Tim Kuniskis Drops Huge Hints About Dodge Copperhead

 

Consider The Copperhead A "Hyper Muscle" Car

Following that private tour, The Drive’s Joe Feder sat down with Dodge and Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis to discuss the vehicle, its future, and what role it could play in Dodge’s lineup before the end of the decade. The conversation provided some of the strongest clues yet about what may become Dodge’s next halo performance car.

 

 

 

Naturally, one of the first questions centered around whether the car shared its architecture with the new Dodge Charger.

 

According to Kuniskis, the answer is no.

 

“It is not the hard points of a Charger.”

 

Kuniskis went on to explain that the Copperhead’s proportions simply wouldn’t be possible using the Charger platform’s multi-energy architecture without extensive compromises.

 

 

 

More importantly, he revealed that what journalists saw wasn’t simply a fantasy concept vehicle.

 

“Those are real hard points, real production-intent proportions.”

 

That statement alone is significant.

 

...

 

One detail enthusiasts immediately noticed was the presence of exhaust outlets. Kuniskis confirmed what many hoped to hear.

 

“There’s definitely exhaust pipes, so it is a combustion engine in it.”

 

Not A Corvette Rival

 

 

 

“We’re not with this car trying to build a C8 competitor.” Instead, Dodge is pursuing something entirely different.

 

“They’re a sports car. I am very, very clearly defining this as a hyper-muscle car.”

 

...

Non è che qua mi tirano fuori qualcosa da Giorgio o Giorgio Evo???

37 minuti fa, carrera4 scrive:

Non è che qua mi tirano fuori qualcosa da Giorgio o Giorgio Evo???

Lo penso anche io

6 ore fa, carrera4 scrive:

Non è che qua mi tirano fuori qualcosa da Giorgio o Giorgio Evo???

Non so nulla a riguardo, ma la Copperhead un po' puzza di Granturismo, magari accorciata.

Copperhead da come ho capito dovrebbe essere una variante estrema e ancor più spinta della prossima Charger Hellcat, quest’ultima leggevo da qualche parte dovrebbe essere presentata sotto forma di concept a fine anno

Coop... Whatever should have an all new V8.

6 ore fa, 8coibaf scrive:

Non so nulla a riguardo, ma la Copperhead un po' puzza di Granturismo, magari accorciata.

Secondo me sarà "imparentata" con MC20

17 ore fa, machefredfa scrive:

Lo penso anche io

During Stellantis Investor Day 2026, select automotive journalists were given a rare behind-the-scenes look at future products currently under development inside the company’s Design Dome. One of the biggest surprises was a mysterious new Dodge sports car known internally as the Copperhead.

 

Following that private tour, The Drive’s Joe Feder sat down with Dodge and Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis to discuss the vehicle, its future, and what role it could play in Dodge’s lineup before the end of the decade. The conversation provided some of the strongest clues yet about what may become Dodge’s next halo performance car.

The Copperhead immediately grabbed attention during the private product preview.

 

From initial impressions, the car appeared to blend modern Dodge styling cues with proportions reminiscent of the legendary Viper. The long hood, aggressive stance, pinched rear design, and distinctive ducktail spoiler created a silhouette unlike anything currently offered by Dodge.

 

Naturally, one of the first questions centered around whether the car shared its architecture with the new Dodge Charger.

 

According to Kuniskis, the answer is no.

 

“It is not the hard points of a Charger.”

 

Kuniskis went on to explain that the Copperhead’s proportions simply wouldn’t be possible using the Charger platform’s multi-energy architecture without extensive compromises.

MoparInsiders

5 ore fa, machefredfa scrive:

Secondo me sarà "imparentata" con MC20

"While Dodge remains tight-lipped about final specifications, the interview confirmed several key facts.

 

Copperhead is being developed with real-world production intent. It will use a combustion engine. It is not based on the new Charger architecture. It is not intended to compete directly with the Corvette. And perhaps most importantly, Dodge sees it as a true halo vehicle capable of defining the brand’s future."

