The year 1999 was a fascinating time for the sport compact segment. The Fast and The Furious had yet to hit theaters, but the boy-racer scene was already heating up. Hondas like the Civic Si and the Acura Integra Type R, as well as other imports like the Nissan 240SX, the Mitsubishi Eclipse, and the Subaru Impreza, rose to prominence as young buyers chased cheap speed through the rapidly growing aftermarket industry.
By the late ’90s, the Dodge Neon, Chrysler’s compact sedan and coupe, had already been on sale for years. It was a resounding success, but imports from abroad were beginning to take up more and more of the car’s market share. And Chrysler wasn’t about to let that slide.
To capitalize on the rising popularity of the sport compact segment amongst younger buyers, the company needed to embrace the culture head-on. In speaking with Marques McCammon, who worked in product development at Chrysler at the time, that’s exactly what happened. But not without a bit of headache.
The Idea For A Boosted Neon Is Born
The Neon wasn’t totally without its sportiness. Buyers wanting to get into autocross or track work had the ACR trim, which was homologated by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), needing only a roll cage to qualify for on-track action. It came without air conditioning or a stereo, and added adjustable shocks, thicker sway bars, and disc brakes all around. If you opted for the two-door, you also got a dual-overhead cam version of the 2.0-liter inline-four, making 150 horsepower (21 more than the single-cam version).
This stripped-out model, as well as its toned-down successor, the R/T trim, didn’t appeal as much to the younger crowd, though. It didn’t have any flashy bodywork, huge wheels, or forced induction. Tom Gale, chief of design at Chrysler at the time, took inspiration from the competition, which he witnessed firsthand, to greenlight something more extreme. From Car and Driver:
DaimlerChrysler’s design chief Tom Gale was so intrigued by the slammed Honda Civics he saw when visiting the West Coast that he wondered if his engineers back in Michigan couldn’t do the same to a Neon, beyond the 2001 R/T package.
Marques McCammon, who currently runs Karma Automotive, landed at Chrysler during this time. In an interview with The Autopian during CES in Las Vegas, he recounts how he got involved with the SRT project.
“The Neon was the number-one selling small car in the U.S.,” he told me. “And then its volume started to taper off. And the COO at the time had just started a program called Advanced Product Creation. And my boss was the head of Advanced Product Creation. And so I happened to be in the office one day when the question came down. Honda’s rising, Nissan’s rising. It’s the pre-Fast and Furious era, right when Sport Compact was really a grassroots thing. ‘Why are they not using Neon?’ That was the question.”
McCammon was chosen, alongside a technician named Dave Steck and a designer named Eric Stoddard, to create a concept for an SRT-branded Neon. One of the reasons he was picked, he says, was because he drove the competition and wasn’t afraid to defend his choice to his boss.
“I drove a Honda to work every day,” he said. “And in that era, if you drove a Japanese car, you ran the risk of getting your car keyed. So at the Chrysler Tech Center, there’s a parking deck right at the entrance. But if you drove an import, you had to park literally a mile away. So I, in the dead of winter in Michigan, would walk a mile in. [Ed. note: Chrysler still does this at some locations!] My boss looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, ‘So why do you do that? I said, ‘Because I like [the Honda] better. Period.’ I was young and stupid, and bold.”
McCammon was given one directive: Assemble a plan on how he’d make a car that he’d actually want to buy. And so he did.
Meet The Neon SRT (NOT The SRT-4)
The original Neon SRT—the concept did not have the “-4” moniker at the end of its name—is a fairly distinct vehicle, compared to the production version. For one thing, it uses a supercharged version of the regular dual-overhead cam 2.0-liter inline-four.
“Dave introduced me to a guy named Mark Musial,” McCammon told me. “Unfortunately, Mark passed away, but Mark was an engine rat, a ‘dyno rat,’ is what we called him. He had taken a Neon R/T engine and put a supercharger on it. So we grabbed his engine, we shoehorned it into a Neon.”
