How A Hemi-Powered, Durango-Hellcat-Based Alfa Romeo Could Be A Spicy Italian Cayenne-Beater

It’s hard to think of more unlikely partners than the current brands of automaker Stellantis. The idea of the executives, engineers, and designers of Dodge and Alfa Romeo being on the same planet is hard enough to imagine; having them collaborate on cars is unfathomable.

So far, the fruits of their joint efforts have been a bit lacking. However, is there a way that we can take the most outlandish and amusing products from each of these disparate brands and make something flat-out insane? A combination of Mopar street hustle with exotic Italian flair? Maybe, but I don’t see a reason to make a sports coupe or sedan that nobody will buy. No, with a number of slow-selling, highly depreciating high-performance SUVs in the Stellantis stable, we need to make one that shows the Volkswagen Group how it’s done. Look out Cayenne and Urus: the Alfemi is coming for you.

Of Saabaroos And Trollblazers

Over the years, we’ve seen some very, very strange badge engineering jobs and odd mix-ups from parts bins of brands that you probably never in a million years thought would be under the same umbrella. It’s the kind of thing that often goes one of two ways. One possible outcome is that the best qualities of certain brands combine with the ideal features of another nameplate in the group to create a magical mix as tasty as salted caramel chocolate. The other result is a compounding of all the worst attributes imaginable, akin to the character Danny Devito played in the movie Twins.

I’ve written about some examples before:

The Saab 9-2X “Saaburoo” has to be considered a success: a Subaru Imprezza WRX modified to fit the more upscale Swedish car brand. Somehow the quirkiness of the Subie was something sorely missing in the GM-based Saabs offered at the time.

The Alfa Romeo ARNA was just the opposite. Whose idea was it to combine the worst parts of a sub-par Italian car experience (rust-prone steel, a rather throbby engine, and unreliable electrics) with the least appealing elements one might encounter in a Japanese car – as in bland styling and soggy handling?

Alfa has experienced a bit of the same thing recently with a compact SUV that Stellantis tried to sell under the Italian brand as well as with a Dodge logo on it. By doing minimal work to differentiate the two, neither one hit the mark in the segments they were trying to hit; the Alfa didn’t come off as nearly exotic enough, and the Dodge couldn’t compete with Japanese juggernaut competitors.

Other strange bedfellow concoctions over the years were lambasted at their launch but, in retrospect, might have been better than we gave them credit for. We can joke all day about the Saab 9-7X Aero “Trollblazer” SUV, but looking at it objectively? Now it makes more sense.

The Saab makeover added a fancy interior and a tastefully restrained exterior that didn’t let the people at the country club know that you were enjoying the rumbling tumbling V8 fun of a Chevy Trailblazer SS. Sure, think of it as a Saab and it’s silly, but as a leather-lined, grown-up muscle truck – I’m in.

Dodge’s ultra high-performance three-row SUV, the Durango SRT Hellcat, is much like that Trailblazer SS. It’s undeniably fast and surprisingly capable for what it is. Actually, considering that “what it is” is a 5700-pound truck that came out in 2011, you’d probably be surprised even if it just drove better than a motorhome or even an actual house. It’s fun to read reviews where the writers experiencing the Hellcat don’t change their initial opinion of it being a big, outdated, overpowered dinosaur after driving it, but they claim to have nearly cried when having to give it back to Stellantis.

Still, a big SUV with the words “Hellcat” and “Jailbreak” in its name and even racing stripes that sells (well, lists) for near six figures is going to find a limited market. It’s a bit too much of a blue-collar bruiser in a field of executives. To me, that’s what makes it cool, but like many automotive things that we Autopians think are “cool,” it equates with “sales death.”

In this category, people will likely expect some sophistication or at least perceived sophistication. That’s where Dodge’s Italian stablemate comes into play.

Mopar di Milano

Make no mistake: the powerplant in the Durango Hellcat is a prodigious thing. 710 horsepower from a pushrod V8 is quite an accomplishment, but most buyers in the upper regions of the performance SUV segment expect something like the European products that dominate there.

