Stellantis had a slew of announcements today, but this one could be the coolest.
SRT isn’t just back: It’s taking Stellantis’ entire lineup by storm, and you can expect a slew of new performance models over the coming months and years. That revelation really came to a head Thursday, as the automaker laid out huge product plans across all its brands through 2030. At the top of those announcements, though, is the Dodge Copperhead: a new performance sports car to epitomize the revived SRT division and serve as a successor to the beloved SRT Viper.
While the Viper is a well-established name within the Dodge brand, “Copperhead” may not be quite as familiar. It is indeed a name from Dodge’s history, though, as it rolled out the name with the above-pictured concept from 1997. As for the new one, Stellantis’ presentation materials showed the silhouette of a sports coupe that blended some elements of the Viper and the current-generation Charger. Even better, members of the media were shown what it would look like, though no photography was allowed to actually show what the modern Copperhead looks like just yet.
What we do see, though, is muscular styling elements from the Charger. There are a host of grilles and cooling vents, as well as a set of slim LED headlights like the new Charger. It doesn’t share the Viper’s super-long hood, but the hardcore performance and aerodynamic elements do nod back to the long-departed Viper ACR.
While the old Viper packed a V10 engine for its entire life, it does not seem the Copperhead will carry on that tradition. Instead, we should see a V8, though exactly which V8 or how it’s packaged remains to be confirmed. We could get a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 like the current Ram trucks and Dodge’s Durango Hellcat (not to mention the old Charger/Challenger Hellcat), or there could be some sort of hybridized setup. Hell, why not both? The sky’s the limit at the moment as far as your imagination goes, since we don’t have any specific technical information to share right now. All we do know with certainty is that it will not be a pure EV…Dodge seems to have learned that lesson the hard way.
Since this is a completely new car and Stellantis’ latest roadmap runs into 2030, it’s likely the Copperhead will be on the back end of that schedule. We’ll get a refreshed Durango, SRT-branded Charger models and possibly the new GLH muscle hatch before the Copperhead actually arrives. That’ll be an exciting wait, though, since the brand’s announcement Thursday signals it is making a hard course correction toward clawing back its reputation as one of the loudest and most powerful American car brands around.
