Dodge brand CEO Ralph Gilles tells Automotive News [sub] that Dodge’s primary design cue, the “Cross-Hair” grille, will be limited to Ram-branded trucks as Dodge moves on to an undefined “different way.”
We did as much as we could with the split cross-hair grille. We had to be careful because the cooling work was pretty much done when we decided to rebrand the vehicles. That will continue evolving over time. The Ram brand, the truck look they have, they own it.
The obvious question: having relied on truck-derived styling for decades now, where does Dodge go from here? We’ve puzzled over this question since Chrysler announced that Ram would be split off from the Dodge brand, and over a year later, we’re still at a loss. So we’ll put it to you: what would you do to bring Dodge’s design into the post-truck era?
If they’re looking for a stop-gap, they could do worse than revisit this fairly fresh clean look ironically from the height of the malaise era.
They could do a lot worse, like the barbell front end look of the mid sixties.
My favorite Chrysler. Just bring back the soaring trapezoidal grill and fins.
http://www.seriouswheels.com/images/a_1960_Chrysler_300F_Special_Gran_Tourismo.jpg
Actually I just realized the current Charger grill is a very similar to the 1960 300F.
Not gonna lie, I like the new front end of the Charger, even it it does make it look like a big Evo.
I would go for a front-end design that doesn’t lean forward (or appear to) – to me that’s a dated look, cross-bars or not. Stylish need not mean aggressive. Perhaps the early-1980s Mirada (the twin of the 2nd-generation Chrysler Cordoba) could serve as a template.
But then it’d still look dated, I don’t mind dated styling as long as it looks good.
The trouble with lean forward styling is it could have bad effects on the cars aerodynamics.
I still don’t like that they split Dodge/Ram (just seems they made a pointless decision and are now trying to figure out how not to backpedal it), but that horse is well out the gate at this point. On the plus side, a new clean sheet means more styling freedom, and if Chrysler can get its mojo back, that’s got potential for some good possibilities.
I do like the new Charger and Durango, and wonder how they’ll transition those new designs away from the crosshairs.
Pointless? The split will make it easier for the corporate overlords to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I agree, the branding split was not needed. They could have just removed the Ram badge and crosshairs from the cars and kept everything “Dodge”. Consumers will probably think of the trucks as Dodges anyways for many, many years.
But anyway, I don’t see their styling changing drastically other than ditching the grille style. The muscle car look works for Dodge’s brand image and heritage and cars like the Charger will probably look even better without it.
I actually agree here. Dodge should become Chrysler’s ‘muscle,’ taking its grille from some variation on the old Charger (and Challenger).
Agreed, Ford and Chevy don’t have any problem selling trucks, why can’t Dodge? But I’m glad the grill is leaving, just about anything will be an improvement.
Boobs.
Well, they’ve done “Flight Sweep” on the ’57’s, “Cab Forward” on the early 90’s Intrepid, and they need to keep their distance from Chrysler’s 300 theme.. I think they need to go back and figure out what Dodge stands for as a brand before they put pencil to paper or start doodling in auto-cad.
I think they need to take a hard look at the economic realities that most Americans are facing for the next 5 to 10 years. Dodge has always been a middle market brand, I don’t think trying to re-craft it will work. They might want to appeal to the ‘revolutionary spirit’ embodied in the American soul.. oh wait tried that in the late 60’s with the “Dodge Revolution”. They used to chase after GM and Ford, but that may be an irrelevant goal now.
I think the direction should be as “Functional, efficient, affordable fun”. Take it from there. Revisit their huge successes of the past, remember when the Caravan / Voyager were segment busters in the early 80s? Hire Iacocca back as a consultant, (but if he starts talking about long hoods, short trunks, and Rolls Royce grills…)
Sticking a new grill on the Charger is a dead end, but perhaps that’s all they have in the budget. They need to be thinking about 40 or 50 mpg hybrids, with all-weather capability and flexible seating. A modular line of carry-all family focused vehicles that are loaded with the latest technology that has become both inexpensive and ubiquitous. Maybe create a ‘small-business special’ package for people always on the go. They have marketed the giant Ram Trucks that way, place for your laptop, etc. but I think they could take that concept so much further in 2012 and beyond. And in a much smaller, more efficient package.
The problem is that Dodge no longer stands for anything. Not that this is entirely unintentional – removing trucks from the Dodge auspice was the first step in killing the brand from both a marketing perspective and a product perspective. Dodge has absolutely no cache in any car segment.
Small car? Caliber. Beaten by all competitors, easily.
Medium size? Avenger. Need I say more?
Large? Charger. Probably their most competitive but still not particularly good.
Sport? Challenger. Good, but beaten by Mustang and Camaro.
Van? Caravan. Why buy a Dodge when you can buy a Chrysler for $4 more dollars?
