CarBrandLogos archive · Dodge · 1998

DodgeDurango

The truck-based family hauler that survived long enough to grow a Hellcat engine.

Photo: Kevauto · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Dodge history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Dodge Durango, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Dodge's first Durango was a straightforward piece of 1990s product planning. Take the Dakota pickup's chassis, add a five-door body and a third row, and sell it to families who had decided that a full-size Ramcharger was too much and a Caravan too little. It arrived for 1998 as a mid-size body-on-frame SUV, with front-engine, rear- or four-wheel drive, and it stepped into the space the Ramcharger and the older Town Wagon had left behind.

2nd-Dodge-Durango · IFCAR · Public domain

Design and engineering

That formula ran through a second generation and then stopped in 2009, a casualty of fuel prices and Chrysler's collapse. What came back in 2011 was a different vehicle wearing the same name. The new Durango was built on the unibody platform Chrysler had developed with Daimler and shared with the Jeep Grand Cherokee, which turned it from a small truck into a large three-row crossover with independent suspension and far better road manners.

07-Dodge-Durango · IFCAR · Public domain

In production

The reinvention worked, and it worked for a remarkably long time. Where most rivals were replaced twice over, the Durango stayed in production largely unchanged in its bones, kept fresh by an unusually aggressive engine catalogue — a V6 for volume, Hemi V8s above it, and eventually the supercharged Hellcat unit, which produced the improbable spectacle of a seven-seat school-run vehicle with drag-strip credentials. It is one of very few American SUVs whose reputation now rests more on what is under the bonnet than on what it can tow.

07-Chrysler-Aspen · IFCAR · Public domain

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Produced

1997–present

Body

5-door SUV

Technical specification

The Durango, in detail.

Production: 1997–present
Class: Mid-size SUV (1998–2009); Mid-size crossover SUV (2011–present)
Body style: 5-door SUV
Layout: Front engine, rear-wheel drive / Four-wheel drive
Manufacturer: Dodgeefn; name=manufacturer; Chrysler Corporation (1997–1998) ; DaimlerChrysler (1998–2007) ; Chrysler LLC (2007–2009) ; Chrysler Group LLC (2009–2014) ; FCA US LLC (2014–2021) ; Stellantis North America (2021–present)

Explore Dodge Read the full reference ↗

Badge at launch