You answered your own question.
We have all done it to some degree especially when younger.
Hellcat Driver Arrested on Indiana Toll Road
- Thread starter 1978 NYB
- Start date
You answered your own question.
We have all done it to some degree especially when younger.
commando1
Old Man with a Hat
How do you think I knew what to ask?
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
Agree with most of the above opinions especially the one about not allowing a windfall for insurance companies.
Well I guess we learn fire is hot not so much from Mom and Dad telling us but when we get burned. I still have some adventure in me but don't want to get hurt or hurt others so I am getting my thrills doing stuff like this. I would never fly around private property and only at sanctioned FAA approved fields but you get the idea.
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This is the same aircraft used in that video. The HD camera [not on mine yet] is the same size as a key fob that you strap to the top of the frame. Last post on this as I dont want to hijack the thread..
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
I agree with Carmine, the education on what happens to speed wrecks is the best part. I'm proud to say I have not been on the Indy toll road since the state gave it away to a private company and the price has gone up exponentially. With all the middle of nowhere (for the eastern half of US) in western MI and IN why the toll road? Your trapped like a rat in a maze and they swoop in and scoop you up. Should be a separate ticket for stupidity of even using the road.
bluefury361
Old Man with a Hat
This guy looks more like a drug dealer with no respect for money and what it will buy. JMO
It's the main reason I stay off the Interstate hwy system. Even driving 80-90 on the hwy shows a disrespect for others. Especially when distracted or just incompetent. What's the point.....? High speed driving requires a high level of concentration which, in turn, creates stress and fatigue.
This guy should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including loss of driving privilege.
It's the main reason I stay off the Interstate hwy system. Even driving 80-90 on the hwy shows a disrespect for others. Especially when distracted or just incompetent. What's the point.....? High speed driving requires a high level of concentration which, in turn, creates stress and fatigue.
This guy should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including loss of driving privilege.
70bigblockdodge
Old Man with a Hat
Once you have done it a few times it gets oh-hum then what's the point. I imagine it would be alot like owning a Hellcat or others after the first week or so then what you either modify or sell, same with original hemi car after a while it gets old. My car always has you thinking and when the original engine got boring and using alot of oil I switched it out to something I could have a little more fun with and now sorting some fuel problems and it will be fun for a while.
Not to worry, as there is yet another one coming that we all need:
Jeep Trackhawk: it’s official!
For the guy like the one highlighted in this thread, it will launch a lot easier with 4WD.
FCA has the money to spend on developing these necessary vehicles and then complains they can't make the fuel economy standards, while other companies can meet them that spend their money on what most consumers want. No wonder they are constantly looking for a partner to buy them out and spending their limited capital on developing Italian brands like Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia that no one wants instead of putting money into updating their aging platforms. Go Sergio!
Jeep Trackhawk: it’s official!
For the guy like the one highlighted in this thread, it will launch a lot easier with 4WD.
FCA has the money to spend on developing these necessary vehicles and then complains they can't make the fuel economy standards, while other companies can meet them that spend their money on what most consumers want. No wonder they are constantly looking for a partner to buy them out and spending their limited capital on developing Italian brands like Fiat, Alfa Romeo and Lancia that no one wants instead of putting money into updating their aging platforms. Go Sergio!
The Demon is rumored to be AWD.
Fratzog
Old Man with a Hat
At work we rented a Yukon with the EcoTec3 V8 for a business trip. Overall the the vehicle had a nicely appointed and comfortable interior It also gave decent gas mileage. But what a gutless POS when you press the go peddle. FCA will be riding the 5.7 Hemi as it's staple power train for a while for good reason. With Trump hopefully gas mileage concerns will be a moot point for a long time to come.
livininharrow
Senior Member
THAT GUY WAS AN IDIOT RISKING 3 OTHER LIVES. ITS OK TO DRIVE AS FAST AS YOU CAN OR WANT BUT DONT PUT OTHER PEOPLES LIVES IN DANGER BECAUSE YOU HAD A HARDON AT THE TIME.
It still works.
After a tuff day at work a quick dose of Hemi does wonders.
In my h.s. days I-96 between Orchard Lake Rd. exit and Beck Rd. exit was a great stretch to open her up. '71 R.R. did 130, '71 Satellite Sebring got floaty at 100 and my '77 Volare buried the speedo at 110 with a lot of throttle left.
mrfury68
Senior Member
Yeah we all are probably guilty of speeding infractions, especially in our youth. It was only by the grace of God that I didn't hurt myself or anyone else. I was never near 160 mph either. I know the Hellcats brake & handle much better than anything we drove back in the day but 160 mph is NASCAR fast. You hit something at that speed it is over.
