2021 Dodge Durango is a mean-faced muscle SUV, even without the supercharger
You don't necessarily have to get a Hellcat to have a good time.
While the 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat is likely to take the lion's share (pun intended, deal with it) of the press, Dodge also rolled out some of the more housebroken versions of the 2021 Durango on Thursday, like the SRT 392, R/T and Citadel. Despite their lack of a giant supercharger, they're still quite cool.
The headline figure for the 2021 Durangos is the class-leading 8,700-pound towing capacity for the SRT 392 and R/T, when equipped with Dodge's Tow 'N Go package. Usually, for that kind of towing, you'd have to step out of the SUV segment and into a full-size truck -- and when you pair that utility with a third row of seats, it's definitely party time.
The SRT 392 may be a little less impressive on paper than the Hellcat, but its naturally aspirated Hemi V8 makes 475 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque, which is definitely on the awesome side of adequate. The workhorse 5.7-liter Hemi makes 360 hp and 390 lb-ft, which isn't bad, but also drops the maximum towing figure down to 7,400 pounds unless you opt for the R/T Tow N' Go spec. Finally, if efficiency is your game and you care more about hauling groceries than hauling ass, the tried-and-true 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 is available and that'll net you a best-in-class (for V6 engines) tow rating of 6,200 pounds, thanks to its 295 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque.
The Durango can tow up to 8,700 pounds.
It's not all just big muscle in Dodge-land though. There are some cool tech upgrades for the 2021 model, the most notable of which is the switch to Uconnect 5, which FCA claims is five times faster than the outgoing version and it can get over-the-air updates. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, too, which gives the Durango a leg up on some luxury SUVs . All the higher-level Durango models get a 10.1-inch touchscreen display, which isn't quite the massive screen from the Ram 1500 , but it's still rather large.
Dodge offers plenty of standard safety tech on the Durango, including adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic detection, forward-collision warning with automatic emergency braking and lane departure warning with lane-keeping assist. Beyond the tech, the Durango's cockpit's design also gets an update to be more Challenger-like, with screens canted slightly toward the driver and a small panel that better separates the shifter area from the passenger seat.
Dodge made some updates in the exterior styling department too, but they're not particularly dramatic in scope or scale. The front end is a little meaner looking, more of the lighting uses LEDs and the SRT 392 (along with the Hellcat) get an integrated chin spoiler. However, it would seem that the Hellcat's awesome functional rear spoiler remains exclusive to that model.
Dodge is keeping pricing information to itself for the time being, but we'd expect that to become available later this summer, in advance of the order books opening for early 2021 customer deliveries.