Sport SUV? Nitro. Irrelevant Jeep knock-off.
SUV? Journey. Decent vehicle that gets too little attention.
So there you have it – a brand with NOTHING to offer which is now under foreign-run management. [Start playing “Taps”]
They need a logo. Dodge // doesn’t cut it.
Bring back the fratzog
That will get the job done
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fratzog.jpg
+1 — Bring back the Fratzog!
Yeah, but ‘Dodge//‘ is a lot easier to type than the fratzog.
Of course, the fratzog would sure look a helluva lot better on the steering wheel and wheel centers.
Here’s a thought – Full-width grilles, like on the Challenger, with dual headlights within the grille, as “god” intended. The center grill with headlights isolated in a sea of body color is dated and I’m tired of it across all models of domestic cars. “Foreign” cars, I don’t care.
Thats a good idea, though outer lights aren’t dated, just overdone.
+1. Make the Challenger front end the “face” for the whole Dodge brand.
And in a similar vein, the ’71 compacts (Dart/Swinger/Valiant/etc) had a clean, aggressive look to them. The center splitter for the grilles kept the single headlight layout from appearing “toothless” and the grille mounted running/signal lamps drew your eyes towards the center line of the car.
When Pontiac went down, folks who wanted a spicy flavored daily driver were left with Dodge and Nissan. The Altima’s oversized Pontiac-ed rear end stylings, and the traditional faux-sporty Dodge offerings are appealing to Pontiac buyers. Sterioidal styling has a market and Dodge has fallen into it rather well.
So, Dodge should ask itself, “What would Pontiac do?” when offering their cars. “How can we tweak our look in order to appeal to entry level new buyers with the need to look sporty?”
I think what they are doing is being done well. The cross-hair grille is overdone and needs to be changed anyway. If they wish to look like they were designed by Detroit when Detroit was a functioning city, then they should ape the look from 1965-1971, when Dodge really mattered to car buyers.
They already have a ghetto sedan that can be updated with slab side styling, fender brightwork and cutting edge squared off blunt stylings. Bring back a trunk. The Japanese are too anal-retentive and have hidden their trunks for too long. There are opportunities to redefine what a serious sedan should look like.
Serious. I think that is a good word for a new look. We live in serious times and if you want buyers to spend serious cash, Dodge’s cars should look serious. Do a 180 from the silly Japanese offerings like the Cube, Juke, and Prius. Get serious transportation, not the latest Tokyo auto offerings from Hello Kitty.
Serious Detroit METAL.
When Pontiac went down, folks who wanted a spicy flavored daily driver were left with Dodge and Nissan. The Altima’s oversized Pontiac-ed rear end stylings, and the traditional faux-sporty Dodge offerings are appealing to Pontiac buyers. Sterioidal styling has a market and Dodge has fallen into it rather well.
+1 I’ve been saying for quite a while that Nissan is the new Pontiac (I’m just judging by owners and the number of “Nascar” stickers in windows of the Nissans I’m seeing.) And I’m starting to think Infiniti is the new Oldsmobile.
I would argue that Mazda is the new Pontiac. I see where you’re coming from but “What would Pontiac do?” is a question that should never again be asked by the american automotive industry. “What would Holden do?” maybe.
I see more divorced hairdressers driving Nissans than Mazdas. I see more Nissans and Dodges in the city’s trailer parks. I see Mazdas at the local colleges and universities.
Pontiac was the car for the single mom trying to put their little Coltons, Gunners and Taylors into the car seats lodged in the back of the Firebirds they bought used. The Grand Am was the car for the woman at the bar in leopardskin tights and sweatshirt, smoking and drinking a Bud Lite. The Fiero was for college kids and gay men living with their moms.
Since the Grand Am lost it’s plastic ground effects, finned spoiler, bras, and changed it’s name to G6, these buyers have switched to Dodge and Nissan by my observations of the Pontiac’s traditional buyer markets located in neighborhoods composed of Section 8 Housing, double wides, and rental attics.
I think you need to consider the marketplace realities of who will be able to afford ‘serous detroit metal’ on $4.00 gallon gas. The Challenger is great, but it’s a niche muscle car. Everyone who wants to buy one will have done so in a few years, and while I like it as a halo product, it does nothing to solve our long term energy and transportation issues.
Now if you make a cheap, fast, powerful hybrid family musclecar, (electric motors can make a LOT of torque at zero rpm) and style it like a Challenger then you might have a segment buster. And a real reason to buy Dodge again.
Come on be practical, a Dodge at a Porsche price? What you suggest is too expensive and impractical on a lot of levels.