Hellcat Charger top end is 204 MPH.
Demon might be more...
Demon might be more...
160MPH may be pushing the envelope, but people are injured and killed every day in crashes that do not involve high speeds, people were having prangs 100 years ago when the average car was not able to go much faster than 35MPH. Hitting a large animal, even at 60MPH, will more than likely write a car off and probably write the driver and passengers off too. All the what if scenarios are simply just that, hypothetical situations that did not take place in this particular case. Fine him for getting caught, but I won't throw stones, and neither should anyone who has broken the speed limit in the past.
Carmine
Old Man with a Hat
Let me say this as someone who is very critical of Sergio's incredibly bad decision making and priority set... All these "Hellcat" variations are relatively cheap and exist largely because it was found the Hemi could take even more boost, well before the original HC was introduced. You can't blame marketing for doing a good job of marketing.
When it comes to "making fuel economy standards", we are well capable of doing that. However being able to do it profitably is an entirely different problem. Let's look at the Ford Focus, which is a much more fully-developed and better amortized global-platform small car than the 2012-16 Dodge Dart.
Ford Focus US Sales:
2012: 245,922
2013: 234,570
2014: 219,634
2015: 202,478
2016: 168,789
The entire small car segment is down 21% 2015-2016. Just as has been proven probably a dozen times before, Americans return to larger cars whenever gas prices fall, just as 95% of the world would do in similar circumstances. So what special magic do the Japanese/Koreans and to a far lesser extent, the Germans use?
Fuel prices artificially inflated by the government and protection from foreign competition. Being able to bank on a few hundred thousand annual small-car sales in your home market means your fixed costs are spread over a much larger number, which delivers massive savings. That leaves more money per-vehicle to do any of the following:
1) Cut prices
2) Add content
3) Increase per-unit profit
The first two make your vehicles more attractive to American consumers. The 3rd helps your R&D. Volatility in the US market due to fuel prices become minor fluctuation.
Conversely, D3 small cars made in the US stay largely on the NA continent because foreign VAT taxes (among other things) make them uncompetitive elsewhere. You have to sell on price, which affects content. Design cycles become longer. Fuel prices make/break profit/loss.
As if that wasn't enough, the US has an asinine leftover from Jimmy Carter's Presidency known a Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE). Rather than making small cars appealing on the demand side, we force automakers to build cars in segments (supply side) where the D3 face the competitive disadvantage I mention above. It's the equivalent of forcing McDonalds to sell asparagus, even if 85% of it went into the trash can. Of course any company that sells more than 400,000 units a year doesn't even have to try, which is a nice gift for the Germans (besides Volkswagen). And how well does VW do in the US? Now take all their non-compliant diesels out of the mix and they are a rounding error.
So I agree... Sergio sucks. Once again, the US (Chrysler) is propping up a socialist European employment agency with strong truck and SUV profit margins. This time it happens to be in Italy rather than Germany.
In a true market economy, Chrysler wouldn't be forced to build what the public doesn't want. If Cerberus (or Chrysler say circa 1995) had wanted to turn Dodge into a specialty performance brand, they would be doing the same thing as Porsche/BMW without selling asparagus. If they wanted to build balls-out luxury Chrysler sedans with 500 hp Hemis (that meet emissions rules) they could do so and become a MB/AMG. Jeep = Land Rover (without the horrible Land Rover reliability). Etc. As the smallest D3 company, it would only make sense to specialize for profitability, but they are not allowed to do that; per the irrelevant Jimmy Carter.
Or the American government could stop being run by globalists, and force open foreign markets by granting access to our large and profitable market only after theirs are opened to us; beyond token gestures and niche markets.
Instead the head-globalist's appointed "czar" decided to kick the can down the road another 10 years on the stupid promise of a 40 mpg car no one wanted and awarded Chrysler to a tremendously inefficient, Italian tire-fire owned by an old-money European family looking to cash out of the auto industry and dump FIAT on whomever is dumb enough to take it. We are the frosting on a turd.
The only thing that might disrupt this is that CUVs/SUVs have become very fuel efficient, so some of the small car advantages that kept the Asians profitable are lessening.
