Dodge Charger Daytona SRT E-Muscle Car Goes To SEMA In Stryker Red

This past August, Dodge gave the world its first taste of the brand’s future as a purveyor of e-Muscle cars with the debut of the Charger Daytona SRT concept. The electric muscle car garnered a lot of attention for being the first electric vehicle with an exhaust system, or at least a sound generator labeled as an exhaust. The production version of the Charger Daytona doesn’t arrive until 2024 which means Dodge still has time to fine tune exactly what it will sound like. This week at the annual Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas Dodge will show an updated version of the concept and conduct consumer clinics on the Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust.

Visually, the biggest change to the concept is a shift from a dark gray to a much bolder Stryker Red. This is a tri-coat red finish that was last seen on the Dodge Viper in the mid-2010s. The form of the vehicle shown in Las Vegas is intended to be representative of the top end Banshee powertrain with the stage 2 Direct Connection power upgrades. As such, the car has corresponding fender badges and 18-inch carbon fiber wheels from Direct Connection shod with 305-mm wide drag radials.

For now, Dodge still isn’t saying how much power and torque the 800V Banshee system will produce or how much the 2 Direct Connection packages will upgrade it. However, we now have some information on the output of the base and mid-level powertrains which use a 400V architecture.

The base Charger will start at 455-hp with the stage 1 upgrade boosting it to 495-hp while stage 2 goes to 535-hp. The mid-level system starts at 590-hp and goes to 630 or 670-hp with Direct Connection upgrades. The upgrades will be enabled by a special crystal key that the driver can plug into the dashboard. In addition to the Stryker Red show car, a video display wall is planned that will feature nine distinct colors for each of the power levels.

Recently Dodge brand chief Tim Kuniskis acknowledged that work on the Fratzonic exhaust wasn’t yet complete and videos recorded at the reveal didn’t really represent the full impact of the system. As part of the ongoing development process, SEMA show attendees will have the opportunity to participate in clinics at the Dodge stand to provide feedback on the tuning of the system. Since sound is considered to be an important part of the appeal of muscle cars, Dodge really wants to get this component right.

Until and likely even after the new electric Dodge lineup arrives, the brand is still offering high-performance internal combustion crate engines for those looking to create custom muscle machines. There are now four Hellephant crate engines with a pair aluminum block 7.0-liter variants at 1,000 and 1,100-hp and two 6.2-liter iron block engines at 900 and 1,000-hp.

Dodge is also launching the new HurriCrate engine family based on the 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged inline-six Hurricane engine now launching in the Wagoneer. The HurriCrate Cat 1 is basically the standard Wagoneer engine with 420-hp while the Cat 3 is upgraded to 550-hp. Full specifications and pricing of all the new crate engines will be coming in early 2023.