Pertanto, non essendo un concorrente della nuova Corvette, e viste le caratteristiche menzionate da Tim Kuniskis, non stiamo parlando di un motore centrale come la MC20. Non sarà nemmeno elettrica, né sarà prodotta nella taglia L di St. Louis.

 

Probabilmente verrà realizzata da Giorgio Sport.

 

Pertanto, questo modello dovrebbe assomigliare più a una via di mezzo tra una Corvette originale (di prima generazione) e una Plymouth Superbird.

Chi ha visto il concept Copperhead (affermano di aver visto il prototipo in grigio con strisce blu) dice che è considerevolmente più piccolo di una Charger.

Se questa ipotesi fosse vera, la strada verso una nuova Alfa Romeo Montreal sarebbe più agevole.

 

Alcuni l'hanno già indicata come la prossima Bottega, anche se la Montreal non è un'auto a motore centrale come la 33 Stradale.

Modificato 6 ore fa6 ore fa da cruzmaltino

Render via Moparinsiders

Nell’intervista a Tim Kuniskis di Drive.com, il manager americano parla tra le tante cose anche della prossima Copperhead, la hyper muscle car al top della gamma Dodge

Joel: I still remember this interview from almost a decade ago. So you’re a car guy’s car guy, and today we saw a ton of new product—a ton of new product that is planned to be here in the next four-ish years by 2030. A huge amount of money being spent, a huge investment in capital in terms of technology and cars. Obviously in terms of enthusiast stuff, we saw some pretty cool stuff. I’d love to talk to you first and foremost about the Copperhead, obviously.

I saw it, you looked at me when I saw it. My eyes kind of lit up. It’s really cool. It looks cool, and I’ve already described on the site, you know, it definitely looks like hard points of a Charger, but there’s some Viper-esque things to it with the ducktail and the pinched rear end and the rear window. It looks front-engined. Can we speak at all to—there’s definitely exhaust pipes on that car that I saw today. Can we speak at all to what might power that car?

Tim: So there’s definitely exhaust pipes, so it is a combustion engine in it. I will tell you that it is not the hard points of a Charger.

Joel: Not the hard points of a Charger?

Tim: Not the hard points of a Charger. You couldn’t get a Charger with those proportions and that stance because of the multi-energy design of where the battery is encapsulated in the bottom of the car—without cheating. I mean, you know, just for like a show car or whatever, but that car’s not cheated. Those are real hard points, real production-intent proportions.

That’s not—I’m not giving you some exclusive saying, “Hey, we’re absolutely building this car and it’s coming then.” I’m just telling you that it is—it’s not cheated. It’s not a concept car; it’s a “we could actually do this exactly the way you saw it.” It would have a combustion engine. Don’t really know what it would be yet at this point.

We have some ideas and some things that we’re kicking around. It could be something that you’re not aware of. It could be something that doesn’t exist today. It’s very easy to look at the current portfolio and say, “Okay, it’s a Hemi, it’s a this, it’s a that.” But this is a car that’s committed to be here between now and 2030, so there could be another engine coming that nobody’s aware of that would be the perfect engine for that.

And whenever I bring that up, people automatically say, “Oh, well then it’s going to be a T6.” No, doesn’t mean that at all. But we are toying around with some new technology that you will see this summer. We plan to have an engineering innovation day right before Roadkill Nights—a full day of some of the really cool tech stuff that we’re working on. Not a new car, but really cool tech stuff that you’ll see filter into some of that sheet metal that you saw today. And that—when you come to that day—then the light bulb will go off and you’ll be like, “Okay, I got it.”

Joel: So are the hard points of that car unrelated to anything?

Tim: I’m not going to give you that much of a clue, but there are some synergies built into that car. SRT only works if SRT can take sunken investments from around the globe and leverage those. Because if you try to make high-performance halo cars and you try to make them bespoke, it will never pay back. I mean, it’s—it’s like racing for the sake of racing. I mean, it’s ego. You have to take investments that are already sunk and then leverage those. So there’s stuff in that car that are production-intent in other things that we’ll leverage very heavily.

Joel: And the powertrain sounds like it just hasn’t—we haven’t formally got to the point where we might all get the hints for that yet.

Tim: Well, we know exactly what we want it to be, but we’re not ready to share it yet.