The engine, making 11 pounds of boost, delivered 208 horsepower and 180 lb-ft of torque, far more than any production Neon at the time. It got power to the front wheels using the short-geared five-speed manual from the ACR. Of course, that wasn’t all. From MotorTrend:
Completing the driveline are a Torsen limited-slip differential, low 3.94:1 axle ratio, and a street-friendly, overdrive fifth gear-for when you’re just out cruising. Eibach springs and Tokico shocks help slam the SRT 1.5 inches lower than a standard Neon. Grip is optimized courtesy of sticky 205/40VR17 Yokohama A520 tires mounted on 7.0-inch-wide TSW aluminum wheels, while the SRT’s four-wheel disc brakes feature vented, cross-drilled rotors up front.
“I specced wheels, tires, brakes, suspension, seats, [an] exhaust system, and we built [it] up,” McCammon told me. Stoddard, the designer, meanwhile, came up with the car’s new look. In addition to the wheels, the Neon SRT concept got a new fascia with Dodge’s signature crosshair grille, as well as a set of fog lights. A bulging hood with a hood scoop was added, as was a big rear wing, reminiscent of Europe’s and Japan’s sport compacts of the time.
Inside, the Neon SRT got a smattering of blue leather inserts, from the steering wheels to the Momo Street Racer seats. There were also Sparco aluminum pedal covers, silver air vents, and a 4,400-amp sound system.
According to McCammon, the Neon SRT was an instant hit.
“We brought it to Las Vegas, to the SEMA show,” he said. “And then, the sport compact world just dropped in on it. We hit the cover of Super Street magazine, and then the COO was like, ‘Take it to the LA Auto Show.’ [We] took it to the LA Auto Show, and the same thing happened again. We made the cover of Sport Compact Car magazine, the first domestic to ever do that.”
To prove the SRT was more than just a kitted-up show car with no real guts, Chrysler even allowed journalists some time behind the wheel. And they liked it, too. From MotorTrend:
We had a chance to sample the SRT and, unlike most concept cars, this pocket-rocket really had plenty of go to match its show. How quick is it? Dodge claims to have run 0-60 mph in 6.0 seconds flat with the SRT, 1.5 seconds quicker than the last 150-horsepower box-stock Neon we tested.
[…]
The SRT drives like what it is: an extremely well put-together tuner car. We found wheelspin off the line a formidable issue, but torque steer was not. Well-balanced handling and decently compliant ride characteristics actually make the SRT both competent and fun through the corners.
Car and Driver echoed a similar sentiment:
We quickly discovered that an Eaton supercharger breathing 11 pounds of boost into a 2.0-liter Neon produces wheelspin on demand in first gear. The exhaust plumbing is 2.5-inch tubing feeding a Borla muffler, and it issues a virile tone from the twin tailpipes.
The Long Road To Production
Despite the public’s positive reaction, the SRT’s chances of actually entering production weren’t set in stone. In fact, it was pretty unlikely at the time. But McCammon was determined.
“Then [the COO] said, ‘You know, it’s a pity we can’t make it in production,” he told me. ”I heard that as, ‘Marques, go make a production version.’ So we just kept working on the program until the accountants said yes. And that was a three-year process.”
As it turns out, the original Neon SRT concept wasn’t a very economically viable car. A lot of stuff had to be changed to convince the bean counters. The biggest switch-up came under the hood, where the supercharged 2.0-liter engine was swapped out for a turbocharged 2.4-liter unit that already existed within the Chrysler portfolio.
“We took a 2.4-liter turbocharged engine that was only for sale in Mexico,” McCammon said. “It was in the Mexican Dodge Stratus.”
The 2.4-liter inline-four was used widely throughout Chrysler’s lineup from the mid-1990s into the 2000s, but before the Neon, the turbocharged version, which used a turbo supplied by Mitsubishi, was only available on the Mexican-market Stratus R/T and Chrysler Cirrus. Mopar heads will also know this engine was used in the sportiest version of the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the GT.
The production version made 215 hp to start in the Neon SRT-4 when it debuted in 2003, before rising to 230 hp thanks to bigger fuel injectors and ECU calibrations in later models. The engine was connected to the wheels via a different five-speed, this time from Tremec, along with a high-end clutch from Sachs. Both of those pieces were unique to the Neon.
It wasn’t just McCammon that wanted to see the Neon SRT-4 program succeed. He had the weight of the company behind him.
