The upcoming Dodge Copperhead will be a hyper-muscle car — possibly with Italian roots

The American brand Dodge, part of the Stellantis corporation, will unveil a flagship sports car from the SRT Performance division in a couple of years. It will be extremely powerful and fast, and capable of showing the Ford Mustang GTD a clean pair of heels. Here’s what we know about this new model.

The flagship sports car from the SRT Performance division under the Dodge brand was announced in May this year, when the Stellantis corporation presented its new five-year development strategy called FaSTLAne 2030. Within this strategy, the Dodge brand has been firmly assigned the role of a manufacturer of performance cars. This means there will be no more dull new models from Dodge. Significant sales growth is not expected, but the average price tag is likely to rise noticeably.

The pinnacle of the Dodge model range will be a sports car named Copperhead. Dodge previously used this name only for a 1997 concept car — a striking roadster based on the Viper platform. The upcoming Copperhead is not a successor to the Viper, but a sports car of equally high calibre, and most likely with a very promising racing career ahead.

There is no official information about the Dodge Copperhead yet, only hints from Stellantis representatives and speculation from American media outlets eagerly awaiting this new model. The wait will be quite long — probably until the 2029 model year, though the premiere is sure to happen sooner. The lead image was generated by ChatGPT and roughly corresponds to the contours of the car hidden under a cover in the official Stellantis slide.

Legendary American top executive Tim Kuniskis, who was tasked last year with reviving the SRT Performance division, told The Drive magazine that the Copperhead will not be a direct derivative of the current Dodge Charger (LB generation) on the STLA Large platform, but rather a sort of 'pick and mix', incorporating the best competencies from Stellantis worldwide. These words have sparked numerous speculations. In particular, Car and Driver magazine reasonably suggests that the Dodge Copperhead could be built on a sporty version of the Giorgio platform from the current second-generation Maserati GranTurismo, rather than the STLA Large platform — thus achieving a lower centre of gravity and better handling.

According to Kuniskis, a decision on the engine for the Dodge Copperhead has not yet been made — it could be a 6.2-litre supercharged V8 HEMI or a more compact and lighter turbocharged unit; there are many options. The only idea Kuniskis was sceptical about was hybridisation, because, as he rightly noted, the electrical component becomes obsolete much faster than the car itself, and the Copperhead should have collectable value and exist, as it were, outside of time.

Furthermore, from the words of the Stellantis North American wing executive, it is clear that the Dodge Copperhead is not intended to compete with the mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette C8, but will be a unique product with no direct rivals on the market. Kuniskis described the Copperhead as a 'hyper-muscle car'. We take this to mean that, in its basic form, the Dodge Copperhead will be significantly cheaper than the Ford Mustang GTD (from $325,000), while its top-spec version will be able to match the Ford Mustang GTD in terms of power and speed.