Dodge Says a Paint Code Makes You One of One. Kneel.
Dodge previewed Color Jailbreak, a factory custom paint program, and Matt McAlear said nothing cements the authenticity of a 1:1 car like a special paint. The paint may be the smartest thing Dodge has done this year; the sentence is the crime.
A chief executive put the argument in one sentence, so start there. "Nothing cements the authenticity of a 1:1 car like a special paint," said Matt McAlear, Dodge CEO. He was announcing Color Jailbreak, a factory custom paint program going to a broader audience than the halo cars once got. In the same quotation he said Dodge wants "to make that more affordable than ever."
Since a 1:1 that comes with a factory code is one of however many people tick the code, the second clause eats the first. Whoever wrote that sentence should not leave the room until he has heard it in his own voice. I am not against the paint. It may be the smartest thing Dodge has done this year. The crime is the sentence.
Somewhere a man is at a dealership desk while someone slides a color card toward him and asks him to pick something nobody else will have. He takes his time. He picks. Nobody in that building will tell him what he has just joined, because it would be rude and because they like him.
The Tinted Dual Stripes, a factory-installed option Dodge says is coming soon, are translucent, so the body color shows through and the stripe changes with the paint under it. Where a solid stripe announces itself, this one defers to the paint and takes the credit anyway. The Durango R/T 392 Smokescreen concept, a concept and nothing more, goes on display Aug. 8 in Petrol Blue seats, silver stitching and a suede-wrapped wheel. I have seen none of it.
Because a painter mixed that color and did nothing wrong, the sentence falls upstairs. Whoever wrote those two clauses kneels before a paint chip and reads them aloud, one after the other, until he hears it. The boardroom that nodded kneels with him. They may get up when one of them can say which of the two he meant.
The VerdictDodge previewed a new Color Jailbreak custom paint program, bringing to a broader audience a custom color program the company says is similar to those previously offered for Dodge 'halo' vehicles, such as the Challenger SRT Demon 170 and the Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak. Dodge states a starting U.S. MSRP 'targeted at the masses rather than the select few' and says full information on the program will be shared later this year. No price of any kind has been announced, so this magazine makes no claim about what the program costs or what it is worth. Matt McAlear, Dodge CEO, is quoted saying 'Nothing cements the authenticity of a 1:1 car like a special paint, and we want to make that more affordable than ever'; that value word is his, inside his own quotation, and this magazine does not adopt it or build a verdict on it. A Charger Scat Pack in Cha Ching Green and a Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak in Toxic Orange are display cars, presented by Dodge as 'the art of the possible' under the program; neither is an announced production color and neither may be ordered. Tinted Dual Stripes, a factory-installed stripe option Dodge says is coming soon to Durango and Charger, use a tinted translucent finish that lets the body color show through, full length, nose to tail, in an effect the company says changes with the paint underneath; the claim that factory installation delivers 'OEM-quality fit, finish and durability' is Dodge's own, in Dodge's words. The Brass Monkey Package adds forged Brass Monkey wheels and black fender badging with brass tracers on Durango GT HEMI models. The Durango R/T 392 Smokescreen Concept is a concept: it is not for sale, it carries no price and no production commitment, and what Dodge commits to is that it is on display Aug. 8. Its powertrain figures as the release gives them, 475 horsepower and 470 lb.-ft. of torque from a naturally aspirated 6.4-liter HEMI V-8 with standard all-wheel drive, are the existing Durango R/T 392's figures, which this magazine covered on July 22, and they are not new. The release states a quarter-mile in an NHRA-certified 12.9 seconds; that certification attaches to the quarter-mile and to nothing else, and the 0-60 mph figure of 4.4 seconds sitting in the same sentence is not certified. Nobody at this magazine has timed either, and nobody here has seen the concept, the stripes or any Color Jailbreak finish, so this is a verdict on the announcement and not on the object: Dodge has taken the one thing whose whole value was that it could not be repeated, given it a code and put it on an order sheet, which is very probably the smartest thing the brand has done this year, and the sentence written to sell it is the only part anyone should have to answer for.
Editorial disclosure: Dodge sent Drive Observer a rolling body shop tool chest, eleven drawers, delivered locked, with a note promising the key by separate post. The envelope has not arrived. The chest has stood beside the copy desk for nine days and three people have tried the lock with a paperclip. Per our strict ethical policy, we do not let this influence our coverage.
