Craffey: What a Difference a Year (and New President) Makes!

By Matthew Craffey

In January 2024, I penned an op-ed in RedState called “Death of the Working-Class Supercar,” which chronicled the rise and untimely end of LX Platform Chrysler, and Dodge products that featured Hemi V8 engines. The tone was a somber one, and I pointed out that due to the then-President Biden administration’s heavy handed environmental policies, the exciting gasoline-powered cars that have always defined the American highway were quickly being regulated out of existence by what many feel are soulless, ubiquitous electric vehicles.

Later that year in July, I attended the yearly car show called Chryslers at Carlisle in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which regularly features more than 2,500 privately owned Chrysler Corporation vehicles of every vintage per year, the largest show of its kind for these vehicles anywhere in the world.

Always showcased are an impressive array of vehicles, both rare and common, daily drivers, restored, and survivor, all with cool names like "Fury," "Road Runner," "Barracuda," and "Adventurer."

One thing that’s true for every one these cars: They all have an amazing and personal story to the owner. They are cars powered by a wide variety of engines, though most were V8s, with the legendary "Hemi" leading the pack.

As someone who’s attended car shows since childhood, I’m used to the enthusiastic, sometimes eccentric, and always chatty car owners. Yet, at the 2024 show, there was a distinct undercurrent of sadness in every conversation about the future of the brand, the auto industry, that overlapped with people’s feelings about the country’s overall direction.

My dad, who loved seeing all vintage cars there, left the show disillusioned with what might become of his favorite car company not to mention the country.

Hours after our second day at the show and not far from where we were at in Pennsylvania, then-candidate Donald Trump was shot, and we didn’t know for some time if he would be okay. Thankfully he was, but it was definitely a dark time for car lovers, and an even more worrisome time for the direction of our country. It was a similar sadness reflected in my op-ed from 6 months earlier.

Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram—collectively known as “Mopars”—were seemingly being run into the ground under the leadership of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. Every person I spoke with shared both disdain and sadness that one man, along with then-President Joe Biden’s policies, was forcing their beloved American car brand to become something they don’t even recognize.

Tavares, a Eurocentric executive, believed that pushing the American brands under Stellantis to follow European “green” policies would make them more competitive and profitable. But his actions had the opposite effect.

In 2022, he announced that all Mopar brands would transition to all-electric vehicles as part of Stellantis’s Dare Forward 2030 initiative. He also declared that 2023 would be the final year for the Hemi V8 in all configurations. By December 2023, the last Dodge Charger, Challenger, and Chrysler 300 with V8 engines rolled off the assembly line, and soon, V8 options were also removed from larger Jeeps and Ram trucks in favor of smaller, less charismatic six-cylinder engines.

The backlash from Mopar enthusiasts was swift and fierce, leading to a 15-percent drop in vehicle sales in 2024, which amounted to over 225,000 fewer vehicles sold compared to 2023. This drop led to massive layoffs, plant closures, and a nationwide revolt from dealers against Tavares. When Tim Kuniskis, the “Godfather” of the modern Hemi V8 era resigned in early 2024 as CEO of Dodge, it seemed to officially signal the end of an era for performance car lovers.

So, why did Tavares seemingly tank the company? While he expressed mixed feelings about electrification, sometimes cheering it on, other times calling it “a technology chosen by politicians, not by the industry,” one thing tipped the scales in favor of electrification: he hated paying U.S. fuel-economy penalties due to increasing Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (CAFÉ).

When President Biden took office, he reinstated Obama-era CAFÉ standards, which had gone unenforced during Trump’s first presidency. As a result, in 2023 Stellantis was fined and paid over $236 million in the penalties, mostly as a result of strong sales of their Hemi V8-powered vehicles. And it was only going to get worse. By 2026, all passenger cars were expected to achieve 59 mpg, while subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles were also increased. Tavares, looking to avoid further penalties, used this as a reason to push for electrification and European-style policies at Mopar.