“The guy who ran suspension for [the Small Car program] was an avid SCCA rally racer. He helped us to design that system. [The car] developed this cult following inside of the company. So everyone who’s a gearhead started getting involved. It grew and it grew.”
According to Car and Driver, the production car didn’t leave anything on the table, chassis-wise:
For all its wheelspin potential, though, the SRT-4 is a balanced package, capable of stopping and turning with the same kind of zeal it brings to going straight-ahead. An accomplished Sports Car Club of America racer himself, director John Fernandez doesn’t want any one-dimensional specials coming out of his Performance Vehicle Operations shop. Thus, the SRT-4 has upgraded knuckles, sturdier control arms, higher spring rates, firmer valving in the Tokico struts, a steering rack adapted from the PT Cruiser GT, and heavier anti-roll bars—24 millimeters up front, 19 rear, versus 22 and 17 in the R/T package.
Despite all of the changes underneath, the Neon SRT-4 retained its boy-racer looks from the concept. It still had the crosshair grille, the hood scoop, and that big rear wing. It was also just as loved by journalists at the time. From that same Car and Driver article:
Getting the best launch is tricky. As you’d expect, the SRT-4 has bigger footprints than its R/T counterpart—205/ 50ZR-17 rubber versus 195/50TR-16s—but even so, it’s easy to overpower them with a careless throttle foot. On the other hand, shameless wheelspin will be this car’s biggest appeal for many owners. Hey, baby, watch this!
For all its wheelspin potential, though, the SRT-4 is a balanced package, capable of stopping and turning with the same kind of zeal it brings to going straight-ahead.
It wasn’t just the journos who liked it. Buyers did, too. The power-to-price ratio (the SRT-4 started at $19,995) proved appealing to those wanting something truly sporty without having to break the bank.
“We were only supposed to build 3,000 SRTs,” McCammon told me. “We ended up building 10,000 a year for three years.”
Was he surprised by the demand? “I wasn’t,” he said. “The best sport compact car at the time was the Integra Type R. So we took the Integra Type R, and I said, ‘I want to beat it on every measure.’ Then Ford came out with a Focus Cosworth, so I said, ‘We have to beat that too.’ We designed it to win.”
While the concept of a sport compact like the SRT-4 from an automaker like Dodge in the modern day is certainly a fantasy, it’s nice to know that once upon a time, Chrysler, for a brief moment, had something that could truly compete.
Top image graphic: Dodge; Karma
I get excited whenever I see a survivor. If you were on the SRT 4 message boards when the car first came out I’m sorry for everything I said about you and your car. My car bullying phase is not my proudest moment.
Funny how the approach to design a better product made lots of sales while Nissans approach to score as many high risk auto loan customers as possible tanked their brands reputation and likely the company with it.
Ironically, not focusing on profits makes more profits.
Short term thinking = everywhere in corporate, which is why corporate is stupid
My friend bought one new in 2004 and stock it was fun but we all made fun of him because it was a NEON. hahaha
Then he started moding it and oh man it was beating cars they he had no business beating. That car would pull like crazy up and just walk moded Camaro’s, Mustangs, Corvettes.
He loved it so much, he even got a Dodge Caliber SRT4 afterwards but after a while got the itch for a V8 and got a Pontiac GTO.
It’s pretty hilarious how Dodge shamelessly yoinked that very popular TSW wheel design for the production version.
The Supra spoiler was a very questionable choice for the time, but everything else about this car was spot on.
The ACR and SRT4 were truly memorable and special cars.
Oooo I can help add some flavor to this one. I had a 1st gen coupe that I street raced on the regular, and sometimes did track days. The facility that built all the neons was only about 1.5 hours from me, so once a year there would be a weekend long gathering down in Rockford IL for neon enthusiasts from around the country. It was AMAZING.
If I remember right, Thursdays were track days at blackhawk farms raceway, and the group would rent the entire track for the day. Friday, we would head down to Great Lakes Dragaway for 1/4 mile racing, and I distinctly remember high dollar cars being turned away at the entrance, like 1st gen NSX, not allowed to race lol. There was also a cookout in a local park, and then Saturday we’d all assemble at the Neon plant in Belvidere IL for a car show.
