Dodge SRT4. At the (almost) end of it's run, bow your heads and reflect.

[1320ME]

your car is badass i love it nice work

[passtschon]

Thanks man, let's see some of yours!

[toasteroven]

I haven't checked this thread for a long time. Time for a bump, and some more commentary;

March. It’s an important month for me; it’s my birth month. But it’s also important to me for another reason; March 2004 was when I first drove the automotive industries’ once best kept (now worst kept) secret; the Dodge SRT-4.

It took every notion I had of an “econobox” and threw it out the window, stomped on it, mashed it into the ground with a bulldozer, and then urinated on it. An econobox was supposed to have squishy seating for 5, tip onto it’s door handles around corners, and sip fuel like a teetotaler. It was something old people could buy for their college-bound teens, and snicker around the morning coffee at A&W with their bridge club that due to it’s slowness, uncoolness, and sheer boringness, their kids could never get into trouble with it.

But this… this was sheer and utter madness. It had more power than any of its rivals. It could go around a corner without slowing to the posted number on the little yellow signs. It had racing seats straight from the factory. And it was even more glorious in what it didn’t have; mufflers. Sure, your neighbors will hate you when you come burbling in at 3am, but not as much as when you bomb down the street to work first thing in the morning.

My god, I love that car. The sheer brutality of the engine, the laws of physics it throws out the window whenever you mash the gas pedal to the floor. It doesn’t hurt that it has one of the best soundtracks to come out of a factory that isn’t in Italy; the exhaust note from the 2.4L turbocharged engine that spins the front tires to the tune of 230hp buzzes up and down your spine, and tingles in that little space right above your stomach. They call it butterflies, I call it incredibility. This much power, this much handling, this much sheer and absolute automotive joy, for less than a Honda Accord V6? It’s like when you sneeze and the world feels like it compresses in a weird way; surely the “Frankeneon” is a product of someone distorting reality, a waking dream, or something intangible… because how else could this have happened at the company with the pentagram logo?

Simple, so simple it is just three letters long; PVO. You may be familiar with their first effort; the Viper. It was built in a dimly lit corner of the factory by a dozen people with basic tools and duct tape, and spare parts from pickup trucks and wrecked Fisher Price toys. It had a massive engine under the hood, lots of plastic slathered about, but more importantly; it injected spirit back into the company, and into the consumer. The Viper was a halo car that proved that even with no cash around and everyone living off bread and water, Dodge could make a car that caused people’s hearts to miss beats, and amorous love affairs with cars that did not originate on another continent began again.

What the average person does not know, is that some of those PVO fellows looked at the lowly Neon, and said “hmmmmm”. Now, keep in mind this was before the LX platform that’s given us the Charger, Magnum and 300. This is before PVO was re-jumbled to spell SRT. This is when the Viper was simply an “RT/10”, the Prowler was hitting the streets, and Intrepids and cloud cars were in abundance.

So, logically, what could they do? The end result after tinkering with supercharging was the same formula they used on the Viper; big displacement, check. Good suspension, check. Ability to destroy its rivals and embarrass those further up the performance totem pole for dirt cheap; check. When the SRT-4 came out in 2003, there was absolutely nothing that could compete with it. Oh sure, critics will point out the obvious choices like SVT Focus, Mazdaspeed Protégé, Sentra SE-R Spec-V, yadda-yadda. But let’s cut the bread with a bread knife, shall we? None of them competed at the same power level. None of them competed with the same frugal options and features. And certainly none of them could keep up. In fact, people with Mustang GTs and 350Zs found themselves being challenged by these little Neons with stupid wings. And then being utterly humiliated when all they saw were that sky-high spoiler and taillights, despite how hard they pushed the pedal into the firewall. The SRT-4 was a remarkable car for the money, and there are few today that remain easily accessible to the majority of the car-buying public. The Z06 and GT-R are perfect examples of this. And the icing on the cake is that the ‘4 still got decent fuel economy, and today holds its used value remarkably well.