If you don’t have double overhead cams and four valves per cylinder, you’re just not going to have the cred that car snobs demand. The Hellcat’s 6500 RPM redline is impressive, but we want something that flat-out revs with the red part of the tach beginning no lower than around 7500. Oh, and it should make less rumbling, metal-trash-can-full-of-rocks noises and more the kind of sounds they dubbed into television shows like Hardcastle and McCormick.

This crazy idea isn’t new. A number of people have created DOHC conversions of small-block Chevys and such. Mosler is one name that comes up in searches, and his 1971 creation actually had five camshafts, keeping the original in place. Reportedly, 30 sets of heads were made back then, and few survive.

For the Alfemi, the new belt-driven heads would bolt right in place at the Italian factory where the American motors might be shipped for the conversion work.

Who knows if this would work, but theoretically it could make for a very heavy breathing hemi. I’m not looking for 1000 horsepower, and in fact if we could produce similar power to the Hellcat with a smaller displacement motor why not? Regardless, I want my cams.

Now that we have this crazy Italian-American motor, there’s really only one place to use it: the Chrysler Pacifica. No, just kidding, the creaky old Durango is getting a new lease on life.

Imma Put On An Italian Car Costume

If I follow the Saab 9-7X/Trailblazer formula for this Alfemi SUV, there are strict limits on what I can change on the old Durago. Namely, I can add an all-new front clip, new taillights and bumper plus a few other superficial styling tweaks. Challenge accepted! Let’s start with that Durango Hellcat in an Italianate red.

The Alfa clip fits on with ease, and I’ll add a NACA-style hood scoop to emulate the Alfa Montreal to replace the Hellcat’s opening. Phone dial wheels are a must:

Let’s see the changes in an animation:

In back, new taillights similar to other Alfas replace the Mopar units, including body-colored fillers in the apertures where the Dodge’s lights used to be. Note also the rear quarter windows are filled with body-colored inserts to reshape the glass into a form closer to Alfa/Maserati sport utes, with a black-painted C pillar to tie it all together.

Again, an animation of the two:

Personally, I was hoping that this thing would look far sillier than it ended up. The fact that it’s almost presentable in appearance shows how the Durango isn’t bad looking even fifteen years on and, at the same time, that the current crop of Alfa (and Maserati) SUVs just aren’t as distinctive or beautiful as you would hope the Milano firm would create; it’d be nice to have something as cutting edge as the 156, 164 and GTV were in the eighties and nineties to point a new direction to the current rather stale crop of SUVs.

Ciao, Durango

A little while back, commenters in a piece that I did on a monster SHO Ford SUV expressed how much they hated these mega-power family trucks. I tend to agree, but does that mean I visualized a big, rebadged Alfa SUV just to annoy them more? Not exactly. You see, the Durango Hellcat is already out there; the horses have left the barn or whatever other cliche you want to use. If such a Stellantis product is really going to exist, at the very least it I’d like to see it with some semblance of refinement and exotic-car sophistication.

Is the Alfemi Quadrofoglio a stupid idea? Of course it is! Here’s a rather large American SUV that, if it were a person, would be old enough to drive in some states. Can you see Alfa Romeo actually working with anything that aged to begin with? Oh wait, yes, they absolutely have done that – and it was actually nearly 20 years old at the time:

Never mind that; let’s be honest with ourselves. If Alfa really is working on a big three row SUV as is rumored, it will likely be targeted at America and, based on recent history, there’s a good chance that it will be a sales disappointment. It probably won’t even end up looking that different from this stupid facelifted Durango. Would a clean-sheet, three-row Alfa be more sophisticated than a heavily reworked Dodge? Absolutely, but again, who will care? In retrospect, Saab could have spent millions (which they didn’t have) to make an all-new SUV instead of the modified Trail Blazer; critics might have been kinder but it likely wouldn’t have sold any better. Truthfully, a turbo Saab ute might have been less amusing than the SS-clone V8 9-7X Aero which we did get.

I can tell you this: if a four-cam, thirty-two valve Hemi with an Italian exhaust note in a sport utility wagon wouldn’t make you laugh out loud with glee, then you might be allergic to fun. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t buy one, but I’d certainly take it over a Maserati TC. Now there’s a Stellantis mash-up we won’t talk about.

Top graphic images: Stellantis