This is where my story becomes about the SRT4; we already had enthusiasts tuning the 2.0 with boost and nitrous, and the company was aware of what we were doing (obv). So before ANY mention of the SRT program to the press/magazines…. we were shown something special. They gave us a quick tour of the the factory itself, then shuffled us into a dark conference room where they showed us a presentation on the SRT development, INCLUDING hp/tq dyno charts of the current factory tune, and the upgraded tunes.
Then we went outside, and they had a preproduction mule SRT4 for us to look at. It had no VIN. This was a Stage 2 SRT4, and we were not allowed to drive it, but another factory employee had a Pontiac WS6 Trans Am, and I remember we would get rides in the SRT4 mule and drag race the WS6 on the street in front of the factory.
Also if any of you factory guys read this, thank you for treating the enthusiast community so kindly, it was awesome!!!
Well this is annoying. I wrote a huge comment but it’s somehow awaiting approval. Since when is post approval a thing?
Edit: Original comment since this one worked:
Oooo I can help add some flavor to this one. I had a 1st gen coupe that I street raced on the regular, and sometimes did track days. The facility that built all the neons was only about 1.5 hours from me, so once a year there would be a weekend long gathering down in Rockford IL for neon enthusiasts from around the country. It was AMAZING.
If I remember right, Thursdays were track days at blackhawk farms raceway, and the group would rent the entire track for the day. Friday, we would head down to Great Lakes Dragaway for 1/4 mile racing, and I distinctly remember high dollar cars being turned away at the entrance, like 1st gen NSX, not allowed to race lol. There was also a cookout in a local park, and then Saturday we’d all assemble at the Neon plant in Belvidere IL for a car show.
This is where my story becomes about the SRT4; we already had enthusiasts tuning the 2.0 with boost and nitrous, and the company was aware of what we were doing (obv). So before ANY mention of the SRT program to the press/magazines…. we were shown something special. They gave us a quick tour of the the factory itself, then shuffled us into a dark conference room where they showed us a presentation on the SRT development, INCLUDING hp/tq dyno charts of the current factory tune, and the upgraded tunes.
Then we went outside, and they had a preproduction mule SRT4 for us to look at. It had no VIN. This was a Stage 2 SRT4, and we were not allowed to drive it, but another factory employee had a Pontiac WS6 Trans Am, and I remember we would get rides in the SRT4 mule and drag race the WS6 on the street in front of the factory.
Also if any of you factory guys read this, thank you for treating the enthusiast community so kindly, it was awesome!!!
Edit Edit: If you’ll notice the original car did not have grill inlets near the hood; apparantly the car would get heat soak so the solution was to remove more material between the headlights to increase cooling
Well this is annoying. I wrote a huge comment but it’s somehow awaiting approval. Since when is post approval a thing?
That happened to me last week, that’s one of the reasons I stopped bothering to comment at the old site.
I really hope that it’s a glitch not a new process!
Those gatherings were fun. I was at the original neon97, 1998, 2004 (I think) and one of the years that it was in Detroit – 2005? I also went in whichever year it was that Chris rented the Route 66 dragstrip in Chicago – I think that was 2000 and I know that I brought my racecar that year. On neons.org, I went by ACRMAN. I didn’t go every year because I was racing my ACR in SCCA Showroom Stock from 1999-2002.
I suspect there’s a word filter that puts some comments in the moderating queue. I say this because I wrote a post in which I used a specific common troll term in the negative, and it prompted a review. It was approved within a couple of hours, I think.
Oooo I can help add some flavor to this one. I had a 1st gen coupe that I street raced on the regular, and sometimes did track days. The facility that built all the neons was only about 1.5 hours from me, so once a year there would be a weekend long gathering down in Rockford IL for neon enthusiasts from around the country. It was AMAZING.
If I remember right, Thursdays were track days at blackhawk farms raceway, and the group would rent the entire track for the day. Friday, we would head down to Great Lakes Dragaway for 1/4 mile racing, and I distinctly remember high dollar cars being turned away at the entrance, like 1st gen NSX, not allowed to race lol. There was also a cookout in a local park, and then Saturday we’d all assemble at the Neon plant in Belvidere IL for a car show.
