Way back in 2021, Dodge released a Durango SUV with a supercharged Hellcat V8. The announcement was heralded as a send-off for the Durango SRT lineup that would be produced for only one year. The notion was so outrageous (and so outrageously popular) that Dodge managed to sell out virtually the entire production run before any of them were even out the door.
As you might imagine, the car’s limited run made it appealing to collectors (and a nonzero number of speculators, we’re certain) who snatched up examples at a premium expecting supply to remain constrained, so you can imagine the alarm some of them felt when, just two years later, Dodge announced that the Durango Hellcat was coming back. Not surprisingly, a group of owners sued Stellantis, claiming that they were misled by the company’s promotion of the 2021 model as a one-and-done. That was almost three years ago; on Thursday, they got the bad news: they’d lost.
According to Reuters, the judge presiding over the suit (which was heard in Delaware) found no proof that Dodge’s advertising or marketing of the 2021 model as a final or limited edition was done in bad faith. Ultimately, the plaintiffs were not able to demonstrate that Dodge planned to walk back the promise of keeping the Durango Hellcat a one-year thing.
That’s not to say they didn’t have ammo. When the Durango Hellcat was originally announced, then-Dodge-CEO Tim Kuniskis was quoted in a press release saying “The 2021 Durango Hellcat is only a single model-year run, ensuring that it will be a very special, sought-after performance SUV for years to come.”
“You’ve only got one shot [to buy one],” Kuniskis said at the car’s launch.
But while those statements certainly look bad for Dodge in hindsight, without any proof that they were made dishonestly, the case had nowhere to go. But maybe there’s a silver lining here: there are now 2,000 owners of 2021 Durango Hellcats with extra incentive to actually drive their cars.
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