What followed were the dismantling of high-performance divisions like the Street Racing Team (SRT) and the phasing out of the Hemi V8 engines, and the internal-combustion Chargers and Challengers that were responsible for most of Dodge’s sales. The vehicles that remained seemed neutered and bland, and the sentiment at Chryslers at Carlisle in 2024 reflected that. Shortly after that show, Frank B. Rhodes Jr., great-grandson of Walter P. Chrysler, penned an op-ed urging investors to buy out the American brands of Stellantis and save them from Tavares’s leadership.

But then, everything began to dramatically change in November of 2024. Just weeks after Donald Trump won the presidency, Stellantis’s board, unhappy with Tavares’s handling of the company, and buoyed by the promises of a more favorable regulatory environment by the incoming administration, finally let him go as unceremoniously as he did the Hemi. Tim Kuniskis was thankfully brought back, initially in charge of Ram, and then eventually given oversight of all U.S. brands, including a reconstituted SRT division. Petrolheads everywhere cheered!

In 2025, dramatic policy changes by Lee Zeldin as administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, and passage of the "Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress, marked a significant turning point for government regulations towards automakers. California’s ability to set its own fuel-economy standards was ended, as were fines for not meeting the latest CAFÉ regulations. This set the stage for a return to performance-focused vehicles. Ram, which had seen a 16-percent drop in sales after the Hemi was discontinued and a 41-percent drop during Tavares’ tutelage, officially announced that the Hemi would return in the 2026 model year. The automaker admitted publicly, even advertising that it was a mistake to remove it in the first place, acknowledging that they had wrongly told Americans what they should want rather than giving them what they want.

Shortly after, leaks confirmed the Hemi is returning to the Jeep Wrangler, to the Gladiator for the first time, and rumored to come back to the Grand Cherokee, Grand Wagoneer, and the Dodge Charger muscle-cars. The Durango will actually be Hemi-only for 2026, a new Ram TRX with the Hellcat Hemi has been confirmed, and historic performance nameplates like the Viper and ‘Cuda may be making a return as well. Mopar had learned its lesson and found a willing partner in the new Trump administration, which had created a more favorable regulatory environment for the cars Americans wanted.

When I attended Chryslers at Carlisle with my dad again in 2025, it was a completely different energy! It was the largest attendance ever for the show…more than 3,200 cars and tens of thousands of people attending from all over the world.

Chrysler CEO Chris Feuell attended, and spoke confidently of Chrysler’s future, including the return of SRT models, the Hemi V8, and a next-generation Chrysler 300, all made possible, she said, due to the new leadership at Stellantis and the White House. The CEO got multiple standing ovations from the hardcore Mopar crowd, something that wouldn’t have happened just 12 months earlier.

Frank B. Rhodes Jr. also attended this year, appearing relieved and supportive of the company’s new direction. The mood at Carlisle was electric, with smiling faces—and Trump flags—visible throughout the show, an acknowledgement of who made this change in corporate direction possible.

The Mopar faithful had hope again…hope in the company, hope in the products that are forthcoming, and hope in the freedom and support provided by the Trump administration to finally allow U.S. carmakers to make the cars that people want to buy again.

Maybe most importantly for me though, my dad left the show so much happier this year, knowing that future generations will get to enjoy new cars that make us all just as inspired and passionate as those awesome cars that came before, and keep the spirit of Chryslers at Carlisle and car-culture in general, alive well into the future.

I ended my op ed in January 2024 by saying “As for the future of the Dodge/Chrysler V8 muscle car, I’m still holding out hope that they alter course, once again show a greasy middle finger to regulators, and give the working man and woman a new generation Hemi V8…And if they do, they will surely win back the hearts and sales of middle-class car lovers the world over for at least another 20 years to come!”

Well, it seems that all it took was new leadership, both at Stellantis and of the United States, to thankfully make that sincerest hope a reality.

Matthew Craffey of Los Angeles has a bachelor’s degree in political science from California Lutheran University and is a board member of Log Cabin Republicans.

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