Now, continue the fast forward to today, and what do we see? A 200hp Civic. 260hp Mazda. 300hp Mustang GT. Golf GTI. Another SRT4. WRX STI and EVO X on our shores. Absurd power levels that were not here a simple 5-6 years ago. They simply didn’t exist. Even going into the other categories like large cars and SUVs, horsepower is up all across the board. You now have a selection of multiple SUVs that can carry 5 people in leather-swaddled comfort from 0-60 in less than 5 seconds. Who would have thought that Mercedes went from being a stodgy old-man retiree car company to having some of the hottest performance models on the market? Yes, the market has drastically changed and *duh* it’s for the better for the enthusiast. I don’t think the SRT-4 or SRT8s and SRT6 deserve all the credit, but I do think that they were turning points. These cars made affordability, practicality and performance able to be used in the same sentence again, without laughing.

I really didn’t intend to digress from that March when I first drove an SRT-4. But, March is important for an even larger milestone than that; that’s when I owned an SRT-4. My god, I love that car. The sheer brutality of the engine, the laws of… well, you get the idea. It was an insanely fun car to drive, and the enthusiasts’ community that arose was even more phenomenal. I met a lot of people that I would never have met otherwise. I racked up nearly 100,000kms in 3 years in the SRT-4, and drove it on twisty mountain roads, buried the needle on long highway straits, and plowed through Canadian winters with the front spoiler. I had child seats bolted into it; I had Christmas lights adorn it, and even drove it in a parade. I have a picture, buried in my Facebook profile, that my friends and family love to make fun of. My wife took it from the heavily-bolstered passenger seat, while I in my heavily-bolstered drivers’ seat had just finished carving up some particularly fun and challenging mountain road far above the speed that a sane and sensible human being would do. I have the stupidest grin on my face. I look like I peed myself in -50 degree weather while naked, and I am sooooooo happy to be warm. I have the kind of grin most people are ashamed to wear in public; it belies true and utter happiness at that moment in a person’s life. There are no worries, no doubts, no problems. Just sheer and utter bliss to be in a great car, on a great bit of road, with the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.

Then, a rather insignificant month came along; June. June 2007 to be precise. That would be the month that all good things came to an end. That would be the month I traded in my SRT-4. I could come up with a multitude of excuses, like practicality and affordability of multiple new vehicles in our family, but the short version was I needed more. I needed more speed, more horsepower, and very unimportantly, more space as we were a growing family. Unfortunately, space won out and we purchased a rather large vehicle with more than 5 seats. I drove away from the dealership, while my SRT-4 remained behind. I watched it in my rearview until I could see it no more. This time I had a different feeling in that space; and it was not a pleasant feeling at all. It reeked of doubt, regret, and sadness.

I’ve seen my SRT-4 twice with her new owners now, and other than an unfortunate, minor incident involving a tree, she’s no worse for wear. But the hollowness is more than I thought it would be. The sheer and utter joy I got from planting the pedal to the floor just isn’t the same with 300ish horsepower and a 2 ½ ton SUV. Granted, I had no where to put large items in the SRT-4, except maybe tucking stuff under the rear basket-handle spoiler and using straps to secure it, and the SRT-4 was not the best vehicle to go off-road to fish in… but there is still something missing. I still can feel my heart beat faster on the rare occasion I see an SRT-4, and I still turn off the car stereo and roll down the windows to hear an SRT-4 rumble by.

And when I see that stupid grin plastered on someone else’s face while driving their SRT-4, I smile too because I share the secret. I know the feeling. And one day, I’ll have that feeling again. Just not today.

[quikdrive]

Very well written.

Same here:

Quote:

I still can feel my heart beat faster on the rare occasion I see an SRT-4, and I still turn off the car stereo and roll down the windows to hear an SRT-4 rumble by.

[ReiKo]

I still can't believe it's been 5 years since I bought mine... And 3 years since I drove mine last...

Ahhh next year will be fun...