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I can agree with a lot of what you said, although from what I have heard from within the company, the Hellcat required some significant resources to achieve its goals of the highest horsepower engine in a regular production car that could be reasonably packaged and kept cool under sustained high speed driving with a minimum of limiting the available HP due to overheating issues and still have the vehicle meet corporate goals for durability and cost. Others have tried and failed to achieve what the Hellcat did, e.g. Corvette and Mustang.
It seems to me that the fuel economy standards for 2025 reflect a reasonable goal that can be met with available technology and would not require hardly any hybrids or pure electrics to meet. I have read the technology report from the EPA/ARB review, which is well supported and even industry agreed they could meet the adopted standards in that timeframe, although they did request a mid term review of the standards in 2018 that they were unwisely denied by the EPA because of the impending new administration's saber rattling. I suspect the mid term review will be held anyway for the reason you cited, that is, changing market realities that could not be predicted and sustained low gas prices that no one predicted a couple years ago. One aspect of the rules that really helps and is almost always missed by the press, is that the fuel economy standards for cars are completely separate from trucks, so at least building more trucks doesn't affect the ability of the cars to meet the standards and the truck standards are adjusted significantly downward from the cars in terms of the mpg they must achieve. Honestly, I don't think the U.S. fuel economy standards are the driving force any more. What they have done, though, is force the D3 manufacturers to be competitive in this global economy that we now live in and can not withdraw from despite what the current administration might like. Detroit has notoriously been too complacent to a changing world, and that led to their problems over and over again and I believe the Corporate Fuel Economy Standards have helped to keep them competitive with the rest of the world.
But I believe, even today, despite the 2025 fuel economy standards, the U.S. automobile industry is very sensitive to the global economy and will strive to be fully competitive with the rest of the automotive world just to survive. The biggest automotive market in the world is China, and because of their being fed up with living in smoggy cities like Los Angeles did 25 years ago, they have made it clear they want to electrify their entire light duty vehicle fleet as much and as soon as possible. Europe is also moving fast in that direction, as is South Korea. The fastest growing market segment right now is the hybrid/electric vehicle one in the U.S., even if total sales are still about 3% of our market currently. It will only grow, and do so rapidly, as Audi, Mercedes, Hyundai, Toyota and others have each announced that they plan to make pure electric vehicles to compete with Tesla and outdo them in the market place in terms of EV sales. And Tesla is supposed to be selling their new mid size EV for around $35K starting around July this year. The stock market is behind them all the way presently. For example, while the new, and excellent Volt is capable of over 200 miles of range on a single charge and relatively affordable now, sales in the U.S. are below expectations, but in South Korea, for example, they are completely sold out.
My concern is that Sergio seems to be wasting precious resources on Alfa, Fiat, Lancia, etc, and even Hellcat when he should be focusing on making a competive vehicle to the Bolt (a pure EV, and not a hybrid as is the Volt) and outdoing them. Yes, GM claims to lose $9K on every Bolt they sell, but they know they must get a foothold in this emerging market and continue to invest in the technology in order to survive what is clearly coming. The talent at Chrysler is excellent, and in order to become a full time employee, you have to first be a contact employee, and prove your mettle before being hired full time. So they end up with great talent. I fear that unless Sergio really gets serious about making a competive EV, FCA will be left out in the cold in critically large markets and that will lead to ruin fast. Battery costs are continuing to fall with giga-factories like the one Tesla is building in Nevada and technology continues to improve in providing a vehicle with a useable driving range. Other countries are seriously interested in curbing Global Warming and are not ignoring the scientists as is our current administration. We are falling behind every day in technology as we ignore this issue, but the automotive industry is not so unwise and their real pressure is now coming from other countries outside the U.S. where they have to sell vehicles to survive and which are demanding EVs very fast. So by Sergio's lack of foresight, he is now probably correct, they will need to be bought out/merge with another company to survive, and that likely means that models such as Chrysler itself will disappear forever and only Jeep and perhaps Dodge will survive under another umbrella.
78Brougham
"Chump"
Been thinking about attending this with my Lotus. What better way to get the most enjoyment out of your car than to learn the right way.
Lotus Ltd High Performance Driver Education Day Watkins Glen
Any cars can attend, not just Lotus or Mercedes.
Lotus Ltd High Performance Driver Education Day Watkins Glen
Any cars can attend, not just Lotus or Mercedes.
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