48 Fun Facts About Dodge

What were the first names of the two Dodge brothers who founded the company?

John and Horace. Before cars, the inseparable brothers built bicycles around a dirt-proof ball bearing Horace had invented, then sold up to open the Detroit machine shop that became Dodge.

In which Michigan city, surrounded by Detroit, did the Dodge Main factory stand?

Hamtramck. The plant drew so many Polish immigrant workers that a village of about 3,500 people in 1910 had grown more than tenfold by 1920.

Roughly how much did Henry Ford pay the Dodge brothers for their Ford shares in 1919?

About $25 million. The stake had cost the brothers $10,000 in parts and cash sixteen years earlier, and it had already repaid them many times over.

Which part of Henry Ford's first production car did the Dodge brothers build?

The chassis. It came complete with engine and gearbox, so Ford's own men added little more than bodies and wheels, and the Dodges took a tenth of his new company as part of the deal.

The first Dodge car nearly doubled the horsepower of which Ford?

Model T. Dodge offered 35 horsepower to its 20, and the brothers knew its weak points well, having built Ford's engines and gearboxes for a decade.

Which feature, still rare at the time, did the first Dodge car make standard?

All-steel bodies. Most cars still hid a wooden frame under their panels, and the Dodges became the first big backers of Edward Budd's welded steel shells.

Which electrical system, rare for its day, did the first Dodge use?

12-volt. Most cars then ran on six volts, and Dodge itself fell back to six for 1926; the industry only settled on twelve in the mid-1950s.

Which name does Dodge give the supercharged 707-horsepower V8 it launched for 2015?

Hellcat. After engineers certified it at 707 horsepower, Dodge's parts arm began selling the same engine in a box for hot-rodders, as the Hellcrate.

Why did the Dodge brothers sue Henry Ford in 1916?

He stopped paying stock dividends. The brothers won: Michigan's top court ruled in 1919 that Ford had to run the company for its shareholders, a case law students still study.

Which general used a Dodge touring car in the 1916 expedition against Pancho Villa?

John J. Pershing. The Army bought at least 150 Dodges for the campaign, and he used one to keep up with his columns as they pushed across northern Mexico.

Which future WWII general led America's first motorized military raid in three Dodge cars?

George S. Patton. The young lieutenant had the three dead raiders strapped to the hoods of the Dodges and driven back to headquarters, and the press hailed him as a 'bandit killer'.

Which 1974 Dodge sedan, bought as a retired police cruiser, is the Bluesmobile in The Blues Brothers?

The Monaco. The studio bought a fleet of retired California Highway Patrol cars to play the one battered cruiser, each set up for a different stunt.

Both Dodge brothers fell ill visiting which city's auto show?

New York. It was January 1920, with a flu pandemic still running: one brother died in the city days later, and the other never fully recovered and followed him before the year was out.

Who sold Dodge Brothers to a Wall Street bank in 1925 for $146 million, then a record cash deal?

The founders' widows. Matilda and Anna Dodge had inherited the company five years earlier, and the bankers who paid them resold it to Walter Chrysler within three years.

What nickname did the 426 Hemi V8 in Dodge's 1960s muscle cars earn for its size and power?

The Elephant. It proved so strong on the track in 1964 that NASCAR barred it for 1965, until Chrysler agreed to sell a tamer version in ordinary road cars.

Which racing legend was hired to turn 1980s Dodges such as the Omni GLH into performance cars?

Carroll Shelby. He was called in by Chrysler's chairman, the same executive who had once brought him to the Ford Mustang, and he later advised on the Viper.

From 1933, Dodge sat between Plymouth and which other brand in Chrysler's lineup?

DeSoto. Chrysler had launched DeSoto as the cheaper of the two, then swapped them for 1933 in the hope of lifting Dodge's sales.

Which 1940s Chrysler feature let a Dodge stop in gear without stalling?

Fluid Drive. An oil-filled coupling took the place of the flywheel, so the engine kept running at a standstill, though the driver still pressed a clutch to change gear.

Which engine maker's turbo-diesel, first offered in 1989, made Dodge pickups a favourite for heavy towing?

Cummins. The straight-six diesel, a design also found in school buses, gave Dodge's ageing pickups their first sales rise in years.

Which civilian truck grew directly out of Dodge's wartime WC series?

The Power Wagon. Dodge put the army's four-wheel-drive truck on sale almost unchanged, flat fenders and all, and was still listing the old 'Military Type' beside its modern pickups after 1957.

What was the name of Dodge's first V8, a smaller version of the Chrysler Hemi?

Red Ram. Chrysler scaled its new Hemi down for the smaller brand, and in 1953 Dodge took Red Ram cars to the Bonneville Salt Flats and came home with more than a hundred speed records.

Which Chrysler design chief led the 1955 restyle that brought tail fins to Dodge?

Virgil Exner. He had worked under Harley Earl at GM and then for Raymond Loewy, and his finned 1950s cars set rival makers scrambling to fit bigger and bigger fins of their own.

Which Japanese-built Dodge was dropped as pace car of the 1991 Indianapolis 500 after union protests?

The Stealth. Auto workers objected to an imported car leading America's biggest race, so Dodge rushed out a prototype of its still-unreleased Viper instead.

How did drivers select gears on a Dodge automatic of the late 1950s and early 1960s?

Mechanical push-buttons. The row of buttons sat at the far left of the dashboard, replacing the column lever of Dodge's first automatics, and lasted until a lever returned for 1965.

