10 COOLEST DODGE CONCEPT VEHICLES THAT NEVER MADE IT INTO PRODUCTION

Automakers produce concept vehicles too, as the name says, try out new concepts. Sometimes they make outrageous prototypes with no intention of ever going into production, just to showcase their design skills. Other times, a concept car is basically throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, hoping it will resonate with the car-buying public.

Many times, a concept car will serve as the basis for a vehicle that an automaker will eventually produce, but just as often, they are an exercise in design fantasy. There are many reasons why the prototypes never make it a full production vehicle like they are too expensive to make, wholly impractical, or just plain ugly. As with the case of the Ford Nucleon, which had an actual onboard nuclear reactor as a power source, sometimes the concepts are bat-guano crazy and too dangerous.

Over the years, Dodge has mass-produced some of the wildest and most radical vehicles like the Daytona, Warlock, and Viper. It stands to reason that a company that can put out killer, yet unconventional rides like that probably has some even more insane stuff in their stable of concept cars. As it turns out, Dodge has made some seriously cool vehicles throughout its history that never made it to production but probably should have.

Dodge ZEO

Before EVs were cool, Dodge made a four-passenger all-electric sport wagon concept car, called the ZEO, that they debuted the 2008 North American International Auto Show. Powered by a 268 horsepower (200 kW) electric motor with a lithium-ion battery, the scissor-door beauty could hit 0-60 mph in 5.7 seconds and had 250 miles of range. This was the same year that the Tesla Roadster came out and 4 years before the Model S.

Dodge said they had every intention of putting the ZEO into production, but for whatever reason, it never happened. They certainly missed the boat on this one as they could have had the first mass-produced EV on the market. The Tesla Roadster was an expensive, limited edition and there were no other EVs for regular folks. Unlike every Tesla model, the Dodge ZEO was sharp-looking, and combined with the performance numbers, would have been a hit.

Dodge Copperhead

Making its debut at the 1997 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the Dodge Copperhead was supposed to be an affordable safer alternative to the freaky fast, hard-to-drive Viper. Set to be priced at around $30,000 the Copperhead put emphasis on driving comfort, while the Viper was all about uncontrollable speed. With a 220 horsepower 2.7-liter V-6, the car was plenty fast for most people and featured superior suspension and handling upgrades to its Viper cousin.

The first problem arose when ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons sued Dodge over the name because he had a trademarked custom car called the "Kopperhead." After that, Dodge referred to their Copperhead as the "Concept Vehicle." The second issue, and clearly the most important one, is that Dodge never built the cool ride. They were set to go into production in 2000, but that never happened and nobody explained why.

Dodge T-Rex

Dodge built the 2021 Ram 1500 TRX, one of the fastest pickups ever made, to counter the super-powered Ford Raptor. The "TRX" is short of "Tyrannosaurus Rex" which is obviously a more badass dinosaur than a puny Velociraptor. Long before a Ford Raptor was a thing, in 1997, Dodge built a six-wheeled beast called the T-Rex. Based on thier popular Ram trucks, they crammed in another rear axle to make a credible post-apocalypse wasteland assault vehicle.

Equipped with the same 8.0-liter Magnum V-10 engine as the Ram 2500 and 3500, the T-Rex had the power to spare, making 300 horsepower and 450 lb.-ft. of torque. It had the added advantage over its Ram brothers by being a six-wheel drive behemoth. The T-Rex was never intended for production and was, "was designed to shed light on the abilities of the designers at Dodge Chrysler," which is too bad because that is one cool-looking truck.

Dodge Charger III

To answer the question of what if a Charger and a Stingray had a baby, Dodge built the 1968 Charger III concept car. The Charger II was a 1965 concept that launched the entire Charger line, but the Charger III was intended to showcase the automaker's styling and design prowess. Touted by the company at the time, it was "the aerodynamically most efficient car ever designed and built by Dodge."

It was also too cool to never be produced. Standing just three and a half feet tall, the two-seat sports car had a flip-up canopy like a fighter jet. It was built to accommodate all Dodge V-8s, including the 426 Hemi. A '68 Charger with a 426 could blaze a quarter-mile in 13.4 seconds, with a top speed of 131 mph, so the potential for the lighter, more aerodynamic Charger III was immense. Though it never became a production car, it was a Matchbox car from 1970-1975.

Dodge Tomahawk

Easily the most radical thing Dodge designers ever did was to slap some wheels on a Viper V-10 SRT10 engine, creating the 2003 Tomahawk. Is it a motorcycle? Is it a car? Nobody can agree because it looks like a two-wheeler but actually has 4 close-coupled wheels. Maybe it's a quad, but there's no way anyone in his or her right mind would take this crotch-rocket off-road. Dodge press releases gave a theoretical top speed of the Tomahawk as 420 mph, but that was just a guess as nobody was crazy enough to wind it out that fast.

