Truck Trend: No HEMI Dak

From: jon@dakota-truck.net
Date: Sat Dec 14 2002 - 19:05:08 EST


  
  I was in Wal-Mart this evening to pick up some cat food and wandered
by the magazine rack. There was a picture on the cover of Truck Trend
of this green pickup that looked like a new Ram. I picked it up and it
was the upcoming redesign of the Ford F-150! This is becoming a real
trend - Dodge redesigns their trucks and Ford copies it as closely as
they dare! It actually looked like someone cloned a Ram and changed the
side windows a bit! What threw it off was windows and the little oval
logo on the grill. Just amazing! :-P If imitation is the most
sincere form of flattery, I guess Dodge owes Ford a word of thanks. ;-)

   Anyway, the cover story was the pickups which will be coming out
shortly (redesigns, etc.) They had a blurb in there about the new
Dak and Durango. I think they said the Durango would get the 5.7
HEMI, but about the Dak they said (paraphrasing) "Although the tech
engineers say the 5.7 HEMI will fit in the new Dakota's engine bay,
there are no plans to date to offer a performance package for that
platform."

   If true, there are going to be a lot of dissapointed future Dak
owners out there! From the statment above, it could be construed
that not only will the Dak not get the HEMI, but the R/T will be
killed as well - "no performance package".

   A pretty stupid move, if true. Doesn't affect me too much; I don't
buy new Chrysler products because of the MB takeover fiasco, but I
know a lot of people are looking forward to HEMI Daks. (Granted,
the source *is* Truck Trend (Motor Trend) so I guess you have to take
it with a grain of salt, but still...)

  Just wanted to pass that along.

-- 

-Jon-

.---- Jon Steiger ------ jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com ------. | I'm the: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA. Rec & UL Pilot - SEL | | 70 Cuda, 90 Dak 'vert, 92 Ram 4x4, 96 Dak, 96 Intruder 1400, 96 FireFly | `------------------------------------------ http://www.jonsteiger.com ----'



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