posted 04-08-2002 03:44 PM         

Excerpts from the article:

For 2003, Dodge will introduce the SRT-4, a turbocharged, 205-hp Neon that will be faster from 0 to 60 mph than any car in the Dodge fleet except for the Viper. Dodge also says it will be the quickest production car available in the United States priced less than $20,000.

Detroit has been involved in the sport compact market for a few years. Twenty-six-year-old Chrysler engineer Marques McCammon began working on the SRT program nearly three years ago. McCammon, who admits that he used to stop-light drag race with his modified Honda Accord, was program manager for the SRT-4.

"When we started the program, my boss was an old hot-rodder who used to do Plymouths," McCammon says. "You had to have a big block and the power came from size and displacement, and they wanted their cars to look as bone stock as possible. For my generation, the notion was working with things that were more efficient and drawing your model not from American muscle but from European and Japanese performance vehicles and rally cars."

Those into today's street scene want their cars to stand out visually. "But at the end of the day", McCammon says, "the goal is the same; be as bad as possible and go as fast as you can."