Dodge “Lowliner” concept truck

At the 2019 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas, Mopar exhibited the “Lowliner” 1968 Dodge D200 Sweptline custom concept truck.

Photo courtesy of FCA LLC

The 1968 D200 ¾ ton pickup was the fourth year of the second generation of the Dodge “D” series trucks; the second generation introduced with passenger car styling that featured a 3-inch lower cab. The “Sweptline” designation was applied to the trucks with the straight-side pickup box. Customers responded favorably with over 183,000 D Series trucks sold for the 1968 model year, Dodge’s highest pickup truck production total to date.

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 The builders of the “Lowliner” moved the front axle four inches forward, which extended the wheelbase to 132 inches and gave the truck  air suspension on all four corners. The truck has three different air suspension settings - parked, drive, and "drive plus" for driveway access.

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The truck's immaculate bodywork is finished in Dodge Candy Delmonico Red with “Dodge” ghosted on the tailgate, with Dairy Cream accents for the bumpers, grille, and 22-inch 'smoothie' style wheels.

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The highlight of the build is under the power tilt front end, the mighty vintage Cummins 24V 5.9-liter (358 cubic inch) diesel engine with Holset turbocharger that produces an estimated 300 horsepower and 600 foot/pounds of torque which is transmitted through  a six-speed manual transmission to the 11-inch wide rear wheels.  

Photo courtesy of FCA LLC 

The custom interior is trimmed in “Blazing Saddle Tan” distressed leather  with a custom engine-turned aluminum gauge panel with seven Mopar gauges and the restored 1968 steering wheel. The floor-mounted Hurst shifter has a custom translucent shift ball with the Cummins logo.  

The Jeep J6 concept

Jeep showed off their J6 concept vehicle at the 2019 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas. The Jeep Design team started with a 2020 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon then modified it into this two-door concept with a six-foot bed to maintain the same wheelbase, then painted the truck in Brilliant Blue Metallic paint that recalls the 1978 Jeep Honcho two-door pickup.

In addition to custom parts, many of the items on the Jeep such as the winch, lights and interior accessories came straight from the Jeep Performance parts catalog.  The Jeep J6 which received a two-inch lift kit rides on custom 17-inch beadlock wheels with a brass finish set off by the silver bead lock ring wrapped in 37-inch BF Goodrich Mud-Terrain T/A tires.  

The pickup bed features a prototype roll bar with LED lights and a prototype spare tire carrier with a color-matched sprayed-in bed liner.

The interior features color-matched panel inserts and Kaztkin custom leather seats with accenting blue stitching.

All photos by the author

Fourth-generation 2020 Dodge Drag Pak Challenger debuts at SEMA 2019

It might be hard for enthusiasts to believe, but the current Dodge Challenger is more than 11 years old, and the featured vehicle in the MoPar Performance area at the 2019 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas is the fourth generation of the Drag Pak package, with previous versions in 2008, 2010 and 2015.

The 2020 Dodge Drag Pak which made its debut at SEMA is built as a track-only machine to compete in NHRA (National Hot Rod Association) and NMCA (National Muscle Car Association) drag racing events against the COPO Camaro and the Mustang Cobra Jet.

The Drag Pak starts with a Body-in-White from the Brampton Ontario assembly plant, with an SFI Foundation Inc.-certified 7.50-second 25.5D roll cage added. The Strange Inc. rear axle assembly features 4-link suspension with adjustable coil over shocks and adjustable anti-roll bar.   Up front, the front Bilstein struts are double adjustable, and the car rolls on special lightweight Weld wheels and Mickey Thompson tires.

The heart of the beast is the 354-cubic inch supercharged HEMI® engine that develops over 1000 horsepower coupled to a T400 3-speed transmission with a Quickshift shifter. The body features a hood and front and rear fascia from the Challenger SRT Hellcat, and the car shown at SEMA was covered with a red white and blue nostalgic scheme that harkens back to Dodge Pro Stock cars of the nineteen seventies.

MoPar will only build and sell 50 of these potent machines, which means it is rarer than a McLaren Senna sports car so we can expect lots of collector car auction sales of these cars in the coming years.   

Photos by the author

A Hellcat powered 1967 Dodge Dart

 

The Magnuson booth at the 2017 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas featured this sinister-looking  black and red  1967 Dodge Dart convertible equipped with  a Mopar "Hellcrate" 6.2 liter (370 cubic inch) Hemi engine (as used in the Dodge Hellcat Challenger and Charger) topped with a Magnuson ‘Vengeance’ TVS2650 supercharger.

 

 

 The Dart convertible which first debuted at the SEMA 2015 show equipped with a 512 cubic inch Hemi engine was built by Dominator Street Rods in Tracy California which also performed this latest engine swap.

The Hellcat engine as purchased from Mopar Performance boasts 707 horsepower;  Magnuson claims that the TVS2650 as a direct replacement for the factory supercharger which uses Eaton sixth generation twin vortex series rotors results in higher efficiency and requires 26 fewer horsepower to drive the unit.  

 

 

graphic courtesy of Magnuson

 

 
For further information check out these websites -

http://dominatorstreetrods.com/

http://www.moparproshop.com/inc/sdetail/16733

http://www.magnacharger.com/

 

All photos by the author