Amidst the sea of crossovers and SUVs that flooded the show floor at this year’s New York Auto Show, the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon stood alone and self-assured in its 840-horsepower drag strip-slaying abilities. Voices from all across the automotive media industry sang praises. All except one.
Automotive News, an automotive industry publication, penned a 260-word searing, nuclear fire-hot editorial take this week, stating that it doesn’t believe that the Demon should be sold to the public, calling it “inherently dangerous to the common safety of motorists.” What what!
From the story:
We don’t reach this conclusion lightly. There are more powerful, and even faster, vehicles available from other automakers that are rightly street legal.
Aside from the fact that they just undercut their whole argument, the publication denounced FCA for unleashing a “purpose-built drag racer as a road-legal automobile” with “barely legal slick tires” and “monstrous acceleration” that is “unsafe at any speed.”
It claimed that the Demon is “the result of a sequence of misguided corporate choices that places bragging rights ahead of public safety” and that Dodge “knowingly placing motorists in danger in the process.” Lastly, it said that while the Demon may adequately comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, it doesn’t “fulfill the spirit of those standards.”
Concerned for the safety and soundness of American lives, I scanned the editorial, looking for some statistic or figure that supported this panicked argument but found none. And since it didn’t link to any road test or review, I felt that I could safely assume that no one who contributed to this editorial had actually driven the Demon, either.
In fact, this whole piece smelled like the same type of bro-ish intimidation marketing campaign that the Demon ran on leading up to its official debut.
We have emailed Automotive News for confirmation on whether or not this was a sponsored post and will update if we hear back.