An Autoblog reader spotted a Dodge Journey R/T the other day, which appeared to be tuned by Chrysler Group’s in-house tuner SRT.
Now, you may think its just a tuned R/T, or even a normal Journey with R/T and SRT badges and tuning. It looks very genuine though. There’s a smoothly integrated new front fascia, unique manufacturer badged wheels, a lowered stance and quad exhausts surrounded by a new valance. This could still be some very professional tuning. This car, however, almost had a Michigan manufacturer’s license plate.
So then, it’s almost certainly the real deal.
The reader who spotted this, Nick Leonard, says he saw it in the parking lot of a Best Buy in Saginaw, Michigan. He didn’t spot any testing equipment in the car, just a laptop and jacket.
He also mentions an AWD badge on the car, but he didn’t get a picture of it.
So then, what could this be? SRT and R/T generally don’t work together, so an R/T based SRT car would be odd. It could be badging designed to mislead us though. There are a few options. It could be something made as a research project of some sort, a SEMA special, a customer clinic, or it could very well be heading for production.
Oh, and as for what this might pack under the hood, here’s a story posted on LS1Tech:
Just got smoked by a white Dodge SUV thing! I was just out cruising back to work after grabbing a bite to eat and I got pumbled by some newer 4-door Dodge wagon/SUV looking thing. My 02 SS has been 12.90’s with Drag Radials and now it has Blizzacs on the back but everything else was the same.
It was behind me and then beside at a stop light. I did not intend to race the guy but my lane ended about 10 yards ahead so I punched it when the light went green, his fender was at my door m so I banged second and went WOT and he friggin passed me. I merged in behind him and then my turn came up and I got off that road.
WTF. It wasn’t a Cherokee SRT8 and it certainly wasn’t V8 because it didn’t sound like it. It had 5 star rims and quad exhausts..thing was white ?
The car description matches this car nicely. When presented with the pictures, the person who posted this, Outlaw55, said that it’s definitely the car that smoked him. So it looks like this could very well be one hell of a quick car. Outlaw is sure that it wasn’t a V8, it would probably be one hell of a tough job to cram a V8 into that car anyways, and a Hemi probably wouldn’t fit either. Autoblog and posters at LS1Tech believe that it was the engine from the Dodge Caliber SRT4, putting out 275hp in stock configuration, potentially enough to beat Outaw’s Camaro in poor traction conditions, and the traction conditions were poor, it’s winter after all. The engine might have been tuned to put out even more power. Guess we’ll have to wait for further development in this story to figure out what’s going on.
I spotted one here, in Germany a few weeks ago as well. It looked exactly the same as a above, only that it was black.
Interesting, so that means it’s definitely not some well done tuning if there’s a second one out there.