirable position holding the Durango contemporary and this 2021 product is the nicest at any time. Its dashboard has been redesigned to be a lot more driver-focused, the center console and upper portions of the doorways have been enhanced and you can get an exquisite wrapped-and-stitched instrument panel, a high quality contact.

The Durango Hellcat’s front seats glimpse way overstuffed, but they are remarkably business and supportive. This illustration is equipped with cushy next-row bucket seats and an optional center console, a combination that is spacious enough for grownup travellers (a skosh a lot more legroom would be great). As for the 3rd-row bench, it can be shockingly roomy and comfortable, with an elevated position so you can see the road in advance. As for cargo house, you get seventeen.2 cubic ft behind the 3rd row, forty three.3 aft of the next and eighty five.one cubes all-in. These figures are comparable, if just a whisker behind what the Ford Explorer gives.

My tester’s cabin is nicely built, the stitched dashboard appears to be like and feels great and all four doorways are trimmed with leather. The climate controls are strong and could not be easier to use, comprised of chunky knobs and buttons. Unfortunately, all is not excellent, as the Durango’s A-pillars are ginormous, hampering outward visibility, and the beneath-armrest storage cubby in the center console is approximately useless, typically taken up by the offered Blu-ray participant. The reconfigurable monitor in the instrument cluster ain’t great, possibly. It truly is gritty-seeking and lethargic, getting ages to cycle between screens.

The good thing is, FCA’s new Uconnect five infotainment system is a winner. This offered multimedia array is displayed on a shiny and colourful ten.one-inch touchscreen that is angled somewhat towards the driver. The user interface is gorgeous, cleanse and quite straightforward to use, as well as it gives a range of really customizable home screens. It also wirelessly supports Apple CarPlay and Android Car, a function that pairs nicely with the recently added wi-fi charging pad. For the most portion, this system is quite responsive to inputs and I really like some of the small SRT-specific touches designers bundled, like the climate-handle graphics that demonstrate an image of a particular person donning a racing helmet. Decrease-finish Durango designs appear common with an 8.4-inch Uconnect system, which is still a strong arrangement.

This SUV’s infotainment offerings are fantastic, but its other tech falls brief. Attributes like keyless entry with thrust-button start off, trailer-sway handle and hill-start off aid are common across the Durango assortment and my tester is equipped with blind-location monitoring as very well as front and rear parking sensors (the latter of which keeps offering bogus warnings when stopped at traffic lights), but other innovative driver aid systems (ADAS) are conspicuously absent. Attributes like adaptive cruise handle, ahead collision inform with active braking and lane-departure warning are all optional, even on this $91,455 (including $one,495 in destination fees) Hellcat.

And that, right there, is potentially the largest challenge with this SUV. Even though it can be an absolute riot to generate and it can be graced with a comfortable inside, the Durango does not sense like it can be worth approximately six figures. Even the Hellcat’s foundation cost of all around $eighty two,500 seems a bit absurd. I suggest, the product revealed listed here is approximately as high-priced as a base BMW X5 M, which is far nicer and approximately as potent.

Even now, if you’ve got totally acquired to have just one of these red-hot kitties, you’d much better act quickly. Dodge is only featuring the Durango Hellcat for 2021. The get publications are open now and deliveries are expected to start early in 2021.