Joel: Could a hybrid V8 work in a platform like that?

Tim: Yeah, it could. A car like that, though, it’s not—it’s not a car that you buy today that you’re going to drive for, you know, three years, four years, five years and then trade into something else. A car like that is generally a keeper car, you know?

Joel: Collector’s car?

Tim: Not—I don’t—maybe a collector’s car, maybe not a collector’s car, but definitely a keeper’s car. You know, you buy a car like that, you know, like buying a really special watch, and you may sell it later, but your intent is, “I want to keep this forever, I want to give this to my kids” or whatever. If you get the equation right, that’s what it should be, right? That’s the only way it builds a halo. It’s close enough to be accessible but far enough that you gotta make a bad decision to get it, and that’s what makes it desirable, right? My job is to entice people to make bad decisions.

So the idea for hybridization—sure, you can do it. But let’s say you put, you know, E-motors in it and lithium-ion batteries. What will that be in 30 years? It’ll be an 8-track. You’re like, “Hey, I got this DVD, where can I play it?” No, you—you can’t. So my goal is to have something that would be timeless and somewhat future-proofed.

Joel: So Hellephant would not be future-proofed.

Tim: I gave you a huge clue, and you can take it however you want.

Joel: Okay. Because a 426 Hellephant would be pretty interesting.

Tim: I gave you a huge clue, and you can take it however you want. And I’ll bet you when you come to Roadkill Nights, you’ll be like, “I got it.”

Joel: It was interesting, before I saw Copperhead today, one of the questions I wanted to ask you today was about SRT and whether a Viper in the world has a place. And the reason I wanted to ask that is because now we’re running around in a world where we have C8 Corvettes that cost 220 grand and they have Bugatti levels of power. That’s a whole different timeline than when the Viper existed and died, right? And so I was going to ask you about Viper today and whether it made sense in the portfolio. I suppose we could still address it, but—

Tim: No, I mean, I love that question, thank you. Because I think about C8 all the time. I am incredibly impressed with the engineering of that car. There’s some things I don’t like, of course, you know, and I’m biased, obviously. But there’s some things that were in that car—and I’ve had a chance to meet Tadge and talk to him about the car in the past—and it’s an impressive car, and the engineering in it is highly impressive.

I told you a long time ago that when we were doing the Charger and Challenger, as much as we respect Mustang and Camaro, we weren’t trying to build a Mustang and Camaro competitor because they already exist. We’re not with this car trying to build a C8 competitor. Absolutely not. Why would I? It exists, they do really well with it, they sell, you know, 25, 30 thousand. I question the range; I question the $65,000 up to $250,000. But you know what? They’re getting away with it, so good for them. I don’t want to follow that, though; I don’t want to chase that. They’re a sports car. I’m very, very clearly defining this as a hyper-muscle car.

Joel: You did say that.

Tim: It’s a different thing.

Joel: And a Viper as a Viper is itself.

Tim: A Viper is a sports car. This is a hyper-muscle car.

Joel: Does a Viper make sense anymore, or that era is probably gone?

Tim: Look, the Gen 5 Viper was one of the most beautiful cars ever built.

Joel: Love that car.

Tim: The track capability of that car was absolutely astounding. If you think about what it was—I mean, it was an analog car with a manual transmission, and it could hold its own against anything in the world. Technology doesn’t matter. I mean, it was just that good. But it had its downsides. I mean, let’s be honest. I own one, so I’m allowed to bash it. If you don’t own one, you can’t because we’ll fight. But if you own one, you can bash it.

There’s things wrong with it, right? I mean, when they came out with the new rule for ejection mitigation, we had to discontinue the car because you would have to put airbags right over you—as a driver, right over your ear. And you sat in the car. It’d be impossible.

Joel: It’s right next to your head.

Tim: Yeah, you couldn’t do it. It’s impossible. So you know, we had to get rid of the car, and honestly, in today’s day and age, it would have needed to become an automatic or a dual-clutch or something like that. It reached the end of its life cycle. As much as it pains me to say that, it reached the end of its life cycle.

Modificato 53 minuti fa53 min fa da Osv