Ford And Dodge Are Secret Best Friends, And Here’s Why
We don’t call competing car makers ‘rivals’ for nothing. They are ultimately trying to persuade the same buyers to part with the same cash, so you’d imagine things could get a bit tetchy. The likes of Ford and Dodge are surely not buddies.
Well, I don’t think it’s that clear-cut. In fact I’d say that Ford and Dodge are the best things that ever happened to each other. Let me explain my thinking with some examples. Take the Ram and the F-150 pickups. The Ram name pops up in Dodge history all the way back to 1932, but the real golden era for the name grew through the 1990s and 2000s. It became a class-leading, award-winning truck.
Even this side of the Atlantic the Ram name was known. Eight-year-old me knew it as the daddy of all trucks; incomprehensibly massive and powerful, capable of carrying skyscrapers on its back. Since then I’ve learned a few things about basic physics, but I still have a soft spot for the Ram.
What did Ford do in the face of the Ram’s challenge? It raised its game. Sure, it took a little while for the F-150 to get back to class best standard but it got there, and has now been one of the best-selling cars in North America for years. Would it have got there without Dodge, and without the challenge set by the Ram? Would the F-150 be as good as it is? Nope.
Now take the Mustang and the Challenger; the two-door beasts of legend that have faced off down the decades. These are proper cars, what used to be called ‘real men’s cars’ before we realised that such phrases were a bit stupid.
The Mustang has enjoyed huge dominance since day one, both in sales and reputation. It was released first, caught the people’s imaginations and it was quickly the default American choice. The Challenger challenged, but, by all the numbers, it failed. What did Dodge do in the face of total despair? It persevered. Ford had set it a target; something that let Dodge know it hadn’t done well enough, and that gave it something to aim at.
Down the decades the Challenger fought the Mustang. It turned into a case of a charismatic and disarming bad guy hunting down the all-American hero from Ford. And, as we all know, it’s now winning. The Challenger SRT Demon is an 840bhp drag strip weapon, about as subtle as a racist grandma and with enough power to alter the speed of the earth’s rotation.
It must have hit Ford like a hoof to the trouser plums. You can just picture Ford executives calling an urgent meeting, sitting at the boardroom table long into the night with crumpled suits and sweaty palms, ties undone and ‘no smoking’ rules thrown out of the window. How to fight back? How to even get near that damned Challenger?
At the time of writing Ford still hasn’t done it. It’s getting there, with a mighty 700bhp+ supercharged GT500 on the way. That’s enough to rival the Challenger SRT Hellcat, and we can’t wait to see it made real.
The mission for both of these iconic American brands is always ongoing. Sometimes Ford has the advantage, sometimes Dodge, but these two brilliant car-makers have yet again pushed each other to do truly great things that they never would have done alone.
They work in opposition, but also together toward common goals, advancing every market sector they compete in. They make the buyer’s world better. For that, I make Ford and Dodge more than close friends: I’d almost call them brothers.
Comments
-“These are proper cars, what used to be called ‘real men’s cars’ before we realised that such phrases were a bit stupid.”
-“The Challenger SRT Demon is an 840bhp drag strip weapon, about as subtle as a racist grandma and with enough power to alter the speed of the earth’s rotation.”
Your SJW rhetoric is undeniable. Keep your politics to yourself.
It’s called a simile. It’s not political, dude.
Wrong place for political opinions, dude.
physically cringing at your post
CT, a place, where basic concepts of competition are being explained…
For the first time, I shall disagree, if not with the reasoning, but at least with the title, which implies that Ford and Dodge somehow secretly love each other. They simply don’t and they are still rivals and the reason why Ford tried to make the F-150 better than RAM or Dodge tried to make the Challenger better than the Mustang is not because they are buddies, but because they are in fierce rivalry. Which is what the article is trying to say, but the title is misleading…
A simple way of understanding why they are anything but “secret friends” is asking Ford (Dodge) if they were happy if Dodge (Ford) ceased to exist. Of course, they would - because then they wouldn’t need to bother with making a superior car and still enjoy the profits in the absence of competition. Which is not a behaviour you would normally associate with “brothers”
Same applies to Audi v BMW v Mercedes (e.g. would Audi try to make a 400hp RS3 if a 380hp A45 did not exist?).
The great thing is about the rivalry is that the real winners are us, the customers, who get to enjoy great cars that are being made as a result. And that’s why we have anti-monopoly authorities (e.g. CMA) and so on…
If Dodge and Ford formed a collusion (e.g. both agreed to make 276hp cars at the same superhigh price and share the profits) - they would be ‘friends’. But otherwise, all they want is to ensure the smallest market for their competitor, and that’s great.
Soo basically frenemies? Alright
“Real men’s car” is a pickup, van or wagon.
I work in construction and a van would be the ideal vehicle for me.
So Dodge is also going to become Mitsubishi, reviving a legendary car into an ELECTRIC SUV?
Woah let’s not go there Matt, you claim Ford is sinkong as much as Dodge, but Ford has the Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo (Fushion), Mustang, F150, Kuga… Dodge has the Challanger, Charger and that’s it.
Honestly, it’s more of a three way rivalry between Chevrolet, Dodge, and Ford in my opinion. With this in mind, I definitely understand the rivalry between Dodge and Ford, and this article was a pleasure to read.
Dodge Ram from 1990-about 2002 was complete trash. Rusting away faster than a Lancia, with transmissions that couldn’t handle even the minuscule power they had
You do understand how this truck changed the way all pickups were designed and marketed from that point forward at least right?
Intersting read, but it feels like a loose argument. When dodge changed the Ram in the 90’s it changed the way all pickups were marketed and perceived as more than just utility vehicles, not just Ford. I believe the F-150 became Americans choice based on reliability and price point, not necessity out of competition with Dodge. As for the mustang, this argument can be said about any car that cometed with the mustang going all the way back to 1967 when Chevy released the Camaro. Until recently, Dodge stayed out of the “modern horsepower wars” until 2015 when they unveilded the Hellcat. Until that all they had was that 6.4 Hemi that was food for I think 470 HP. Meanwhile, Ford has their Shelby junk out with a GT500 good for 662 HP. Once again, good read, but it seems like the author is trying to write something out of nothing.
Keep your friends close but your enemies closer
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