Though this was a concept vehicle that was never intended for production, Dodge offered to hand-build reproductions to order. It was sold through the Neiman Marcus catalog for $555,000 and the best estimates say that a total of nine were ever purchased. Unlike a lot of other Dodge concept vehicles that never made it into production, but should have, the Tomahawk should have only been a museum piece. If this thing had been mass-produced there's a good chance it would have killed almost every owner.

Dodge Super8 Hemi

The Dodge Super8 Hemi is one of those vehicles in which people either think it's the most hideous thing on four wheels or the coolest concept to roll out of a designer's twisted mind. Debuting at the 2001 North American International Auto Show, the hard-to-define ride could be a mash-up of a sixth-gen Charger, first-gen Durango, and maybe a '57 Chevy Nomad. Whatever it was, it turned heads and didn't leave any observers without an opinion.

One thing that wasn't up for debate was the Super8's performance. Packed with a 353 horsepower 5.7-liter Hemi V-8, the unusual vehicle could reach 0-60 mph in 5.7 seconds, which is a lot faster than anything Dodge was making at the time. Obviously this prototype was the foundation for The 2005 Magnum, the 2005 Chrysler 300 and the 2006 Charger, but it would have been cool to let people get behind the wheel of these suckers too.

Dodge Sidewinder

If the idea of a convertible mid-sized pickup with a freakishly huge engine sounds appealing, the 1997 Dodge Sidewinder concept vehicle should satisfy that itch. Based on the Dodge Dakota truck, only more of a roofless roadster, this awesome set of wheels had an 8.0L Viper GTS-R V-10 under the hood. It was a sub-4 second 0-60 mph and 12 second quarter-mile maniac. The 640 horsepower and 530 pound-feet. of torque in this lightweight ride gave it an obscene power to weight ratio.

This was an entirely new class of vehicle that could have been a winner for Dodge, but for reasons known only to the company, they never pushed it into production. Years later, Chevrolet came out with a similar vehicle in the SSR. It was slower, uglier, and pretty much a failure, but had Dodge pumped out the super-performance Sidewinder, it could have made a big splash.

1970 Dodge SuperCharger

Elwood Engle, the VP of Styling for Chrysler's Dodge division, wanted to see if it was possible to turn a second-gen Charger into a roadster, so he commissioned a one-off build now known as the SuperCharger. Originally in white with blue stripes, it was a convertible two-seater with a half-windshield, no trunk, and fake side pipes. It was eventually painted Hemi Orange with a black hood and the Daytona front nose was added.

Used primarily as a show car, it actually drove and the 440 under the hood made sure it was fast. At various times it was advertised as having a 426 Hemi, but it never really had that. After its show career was over in the early 1970s, it was sold to a Dodge dealer in Van Nuys, California for $1,200.

In a Bring a Trailer Car Story, Raffi Minasian details how he bought the Supercharger at an estate sale in 1983 for $11,250.00, used it as a daily driver for 16 years, and then sold it to a collector who restored it. The last anyone has heard, it is sitting in a warehouse, "glowing Hemi Orange in the darkness, seldom, if ever used."

Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor

The 1981 Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor concept car is another example of Dodge being ahead the curve, but failing to capitalize. M4S stood for Mid-sized four-cylinder Sport and it was originally designed as a show car to boast of Dodge's technological chops. Not only was the car wicked cool looking it was wicked fast, getting an astounding 440 horsepower out of a twin-turbo 2.2-liter inline-four engine. Combined with the car's aerodynamic design, that power rocketed it from 0-60 mph in 4.1 seconds, with a top speed of 195 mph.

The M4S Turbo Interceptor was an Indy Pace Car before Hollywood came calling, and it became a movie star. As the only bright spot in the otherwise forgettable 1986 Charlie Sheen film, The Wraith, the M4S was cast as the hero, mowing down a group of thugs who murdered a teen. It gained a little more fame after an appearance on Jay Leno's Garage. Only four were ever made, making it as rare as it is awesome, but the M4S Turbo Interceptor has a Facebook page so everyone can still enjoy it.

Dodge Deora

Unlike the other concept vehicles on this list, the Deora wasn't actually built by Dodge. Brothers Mike and Larry Alexander took a 1965 Dodge A 100 truck and fitted the back hatch of a 1964 Ford Station wagon as a cab, creating one of the craziest and hardest-to-define custom vehicles ever. MotorTrend described it as "The World's Coolest Skateboard," which is as close of an approximation of what the vehicle is that anyone has ever offered.

Dodge loved it so much that they leased it from the brothers and displayed it alongside their in-house concept vehicles. It also caught the eye of toy makers who turned it into a plastic model kit as well as one of the 16 original Hot Wheels cars in 1968. While not the most practical vehicle ever made, it sure is cool and looks modern to this day despite being Frankensteined out of 60s parts. The Deora was sold to a collector, where it was lavished in storage for decades, but got a complete resto and came back to thrill fans at the 2002 50th-anniversary Detroit Autorama.

2023-06-03T16:08:29Z dg43tfdfdgfd