Dodge Engines: A Story Of Quality

By Author: Peter Jones
Total Articles: 231
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The long story of Dodge engines began with Dodge brothers in Detroit during the very first years of the 20th century, and many may not even be aware that the central part of the story of Dodge engines has to do with one word: quality. The reasons for that will be covered shortly, but from the very start of their careers as automobile moguls, the Dodge brothers were designing engines that were finding their ways into Fords and what were then called Olds Motor Vehicles. Why were Dodge engines being put into vehicles from other manufacturers? There were two reasons: quality and the fact that the Dodge brothers had not yet completed their first in-house model, the Dodge Model 30.

History has always played an interesting role in the story of Dodge engines, and this can be clearly illustrated starting with the four-cylinder that was used in the Dodge Model 30, which outperformed the more famous Model T. In fact, the automobile landscape of the world might be very different indeed if both of the Dodge brothers had not perished in 1920. Their demise signaled a ...
... lull in the development of Dodge engines that would allow competitors such as the Model T time to recover and regroup.

While Dodge's new leadership led the company to start building light trucks, which in turn sparked the development of powerful Dodge engines that would earn numerous accolades for generations to come. Unfortunately, the new leadership lacked the vision necessary to carry the company forward with those engines. Falling on hard economic times, Dodge was sold to the Chrysler group. Chrysler had already seen the value of the reliable and powerful Dodge engines and wanted to move them to other brands while it took the time to revitalize Dodge.

The coming of World War 2 left the big three with an unexpected boon: the rest of the developed world was literally decimated from a manufacturing standpoint. This gave Detroit a few decades of breathing room, and it was not long before G.I.s started to return and a demand for powerful engines developed. Chrysler and Dodge were in a great position to meet these demands as the engineering department at Dodge had been busy developing increasingly powerful Dodge engines for both wartime application and for civilian use. In fact, more than one military vehicle powered by a Dodge engine was rejected by the procurement arm of the military for being too fast, even if they were solidly built and reliable.

The need for speed and power that followed WW2 and ran right up through to the muscle cars of the ‘60s and ‘70s suited Dodge well. A new breed of legendary Dodge engines took flight, such as the mythical Hemi, and the Magnum. These engines were incredibly powerful, which made their reliability all the more impressive. It was not until the oil crisis of the 1970s that consumers started to realize that low-power motors coming from Japan and Germany were innately reliable because of their low-output. The bottom line was that less stress generated from creating tire-liquefying torque and mind-bending horsepower translated into less complexity and less mechanical failures. Dodge promptly partnered with, and invested in, Japanese manufacturing giant Mitsubishi.

About: Armed with the latest manufacturing techniques, Dodge engineers went back to the drawing board and crafted a new lineup of powerful used Dodge engine that offered a balance of power and reliability that is unsurpassed.