Sorry to disagree VanillaDude, but if they want Dodge to be a mass-market brand, they need to get away from the blocky, pickup-inspired macho man styling that they’ve been cultivating for the last 8 or 10 years. This has really limited their market appeal to essentially 2 groups, rental fleets and guys that used to buy Camaros. The Camaro’s back, so there goes a lot of those sales. Not exactly a market base to build a volume brand around.
Never mind the Camaro, the Challenger is right there next to the Charger. I think the Challenger’s configuration makes a lot more sense, it’s a real musclecar, not a compromise between a sedan and a musclecar.
“…where does Dodge go from here?” Looking at the Charger Evolu…er SRT-8 Japan apparently.
The obvious question: having relied on truck-derived styling for decades now, where does Dodge go from here?
Decades? Really? Aside from the crosshairs grille motif, IMO the “truck-derived styling” didn’t really start on Dodge cars til MY2005 when the Charger and Magnum replaced the Intrepid, then MY2007 when the Caliber replaced the Neon.
If they’re going to look to the past for front-end design inspiration, I may suggest:
1964 Dodge Polara
Dodge Deora custom pickup
1966-67 Charger
You know those chrome-plated scrotums that rednecks like to hang under the rear bumper of their Ram pickups? A set of those in the center of the Dodge grille should at least keep that demographic from abandoning Dodge— no matter how poor the quality and durability may be…
“Rednecks”? Is that anything like “darkies”?
No, my car isn’t compensating for a small penis, it’s compensating for wanting to get where I want to go in the manner I want to travel.
Probably a fake Bentley grill.
Actually, inside of Chrysler styling they refer to the 300’s “Bentley grille”, which is kind of ironic since the grille and headlamps on the current 300 can be traced directly to Virgil Exner’s Chrysler concepts in the 1950s.
How brilliant, more fallout from a badly mishandled decision.
Splitting Dodge and Ram might have made sense in some fantasy world, but it doesn’t really work, and Chrysler knows it. As noted above, Chevy and Ford both sell trucks and cars: why can’t Dodge?
Their truck is the Ram 1500. Simple, yes? But wait! It still has a Dodge badge, and it still says Dodge on the back. So…it’s a Dodge Ram 1500 — exactly what it was before.
The only difference is that the Dodge Dakota is now (officially) the Dodge Ram Dakota.
Ram CEO Fred Diaz said, “I want people to understand that although we will market and brand our Ram trucks as Ram trucks, they will always and forever be Dodges.” SO WHY DON’T YOU CALL THEM DODGES, FRED? I’m sorry to yell, but be serious for a moment. How does he expect people to understand that? Then he makes it worse: “They’ll always be VINed as a Dodge, and somewhere either on the exterior or the interior of the truck, you’ll always be able to see the Dodge logo and the Dodge name.”
The only conclusion I can draw from that is that Chrysler doesn’t know what it wants.
I think the answer revealed itself in the Charger SRT-8 introduction at the Chicago Auto Show.
I think Audi really nailed it about 5 years ago when they went back to the Audi Union style grill on the refreshed A8 (D3 platform, 2006+)… I know some hate it, but i think it was fabulous design element that currently represents one of the core themes to all Audi design. It is versatile and applicable to all vehicles of all sizes…
What I am getting at is that the current Audi grill is a simple inverse trapezoid. A very basic, easily recognizable shape from a distance. Of course, the beauty is in the up close detail and magical way designers tie a basic shape into modern design elements and blend them into the overall design intent of the model.
I think the Dodge Charger SRT-8 reveal was very striking to me mostly because of the emphasis on the new HEXAGON shape grill (although not a true Hexagon, it isn’t symmetical top-to-bottom and it doesnt have a clear edge on the sides) but this is still a very workable, RECOGNIZABLE from afar design element that can be applied to all cars of all sizes.
I think they are testing out the look on the low volume SRT-8 range within Dodge but I have a strong feeling Mr. Gilles is going to be pushing the Hexagon as the predominant grill theme on all future Dodge vehicles. I think it is a great move that has lots of potential.
While we are on the point of grills, I think it is very very interesting to see how the Japanese approach this area. They don’t seem to rely on the same brand recognition vis-a-vis the grill shape to the same extent the German brands do. I think Acura really dropped the ball by not sticking to the ‘upside down pentagon’ or the flying ‘A’. They didn’t need the bold shield grill (for the record, I think the best application of the grill was on the 2007/2008 Acura MDX__ where the leading edge of the metal hood folded down in body colour with the flying ‘A’ suspended by horizontal bars which neatly tied into the detailing within the front headlight clusters)….
Not that im obsessed with grills or anything….
The 2012 Dodges could go out in a blaze with their look from 1962.
Awesome. The cars that got Virgil Exner fired.
Ok, if we’re really looking at a limited budget, they should just do a nice American knock-off of the Mercedes SLS AMG front end.