Dodge's first compact, launched for 1961, was a variation on which Plymouth?

The Valiant. Dodge's version, the Lancer, sold poorly and lasted only two model years before the 1963 Dart took its place and became one of the division's best sellers.

Which Dodge, launched for 1966 as a fastback version of the Coronet, is the villains' car in the Bullitt chase?

The Charger. The film used two black 1968 cars, one for close-ups and one for stunts, and the stunt car's big V8 was left almost standard for the chase.

Which Dodge starred in the 1971 chase film Vanishing Point?

The Challenger. Dodge joined the pony-car race years after the Mustang, and the film sends a white R/T flat out from Denver toward San Francisco with police on its tail.

Dodge's Colt subcompact of the seventies was built by which Japanese partner?

Mitsubishi. The Colt was a rebadged Mitsubishi Galant shipped from Japan, the start of a partnership that kept Mitsubishi-built Dodges in showrooms into the 1990s.

The original Dodge Demon was a badge-engineered version of which Plymouth?

The Duster. Dodge's copy sold far fewer than its Plymouth twin, and after two model years the Demon name was dropped and the car became the Dart Sport.

Which European Chrysler model was the basis for the Dodge Omni?

The Horizon. The American version even borrowed its first engine, a 1.7-litre four, from Volkswagen, whose Rabbit it was built to fight.

Which Chrysler chairman secured federal loan guarantees in 1979?

Lee Iacocca. Fired by Ford in 1978, he joined its struggling rival, won $1.5 billion in guarantees from Congress and repaid the loans seven years early.

What was the Dodge version of Chrysler's K-Car?

The Aries. Launched for 1981 with a Plymouth twin, the plain front-drive sedan sold well enough to carry Chrysler while it paid back its government-backed loans.

The redesigned 1994 Dodge Ram won weekly prime-time exposure as the hero's truck in which TV series?

Walker, Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris's lawman drove one for years, welcome publicity for a truck whose big-rig nose had been thought a styling gamble.

Which Plymouth was the Dodge Caravan's twin when it launched for 1984?

The Voyager. Both vans arrived with a single sliding door, on the passenger side only, chosen so the rear seats could be reached even in a tight parking space.

What type of vehicle did the Dodge Caravan largely replace in American driveways?

The station wagon. Chrysler's brief was a van low enough to park in an ordinary garage, and it borrowed the K-car's engine and transmission so it would drive like one.

Which Dodge sports car made Car and Driver's 10Best list for 1984 in Turbo form?

The Daytona. Under the sleek body sat the humble K-car's four-cylinder engine, turbocharged to 142 horsepower.

Which small Dodge pickup of the 1980s was built on the front-drive Omni's car platform?

The Rampage. Chrysler made it from the Omni's coupe sibling rather than a truck frame, so it drove like a small car, and it lasted only three model years.

Which actor narrated "The New Dodge" TV ads through the 1990s?

Edward Herrmann. The voice of Dodge's new models was a classic-car man whose own taste ran to restored pre-war machines, and he spent years as master of ceremonies at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance.

What did Chrysler call the wheels-at-the-corners styling of the 1993 Dodge Intrepid?

Cab forward. Moving the wheels out to the corners and stretching the windshield over the engine opened up the cabin and, the engineers found, improved the ride and cornering too.

What nickname did Chrysler's designers give their first study for the truck that became the 1994 Dodge Ram?

Louisville Slugger. That 1986 study looked more like a van and was scrapped, and so was its me-too successor; the big-rig face that sold the truck came from a third attempt.

The second-generation Dodge Ram was the hero's truck in which 1990s disaster movie?

Twister. Bill Paxton's storm chaser drives a brand-new Ram 2500 in bright red through the film, which is packed with other Chrysler products too, from Jeeps to Dodge Caravans.

Which pickup was the original Dodge Durango SUV based on?

The Dakota. The Durango borrowed the pickup's nose, dashboard and front seats, and Dodge raised the roof behind them so that a third row could face forward.

Chrysler merged with which German company in 1998?

Daimler-Benz. Its chief sold the deal as a 'merger of equals', a claim angry investors took to court, and nine years later Daimler sold Chrysler on to the investment firm Cerberus.

Which 2005 Dodge family hauler brought back both rear-wheel drive and the Hemi V8?

The Magnum. Dodge had built nothing but front-drive big cars since the 1980s, so the muscular rear-drive five-door was a deliberate throwback, right down to its engine's famous name.

Which Italian automaker partnered with Chrysler in June 2009?

Fiat. It built up its stake step by step and in January 2014 bought the last shares from the auto workers' retiree health trust, making Chrysler wholly Italian-owned.

When the Viper returned for 2013, which performance brand's badge did it wear in place of Dodge's?

SRT. Chrysler's Street and Racing Technology team was briefly a brand of its own with the Viper as its flagship, until it was folded back into Dodge in 2014.

The 2013 Dodge Dart compact was based on a design from which brand?

Alfa Romeo. Engineers took the Giulietta hatchback's platform, widened and stretched it for American tastes, and built the Dart sedan on top.

The 2021 merger of FCA and PSA Group created which parent company of Dodge?

Stellantis. The deal gathered fourteen car brands, from Dodge and Jeep to Peugeot and Citroën, under one roof, with PSA's chief Carlos Tavares as its first boss.