Automobile Magazine senior editor EDDIE ALTERMAN sits down with
DAN KNOTT, director of Chrysler's Performance Vehicle Operations
and the man behind the amazing, Viper-powered Dodge Ram SRT-10.
AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE: The SRT-10 is obviously an outgrowth of the SRT badge, it's the third after the Viper and the Neon. Why did you guys decide to do a truck this time?
DAN KNOTT: Well, part of it is that no one else has the heritage and tradition that we have in Viper. Nobody else has that engine. To grow that heritage into something like a truck is just awesome. Viper and Ram SRT-10 are a similar type of market in that we're going after the enthusiast market, but of course it's the truck enthusiast market, which is a good market-our competitors have found that out and we're finding that out now. The whole idea of this SRT brand—street and racing technology—was to plug in to what's going on the enthusiast market. In the tuner end, the SRT-4 has been just an absolute certifiable phenomenon, but it's one end of the market. And then we have the Viper type of the market, which is another strong enthusiast market, more traditional. And then we said, Okay, how can we grow that and tap into another segment of the enthusiast market? How can we take this buzz of the Viper and what it's created, and grow it and how can we show people that the Dodge trucks have the range to do something with this kind of performance?
So we took our Ram truck, which is an outstanding base vehicle, and asked how we could come out with a high-performance derivative and still "walk the talk," which is what all my SRT products have to do. So we look at things like exterior styling. Bold, aggressive, in-your-face Dodge styling. Then we go after a race-inspired interior, with racing seats, steering wheels, Hurst shifter on the floor. Then we go after braking, steering, and handling. Delivering the performance to the road. Wide wheels and tires so we can put the power down, our new power-hop damper system so that you can put slicks on it and go wide-open throttle and still maintain traction.
We've lowered the truck, an inch in the front, two-inches in the rear, for handling. And we went with bigger brakes, so you have great stopping capability. And then you have the heart of it, the Viper engine, which nobody has. Outrageous performance, 500-hp, 525 lb-ft, 505 cubic inches, and a 508-watt stereo system. We call it four-by-five. The first 4x5. I think for us, SRT has to walk the talk. In all those areas I talked about, every SRT product you see will deliver on the promise.
AM: How do you make sure you are the leader in the segment? Because now, you've got the next-generation SVT Lightning coming up fast behind this truck. And the old Lightning just claimed a speed record for production pickups.
DN: It's a tough game, because you're constantly raising the bar. In this truck we'll raise the bar for the performance truck market. John Coletti [of SVT] isn't going to rest on his laurels and neither is Mr. Reuss over at GM's High Performance division. So we're all going to be pushing in the same direction. But as the engineers you have to ask yourselves What's out there currently? Where do we think they're going to go? But that's only one part of it. The other part is how can we develop a product with the technology that we've got, and where are our leverage points? In the case of the truck, it's easy. We had a great leverage point in the Viper powertrain. ...next page >>