['05NeonMaaaaan]

Quote: Originally Posted by toasteroven

I haven't checked this thread for a long time. Time for a bump, and some more commentary;

March. It’s an important month for me; it’s my birth month. But it’s also important to me for another reason; March 2004 was when I first drove the automotive industries’ once best kept (now worst kept) secret; the Dodge SRT-4.

It took every notion I had of an “econobox” and threw it out the window, stomped on it, mashed it into the ground with a bulldozer, and then urinated on it. An econobox was supposed to have squishy seating for 5, tip onto it’s door handles around corners, and sip fuel like a teetotaler. It was something old people could buy for their college-bound teens, and snicker around the morning coffee at A&W with their bridge club that due to it’s slowness, uncoolness, and sheer boringness, their kids could never get into trouble with it.

But this… this was sheer and utter madness. It had more power than any of its rivals. It could go around a corner without slowing to the posted number on the little yellow signs. It had racing seats straight from the factory. And it was even more glorious in what it didn’t have; mufflers. Sure, your neighbors will hate you when you come burbling in at 3am, but not as much as when you bomb down the street to work first thing in the morning.

My god, I love that car. The sheer brutality of the engine, the laws of physics it throws out the window whenever you mash the gas pedal to the floor. It doesn’t hurt that it has one of the best soundtracks to come out of a factory that isn’t in Italy; the exhaust note from the 2.4L turbocharged engine that spins the front tires to the tune of 230hp buzzes up and down your spine, and tingles in that little space right above your stomach. They call it butterflies, I call it incredibility. This much power, this much handling, this much sheer and absolute automotive joy, for less than a Honda Accord V6? It’s like when you sneeze and the world feels like it compresses in a weird way; surely the “Frankeneon” is a product of someone distorting reality, a waking dream, or something intangible… because how else could this have happened at the company with the pentagram logo?

Simple, so simple it is just three letters long; PVO. You may be familiar with their first effort; the Viper. It was built in a dimly lit corner of the factory by a dozen people with basic tools and duct tape, and spare parts from pickup trucks and wrecked Fisher Price toys. It had a massive engine under the hood, lots of plastic slathered about, but more importantly; it injected spirit back into the company, and into the consumer. The Viper was a halo car that proved that even with no cash around and everyone living off bread and water, Dodge could make a car that caused people’s hearts to miss beats, and amorous love affairs with cars that did not originate on another continent began again.

What the average person does not know, is that some of those PVO fellows looked at the lowly Neon, and said “hmmmmm”. Now, keep in mind this was before the LX platform that’s given us the Charger, Magnum and 300. This is before PVO was re-jumbled to spell SRT. This is when the Viper was simply an “RT/10”, the Prowler was hitting the streets, and Intrepids and cloud cars were in abundance.

So, logically, what could they do? The end result after tinkering with supercharging was the same formula they used on the Viper; big displacement, check. Good suspension, check. Ability to destroy its rivals and embarrass those further up the performance totem pole for dirt cheap; check. When the SRT-4 came out in 2003, there was absolutely nothing that could compete with it. Oh sure, critics will point out the obvious choices like SVT Focus, Mazdaspeed Protégé, Sentra SE-R Spec-V, yadda-yadda. But let’s cut the bread with a bread knife, shall we? None of them competed at the same power level. None of them competed with the same frugal options and features. And certainly none of them could keep up. In fact, people with Mustang GTs and 350Zs found themselves being challenged by these little Neons with stupid wings. And then being utterly humiliated when all they saw were that sky-high spoiler and taillights, despite how hard they pushed the pedal into the firewall. The SRT-4 was a remarkable car for the money, and there are few today that remain easily accessible to the majority of the car-buying public. The Z06 and GT-R are perfect examples of this. And the icing on the cake is that the ‘4 still got decent fuel economy, and today holds its used value remarkably well.

