Per Your Request: The HEMI

Ummm....34 people visit today and only ONE suggestion? I expected a little better I guess. Okay, is DaimlerChrysler overdoing the Hemi? No. The Mexican plant can only produce 440,000 Hemi V8 engines in a year. Those engines are only available to the Chrysler Group division of DCX so no Hemis in a Mercedes. Chrysler Group sold 2,607,000 vehicles worldwide last year with 2,127,451 units in the U.S. last year. While DCX hopes to sell more vehicles, especially using the famed Hemi trademark as a propelling force to drive up sales, we'll use the current numbers for this analysis.

The Hemi V8 will only fit into large rear drive vehicles that can handle the power of the engine. Guess what vehicles have been recently revamped? Dodge Ram full size pickup trucks, Dodge Durango nearly full sized SUVs, Dodge Dakota mid sized pickup trucks, Jeep Grand Cherokee mid sized SUVs, and the LX rear wheel drive sedans (Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum). What you're seeing is a push of new, high profit margin vehicles that just happen to be big enough to accomodate a 340 horsepower V8 engine as an option. With all the new vehicles marketing wants to push them off the dealer lots and we get a perception of too much Hemi (no such thing in my horsepower addicted mind).

All the replacement front drive vehicles (Sebring/Stratus, Neon replacement which can't come soon enough to fight of the new Mazda 3 and the replacement VW Jetta, minivans) are not due for another two to four years and they will not be able to accomodate this monster motor. DCX is simply trying to get as much money for their investment now that they can. Shove the motor in the vehicles that can use it and it which it fits. At best you'll still have a less than 1 in 5 chance of a new Chrysler vehicle having the Hemi in it. That sounds about right for an uplevel engine.