Wicked Wednesday: Does the Dodge Neon SRT-4 Deserve More Love?
In 2003 Dodge took on the JDM tuner market with the Neon SRT-4. It provided a lot of fun per dollar but was also famously unreliable.
Believe it or not it has now been twenty years since Dodge introduced the Neon SRT-4 to the world. There are some Dodge fans out there that were not even born when this car was released. With that in mind it is a good time to take a look back at this little mighty mouse of a car. Is it a performance icon? Or something we should bury in the pages of history and never speak of again? Dodge is known for making big, powerful muscle cars. A front-wheel drive, four-banger might not seem worthy of the SRT badge. But Dodge saw how popular the JDM tuner scene was and was hoping to grab some of that market with the Neon SRT-4.
This week’s “Wicked Wednesday” is all about the Dodge Neon SRT-4. The car was only built from 2003 – 2005. It made decent power for the time and put down decent performance figures. But it was not exactly a paragon of reliability. And it does not have the sophisticated suspension geometry found in a modern Civic Type R. That means the SRT-4 suffers from a good deal of torque steer. But the car was cheap and playful. It was not the penalty box that a regular Neon was. Yet, even today the SRT-4 doesn’t get nearly the amount of love as its V8 powered stablemates. Is it time to change that? A video posted on the ThatDudeinBlue YouTube channel looks to answer that question.
Video Car
The car in the YouTube video has been modified fairly heavily for track use. So, it is not a showroom stock example. And that is not surprising. The car was meant to compete with the JDM tuner cars. So, the Neon SRT-4 was often modified. The cool thing is that the car we see here is a track rat. It is running more boost and pushed hard constantly but is still plugging along. Even stock this car made 215 horsepower and 245 pound-feet of torque. It was enough to propel the car to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and top out at 153 mph. Very respectable numbers in 2003. Especially considering the starting price of just $19,995.
Low Price Problem
Decent performance at a low price is a good thing, but it has a downside. These cars depreciate quickly and by the time they made it into the hands of the second or third owner they were very cheap. And is often the case with inexpensive cars they were rarely maintained well. Regular service intervals were missed. On top of that the cars were modified. The combination of the two usually results in an unreliable car. And that is the reputation the SRT-4 has. That is a shame because the car deserves a better fate.
Future Classic?
These cars were not made for very long. Many were crashed, or just abused until they died. As a result, there are not many of these left on the road. I just ran a nationwide search and found only 11 SRT-4 cars listed for sale. As a comparison there are roughly three times as many Viper SRT10s from the same era for sale right now. The SRT-4 doesn’t have the same performance for sure. But it is not slow. It comes with a manual transmission. And if you find a good one and take care of it the car should last you for many years. Even the very best condition cars you can land for somewhere in the $20,000 range. And for that you get a good performing car that is rarer than a Viper. Sounds like a good deal to us.
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