Now, continue the fast forward to today, and what do we see? A 200hp Civic. 260hp Mazda. 300hp Mustang GT. Golf GTI. Another SRT4. WRX STI and EVO X on our shores. Absurd power levels that were not here a simple 5-6 years ago. They simply didn’t exist. Even going into the other categories like large cars and SUVs, horsepower is up all across the board. You now have a selection of multiple SUVs that can carry 5 people in leather-swaddled comfort from 0-60 in less than 5 seconds. Who would have thought that Mercedes went from being a stodgy old-man retiree car company to having some of the hottest performance models on the market? Yes, the market has drastically changed and *duh* it’s for the better for the enthusiast. I don’t think the SRT-4 or SRT8s and SRT6 deserve all the credit, but I do think that they were turning points. These cars made affordability, practicality and performance able to be used in the same sentence again, without laughing.

I really didn’t intend to digress from that March when I first drove an SRT-4. But, March is important for an even larger milestone than that; that’s when I owned an SRT-4. My god, I love that car. The sheer brutality of the engine, the laws of… well, you get the idea. It was an insanely fun car to drive, and the enthusiasts’ community that arose was even more phenomenal. I met a lot of people that I would never have met otherwise. I racked up nearly 100,000kms in 3 years in the SRT-4, and drove it on twisty mountain roads, buried the needle on long highway straits, and plowed through Canadian winters with the front spoiler. I had child seats bolted into it; I had Christmas lights adorn it, and even drove it in a parade. I have a picture, buried in my Facebook profile, that my friends and family love to make fun of. My wife took it from the heavily-bolstered passenger seat, while I in my heavily-bolstered drivers’ seat had just finished carving up some particularly fun and challenging mountain road far above the speed that a sane and sensible human being would do. I have the stupidest grin on my face. I look like I peed myself in -50 degree weather while naked, and I am sooooooo happy to be warm. I have the kind of grin most people are ashamed to wear in public; it belies true and utter happiness at that moment in a person’s life. There are no worries, no doubts, no problems. Just sheer and utter bliss to be in a great car, on a great bit of road, with the wind in your hair and the sun on your face.

Then, a rather insignificant month came along; June. June 2007 to be precise. That would be the month that all good things came to an end. That would be the month I traded in my SRT-4. I could come up with a multitude of excuses, like practicality and affordability of multiple new vehicles in our family, but the short version was I needed more. I needed more speed, more horsepower, and very unimportantly, more space as we were a growing family. Unfortunately, space won out and we purchased a rather large vehicle with more than 5 seats. I drove away from the dealership, while my SRT-4 remained behind. I watched it in my rearview until I could see it no more. This time I had a different feeling in that space; and it was not a pleasant feeling at all. It reeked of doubt, regret, and sadness.

I’ve seen my SRT-4 twice with her new owners now, and other than an unfortunate, minor incident involving a tree, she’s no worse for wear. But the hollowness is more than I thought it would be. The sheer and utter joy I got from planting the pedal to the floor just isn’t the same with 300ish horsepower and a 2 ½ ton SUV. Granted, I had no where to put large items in the SRT-4, except maybe tucking stuff under the rear basket-handle spoiler and using straps to secure it, and the SRT-4 was not the best vehicle to go off-road to fish in… but there is still something missing. I still can feel my heart beat faster on the rare occasion I see an SRT-4, and I still turn off the car stereo and roll down the windows to hear an SRT-4 rumble by.

And when I see that stupid grin plastered on someone else’s face while driving their SRT-4, I smile too because I share the secret. I know the feeling. And one day, I’ll have that feeling again. Just not today.

Sorry to quote the whold thing, but that was GREAT!! I fall in love with my SRT4 every day! My GF doesn't understand why, when I run through 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear, I'm grinning like mad!

GO GET ANOTHER SRT MAN, YOU NEED IT!!!

[projectneon01]

i love my SRT!

[LowNSlowNeon]

Ah I remember when I drove my dad's SRT-4 to a 12.4...which made it the first stock turbo SRT-4 into the 12s.

I had to get my own in 05....sold it later that year though

I'm currently looking for a good deal on a decently low mileage SRT-4 as we speak though.

I want to jump back into one