The upcoming Dodge Copperhead will be a hyper muscle car — possibly with Italian roots
The American brand Dodge, part of the Stellantis corporation, will unveil a flagship sports car from the SRT Performance division in a couple of years, which will be extremely powerful and fast and will be able to put Ford Mustang GTD to shame. Here’s what we know about this new model.
The flagship sports car from the SRT Performance division under the Dodge brand was announced in May of this year, when the Stellantis corporation presented its new five-year development strategy called FaSTLAne 2030. In this strategy, the Dodge brand is firmly assigned the role of a manufacturer of sports cars. This means there will be no more boring new models from Dodge. Significant sales growth is not expected, but the average price tag will likely rise noticeably.
The pinnacle of the Dodge lineup will be a sports car named Copperhead (translated as “copperhead snake”). Previously, the Dodge brand used this name only for a 1997 concept — it was a striking roadster on the Viper platform. The upcoming Copperhead is not a successor to the Viper, but a sports car of the same high level and, most likely, with a very promising racing career.
There is no official information about the Dodge Copperhead yet, only hints from Stellantis representatives and guesses from American media, which are eagerly awaiting this new model. The wait will be quite long — likely until the 2029 model year, but the premiere will surely happen earlier. The cover image was generated by ChatGPT and roughly matches the contours of the car hidden under a cover on the official Stellantis slide.
Legendary American top manager Tim Kuniskis, who was tasked last year with reviving the SRT Performance division, stated in an interview with The Drive magazine that the Copperhead will not be a direct derivative of the current Dodge Charger of the LB generation on the STLA Large platform, but rather a kind of mixed bag, incorporating the best competencies of Stellantis from around the world. These words sparked many speculations. In particular, Car and Driver magazine reasonably suggests that the Dodge Copperhead could be built on a sporty version of the Giorgio platform from the current second-generation Maserati GranTurismo, rather than the STLA Large platform — this way, a lower center of gravity and better handling could be achieved.
The decision regarding the engine for the Dodge Copperhead, according to Kuniskis, has not yet been made — it could be a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 HEMI or a more compact and lighter turbocharged unit; there are many options. The only idea Kuniskis was skeptical about is hybridization, because, as he rightly noted, the electric add-on becomes obsolete much faster than the car itself, and the Copperhead should have collectible value and exist, as it were, outside of time.
Also, from the words of the top manager of Stellantis’ North American wing, it is clear that the Dodge Copperhead does not intend to compete with the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8, but will be a unique product with no direct analogues on the market. Kuniskis characterized the Copperhead as a “hyper-muscle car.” We believe this should be understood to mean that in its “base” form, the Dodge Copperhead will be significantly cheaper than the Ford Mustang GTD (from $325,000), but its top version will be able to match the Ford Mustang GTD in power and speed.
