2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat review: Fire and brimstone

The 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat is silly. Silly quick, silly loud, silly thirsty and, at moments, silly enjoyment. I’m not heading to lie, I form of like silly. 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 activities. With ludicrous electrical power and more than enough poise to control that mayhem, this Dodge is the top flag-waving, red-meat-feeding on, all-American SUV.

Apart from some pretty significant enhancements designed to the total Durango array, for one design year only, Fiat Chrysler Vehicles is dropping its famed six.2-liter supercharged Hellcat Hemi into the prow of this aging SUV, a struggle prepare that to day has worked famously with the brand’s Charger sedan and Challenger coupe. Offering the fireworks, a 2.four-liter blower is strapped to the best of this V8, pushing out up to 11.six psi of enhance. All that is essential is your proper foot to light the fuse. And when you do, the V8 provides an astonishing 710 horsepower and 645 pound-feet of torque. This SUV is ready to rain down fire and brimstone on even unique automobiles in the next lane.

Matched to a ZF 8-speed automatic transmission, which is always on-place, delivering timely shifts equally speedily and smoothly, this drivetrain can provide 60 mph from a standstill in a supercar-rivaling three.5 seconds. The Durango Hellcat can also annihilate your area quarter-mile dragstrip in as little as 11.5 seconds and accelerate to 180 mph, a speed Dodge claims would make the SRT the world’s fastest a few-row SUV. Making certain this SUV in no way slips or slides (except if you want it to, of study course) is a common comprehensive-time all-wheel-travel method, which presents unflappable composure, even when executing really hard launches on lousy surfaces, like filth roadways. The Durango Hellcat just spins all four Pirelli Scorpion Zero all-season tires mounted on stylish twenty-inch wheels right until it scrabbles more than enough grip, then rockets in advance, straight as a laser beam, no squirming or lurching for the ditch on either side.

When it can be time to gradual your roll, the Durango Hellcat’s Brembo brakes are extra than up to the obstacle. With 6-piston calipers up front clamping down on 15.8-inch rotors and four-pot models out back squeezing a pair of thirteen.8-inch discs, they can drag this SUV down from 60 mph to a standstill in a curt 116 feet. Despite their huge electrical power, the brake pedal itself is straightforward to control, without the need of grabbing or feeling too gentle. That stopping prowess also assists grace the Durango with an outstanding tow rating. When correctly outfitted, it can drag up to 8,seven-hundred kilos, a figure Dodge claims is best in class.

Similarly, the Durango’s steering is nicely dialed in, delivering surprising crispness, which assists this large SUV sense far extra agile than you may expect for some thing with a few rows of seats. The steering’s weighting is also straightforward to improve by switching by means of many driving modes, some thing you can do speedily on the snazzy new-for-2021 Uconnect 5 infotainment method(extra on that a little afterwards). Damper stiffness can be modified, too, enabling this Dodge’s experience to improve on a whim from easy to starchy.

With this SUV, you would greater be in really like with V8 noises (and intoxicating supercharger whine!) due to the fact whilst the powertrain eagerly broadcasts an internal-combustion symphony, its exhaust also drones annoyingly at decrease speeds, more than enough, in point, to make the Durango’s flooring pans reverberate. Mercifully, the Hellcat V8 pipes down on the highway to a quiet, contented purr. A driver-selectable active exhaust method would be pleasant so you can have that rumble when you want it without the need of having a headache in hurry-hour traffic.

Of study course, you would greater not be frightened of pumping fuel, either, and loads of it. The Durango Hellcat burns gasoline like a cruise ship and it wants at the very least 91 octane to be pleased. Formal EPA figures have not but been launched, but expect them to be someplace concerning atrocious and appalling. In screening, I averaged just thirteen.nine miles per gallon in combined driving and I was not even terribly irresponsible whilst driving.

This supercharged SUV’s safe managing and straight-line general performance are surely praiseworthy, but the novelty of 710 horsepower can totally put on off following a whilst. And once you start off thinking about other areas of the Durango, its charm does fade a little.

This is an aged motor vehicle and in some ways it feels it, from the significant-work exterior door handles to some of its uncommon secondary controls. Underscoring this place is less-than-stellar little-overlap crash-check general performance and an iffy headlamp rating from the Insurance Institute for Freeway Security. I recall reviewing a Durango practically ten yrs and two jobs in the past and it was typically the very same as this case in point, which, regardless of its age, nonetheless sells amazingly very well. To its credit rating, FCA has done an admirable occupation keeping the Durango new and this 2021 design is the nicest at any time. Its dashboard has been redesigned to be extra driver-concentrated, the center console and upper portions of the doorways have been enhanced and you can get an exquisite wrapped-and-stitched instrument panel, a quality contact.

The Durango Hellcat’s front seats glance way overstuffed, but they are amazingly business and supportive. This case in point is equipped with cushy next-row bucket seats and an optional center console, a mix that is spacious more than enough for grownup travellers (a skosh extra legroom would be pleasant). As for the third-row bench, it can be shockingly roomy and cozy, with an elevated situation so you can see the street in advance. As for cargo place, you get seventeen.2 cubic feet guiding the third row, 43.three aft of the next and 85.one cubes all-in. These figures are equivalent, if just a whisker guiding what the Ford Explorer presents.

My tester’s cabin is nicely constructed, the stitched dashboard appears to be like and feels fantastic and all four doorways are trimmed with leather. The local weather controls are strong and couldn’t be easier to use, comprised of chunky knobs and buttons. Sad to say, all is not great, as the Durango’s A-pillars are ginormous, hampering outward visibility, and the less than-armrest storage cubby in the center console is practically worthless, typically taken up by the readily available Blu-ray player. The reconfigurable monitor in the instrument cluster ain’t fantastic, either. It can be gritty-searching and lethargic, getting ages to cycle concerning screens.

Fortunately, FCA’s new Uconnect 5 infotainment method is a winner. This readily available multimedia array is shown on a bright and colourful ten.one-inch touchscreen that is angled a bit towards the driver. The user interface is attractive, clean and quite straightforward to use, moreover it presents a amount of hugely customizable residence screens. It also wirelessly supports Apple CarPlay and Android Automobile, a aspect that pairs nicely with the recently additional wi-fi charging pad. For the most element, this method is quite responsive to inputs and I really like some of the little SRT-unique touches designers bundled, like the local weather-control graphics that present an impression of a particular person carrying a racing helmet. Lessen-conclude Durango products come common with an 8.four-inch Uconnect method, which is nonetheless a strong arrangement.

This SUV’s infotainment offerings are fantastic, but its other tech falls small. Characteristics like keyless entry with drive-button start off, trailer-sway control and hill-start off guide are common throughout the Durango array and my tester is equipped with blind-spot monitoring as very well as front and rear parking sensors (the latter of which retains providing fake warnings when stopped at traffic lights), but other advanced driver guide systems (ADAS) are conspicuously absent. Characteristics like adaptive cruise control, forward collision alert with active braking and lane-departure warning are all optional, even on this $91,455 (such as $one,495 in location costs) Hellcat.

And that, proper there, is possibly the most important issue with this SUV. Even though it can be an complete riot to travel and it can be graced with a cozy interior, the Durango does not sense like it can be worth practically 6 figures. Even the Hellcat’s base rate of around $eighty two,five hundred appears a little bit absurd. I necessarily mean, the design shown here is practically as expensive as a base BMW X5 M, which is far nicer and practically as powerful.

Still, if you’ve got totally bought to have one of these red-very hot kitties, you would greater act speedy. Dodge is only presenting the Durango Hellcat for 2021. The buy books are open now and deliveries are anticipated to commence early in 2021.