Muscle trucks – they’re a cool mix between the biggest, baddest V8s and some admittedly impractical pickup beds. Chevy makes the most famous one, but I’d forget all about the El Camino SS if Dodge started making a Dodge Challenger Demon SRT pickup like this one.
It’s not real, obviously. Digital artist Al Yasid has posted this bad boy to social media, mentioning that it’s a ute version of the Demon project he did a while bad. And we know exactly what he’s talking about. A year ago, he released a front-end redesign for the Challenger muscle car that looked fit for the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. You can check it out at the bottom of this story.
The Demon was fresh to the drag racing scene, bringing obscene supercharger sounds, 840 horsepower and 9.65s quarter-mile times. And while most thought its retro looks were perfect, Yarid did find a way to bring them into the future. It had flared fenders, sharp bumpers, a boxed-in rear window, and narrow LED headlights.
This car was barely recognizable as a Challenger. But in the transition to a Demon pickup, there’s basically nothing left from the muscle car. So you can call it anything… even the Dodge Rampage.
The Rampage, along with its Plymouth Scamp sister car, was short-lived. It was only in production from 1982 to 1984. It was based on the Chrysler L-Platform, thus making it FWD. But we have to let that slide since the 1980s Dodge Charger was the same. It came with a 2.2-liter inline-4, made up to 94 horsepower, and would do 0 to 60mph in about 15 seconds.
Call it the Hell-Camino?
Again, it’s not an exciting car. But if Dodge wants to bring back the spirit of the Chevy El Camino, it can’t do that without the Rampage name.
Speaking of the Charger, the modern Dodge 4-door sedan can be used to create utes. This has been done several times already, and its short front doors are much better for this type of utility vehicle design than the Challenger’s long, heavy frameless cabin-openers.
For that added Demon SRT spice, Yasid’s rendering also brings a couple of new design ideas. For example, the exhausts are dragster-like coming out through the front fenders. This leaves the rear end to be all-diffuser. The bed cover also serves as some kind of aero.
We’re apprehensive but excited about the new era of Dodge performance vehicles. The future of the Challenger and Charger is electrified, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Even so, it would be nice to have some nostalgia added to the mix, and make this transition a little easier. And there’s nothing better for that than the Dodge Rampage, which was admittedly less successful than the El Camino, but still deserves its place at the mullet convention.
