Stellantis said goodbye to its legendary HEMI V8 engine and some models that have used it for decades have had to mount smaller mechanics or become electrified, such as the RAM 1500.
However, the resignation of Carlos Tavares as CEO of Stellantis, the return of Tim Kuniskis to the company and the political measures that Donald Trump intends to carry out in environmental matters, could bring back the V8 mechanics to Stellantis.
“It’s un-American”
Over the past few years, Carlos Tavares has been, by far, the strong man at Stellantis. During the time he has been CEO of the company, things have been done the way he wanted, even if those decisions went against what other company bigwigs thought, such as Tim Kuniskis.
The veteran FCA and, later, Stellantis executive, has always been a defender of the group’s legendary HEMI V8 engine, but not even his support stopped Tavares from killing this mechanic. In any case, Kuniskis ceased to be the CEO of RAM and to join Stellantis in March 2024, so Tavares had it even easier to sentence the HEMI engine to death.
However, now things have changed. Tavares resigned and he stopped being the CEO of Stellantis and just a few days later Kuniskis returned to the company, despite the fact that last March he announced that he was retiring.
The American executive is once again the CEO of RAM, a brand that is rather unknown in Europe, but of vital importance for Stellantis in its local market: the United States. So much so, that part of the poor results that Stellantis had in the United States in 2024 are due to the drop in RAM sales.
That RAM has stopped selling its cars with the HEMI V8 engine may explain, in part, the poor results of the brand, but it is still too early to say for sure, as Kuniskis explains in an interview with Road & Track.
“Honestly, the biggest problem is not Hemi vs. Kuniskis. The biggest problem is that we took away a fundamental American thing. Americans love freedom of choice, more than anything. When you take away their freedom of choice and tell them you have to have this, they rebel. Whether it makes sense or not doesn’t matter. It’s un-American”.
Taking into account these statements and the love that Kuniskis has always shown for muscle cars in general and for the HEMI engine in particular, it is possible that the CEO of RAM is thinking about bringing this mechanic back to his brand’s catalog, especially now that RAM has stopped manufacturing the TRX with a HEMI engine, has released a variant with a 6-cylinder engine and is going to launch a 100% electric pick-up.
“I have to know why they are selling less RAM before saying that the lack of Hemi is the problem. Because I hear the noise, I hear a voice telling me ‘Hello, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi, Hemi’, but the question is is it really a problem or is it just noise because we stopped selling that engine. We are like that. “They took something that I love away from me.”
For now, Kuniskis says that we can only wait and, in statements to Engine1explains that it would be a challenge to mount the HEMI engine in the new RAM 1500: “The Hemi was never designed to be mounted in this pickup with its new electrical architecture, so that is a big challenge.”
He also explains that the HEMI production line is closed: “They closed the production of that particular HEMI, the eTorque. There is supplier work because when you close something, the suppliers close their assembly lines and dedicate themselves to something else.”
That is why Kuniskis makes it clear that, if the HEMI is recovered, it would not be something immediate: the engine design would have to be adapted to the new RAM prepared to be electrified and the engine would have to be restarted. production chainwith what that implies at the supplier level.
“Even if I said re-manufacture it, we can’t do it right away. I’m not saying we can’t do it… but we can’t do it right away.”
The decision could also go through politics because, among the plans of the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trumpplans to lower the emissions requirements that President Joe Biden put in place with his climate law or even reverse it (he already withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement during his previous term). If so, the HEMI V8 would once again have a place in the US market.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
