The band has broken up. Former members of the SRT engineering team have been integrated into Stellantis’ main engineering group.
On Saturday, Mopar Insiders reported that Stellantis disbanded the SRT engineering team. On Wednesday, a source within Stellantis confirmed to Motor Authority “it’s definitely true as far as the engineering side.”
The move was made official on Feb. 3, when a company-wide announcement on the Stellantis intranet stated that the dedicated SRT engineering group was being integrated into the company’s global engineering organization, the source said. A Stellantis spokesperson confirmed the Feb. 3 announcement to Motor Authority.
The SRT engineers worked solely on SRT performance vehicles. At one point this group consisted of approximately 100 people, our source said.
Those team members can now be reassigned to work on a minivan and dial in the handling or make it a bit sportier, our source said. They could be moved to develop a base Dodge Charger and later charged with making an SRT version. However, the company spokesperson said these engineers are working on performance variants but are now reporting to the heads of each individual program.
There will still be SRT-branded models. Going forward, the company’s highest performing vehicles will have still SRT parts, but they’ll be developed by “mainstream teams that have a performance mindset,” the source said.
According to our source, “it’s early in the process so time will tell how things shake out.”
“If and when the Hemi goes away it might all just fade away, but they’ll (Stellantis) still use that SRT model/brand as a marketing point,” the source said.
SRT team members have already been reassigned and are being moved from product to product. The process began months before the Feb. 3 announcement.
The future of performance will look different regardless of which team is working on any given product. Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis told CNBC in February that the days of supercharged V-8s are numbered. While Hellcats might not survive the shift in times, performance will. Performance vehicles are here to stay thanks to electrification, which can mean both hybrids and full EVs.