This is where my story becomes about the SRT4; we already had enthusiasts tuning the 2.0 with boost and nitrous, and the company was aware of what we were doing (obv). So before ANY mention of the SRT program to the press/magazines…. we were shown something special. They gave us a quick tour of the the factory itself, then shuffled us into a dark conference room where they showed us a presentation on the SRT development, INCLUDING hp/tq dyno charts of the current factory tune, and the upgraded tunes.
Then we went outside, and they had a preproduction mule SRT4 for us to look at. It had no VIN. This was a Stage 2 SRT4, and we were not allowed to drive it, but another factory employee had a Pontiac WS6 Trans Am, and I remember we would get rides in the SRT4 mule and drag race the WS6 on the street in front of the factory.
Also if any of you factory guys read this, thank you for treating the enthusiast community so kindly, it was awesome!
I appreciate the SRT-4, but the original ACR Neon is one of the best things any American automaker has ever done.
Keying someone’s car because they haven’t bought whatever the company is building is no different than calling ICE on your neighbors because they were born in a different country, except of course in scale. It’s just prejudice and hatred and tribalism.
I get where you’re coming from but I think those are in fact two very different things.
I mean, it is, in fact, very and extremely different.
Like I say, the scale difference is enormous but at the core, I think the mindset is coming from the same sort of place, following similar paths. Sycophantic fealty, baseless resentment and anonymous attack to punish perceived intruders. Of course, nobody is kidnapping you because you dared show up in Dearborn in a Porsche…then again. Some of the nuts emboldened by the current administration, who knows.
I don’t know, obviously. I’m not an asshole.
Well. Not that specific kind, anyway.
I get your point.. Gatekeeping at it’s most benign, genocide at it’s most extreme, some slippery slopes in between.
Yes. This is what I was trying to say. It’s a slippery slope.
Keying a car requires you to be just a basic dick, but casually ratting on someone with the intention of ruining their entire life and very possibly getting them killed just because of their race requires a depth of evil that is difficult for me to fully grasp.
I know what you’re saying and that both acts come from places of ignorance, but they are not remotely comparable beyond that very generic starting point.
Elhigh admits they are not comparable, but corollary. Think about this; What do you suppose the Venn diagram of people who would key a Honda in a Chrysler lot, and people who voted for the Regime looks like? I suppose it’s a circle. That’s not a generic starting point, it’s a starting point that presupposes indifference to the right to be different, the right to be an immigrant. The “banality of evil” is a phrase for a reason. Arendt coined it specifically to describe acts you see as “difficult to grasp” that were done without malice or sadism, but alliance to a leader or concept. If your moral compass allows you to vandalize someone’s property because it’s a Honda in a big three lot, how far does that compass need to go before you vandalize a Muslims car, or a Mosque, or…?
These were neat cars but most fell victim to their owners. A guy I went to high school with had one, he was selling it and wrote a real I know what I have type of Craigslist post and a ridiculous asking price to go along with it. Eventually the ad was taken down and the rumor was that the car had not sold but that the motor had blown up. I imagine most of these suffered similar fates.
I remember seeing the same thing when they were most available on the used market. Either they were pristine and absurdly priced, or completely destroyed.
The American car company parking rules are such a weird thing to me. I got a lot of heat for buying a Civic Type R when working at the blue oval. Had to park in the back of the lot, but if you go into street view, you can see my car right by the sign so that’s neat.
How ironic that they’d actually choose someone who owned a Honda, given the childish parking lot rules American car companies have.
Also, the first-gen Neon looks like a first-gen Impreza and also has head gasket issues like an Impreza 😛
Headgaskets were absolutely a thing until mid 1997 or so, at which point they swapped to MLS headgaskets. Post 1998, all Neons used MLS headgaskets and didn’t have problems.
4,400 amp sound system? I can guarantee that is probably supposed to be watts….
As they say, it’s not the volts that kill ya
I actually think it was supposed to read 440 watts. The Naim in the new Bentley Bentaga is only 2,200 watts.
I still see a few of them running around. They’re all beat up though, looking and sounding rough.
When these came out, no one kept them stock, especially since they had manufacturer aftermarket support. At this point these cars are on their 3rd/4th owners and probably been rode hard.