Dodge Gallery

Dodge is a legendary United States-based maker of automobiles, minivans, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks, manufactured and marketed by Chrysler Group LLC in more than 60 different countries and territories worldwide. Founded as the Dodge Brothers Company in 1900 to supply parts and assemblies for Detroit's growing auto industry, Dodge began making its own complete vehicles in 1914. Ever since the beginning of its history Dodge has produced light truck models for their first customers. For the several years, those trucks were based largely on already produced passenger cars, but after that brothers have gained their own chassis and body designs as the market matured. Light- and medium-duty models were offered first, then a heavy-duty range was introduced much later. Dodge was among the first car makers that have implemented car accessories and features to its trucks, adding the plush Adventurer package and offering sedan-like space in its Club Cab bodies.

Talking about vans Dodge had offered panel delivery models for many years since its creation, but their first purpose-built van model was the compact A Series. The A-series was a strong competitor for both domestic and foreign van producers, based on Dodge Accessories and Dodge Dart platform, using its reliable 6-cylinder or V8 engines. However Dodge realized that bigger and stronger van lines would be in great demand in the future. For that reason the B Series was presented in 1971, which offered both car-like comfort in its Sportsman passenger line or expansive room for gear and materials in its Tradesman cargo line. The DaimlerChrysler let Dodge brand to develop new ideas. Redesigned diesel-powered Sprinters have become very popular for city usage among delivery companies in the recent years. Dodge also offered a cargo version of its best-selling Caravan for many years, at first calling it the Mini Ram Van.

Dodge and Chrysler brought the domestic convertible back to the roads in the 80s in the form of the Dodge 400 and the Chrysler Lebaron. In the 90s, the eagerly anticipated Dodge Viper put the muscle back in "muscle cars." All of which soon culminated in the new, aggressive look on the Dodge Ram Pickup, Dodge Dakota and Dodge Durango.

Dodge's experiments with sport utility vehicles were firstly seen in late 50s with a windowed version of their standard panel truck titled as Town Wagon. But the the brand was not a strong SUV competitor until 1974, with the purpose-built Ram. Offering the then-popular open body style and Dodge's powerful V8 engines, the Ram was a strong competitor for all availale trucks at that time. Once again, though, Dodge was left with outdated products during the 1980s as the market evolved. Using the mid-sized Dakota pickup's chassis as a base, Dodge has created a 4-door Durango SUV that could carry up to seven people. Sized between smaller SUVs and larger models, Durango was both a bit more and bit less of everything.

It would seem that Dodge decided a compact hatchback is a swell idea in light of America's recent and slightly elevated interest in smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The Caliber is not a hard-core fuel miser, though, and is instead a pretty normal-sized compact. It features an all-new chassis design. For the Caliber's initial launch in North America, Dodge has three styles available (SE, SXT and R/T) and a hat trick of four-cylinder, twin-cam engines: a 1.8-liter, a 2.0-liter and a 2.4-liter. The goal of improved fuel economy has also played a role in the Caliber's transmission offerings. While the 1.8-liter gets a traditional five-speed manual, the 2.0-liter and 2.4-liter engines have a continuously variable transmission (CVT).

As for now, Dodge's model range in North America consists of the Caliber, Avenger, Journey, Charger, Grand Caravan, Challenger, and Viper passenger cars, the Dakota and Ram trucks, the Nitro and the Durango SUVs, and the Sprinter van.