Dodge Demon Concept Roadster

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There are a few reasons that Dodge decided to name its roadster for 2007 Geneva Auto Show the "Dodge Demon."

First, car companies love alliteration. Start the brand name and model name with the same sound and — bam! — the car is an instant success. Take, for example, the Ford Five Hundred....

Also, as Trevor Creed, the big man at Chrysler Group Design, says, "We simply find it safer to use our own names." Dodge produced a version of the Plymouth Duster in 1971-'72 that it also called the Demon.

It ain't no fairy!
But we suspect there's another reason. A demon is evil. A demon is a ghost up to no good. It is therefore neither wimpy nor girly.

In the same genre of mischievous little spirits, there are sprites (a name already taken), gremlins (ditto), brownies, pixies and, yes, fairies. Hmmm, the Dodge Pixie? The image of pointy ears, sloe eyes and little-girl haircuts is not a perfect fit for the maker of Hemis and Rams and Hemi Rams.

Dodge, which is forever grabbing life by the horns and doing other manly things, used the following descriptors in its official statement about the rear-drive, four-cylinder Demon concept: "muscular," "aggressive," "menacing," "mean-looking" and — oh my! — "thrusts boldly forward."

Get it? This is a man's car, son. It's a mini-Viper, as Lead Exterior Designer Jae Chung says.

The sincerest form of flattery
When Trevor Creed gave us an early peek at the Demon, almost the first thing out of his mouth was the admission that Dodge "used the Miata as a template." This is unusual candor in an industry where companies habitually pretend to invent new concepts and classes of vehicles. We can't argue with Creed's assertion that Mazda struck upon a "magic formula" with the Miata in terms of size, weight, configuration and general go-kart-ness.

The Demon, therefore, sits on a custom-made rear-drive platform that is dimensionally similar to the Miata. It's about an inch shorter in length, about an inch wider and has a wheelbase 4 inches longer than the Miata. Dodge estimates that it would weigh about 2,600 pounds, or 100 more than the Mazda.

The Demon's 2.4-liter inline-4 produces 2 more horsepower than the Miata's 2.0-liter (172 hp vs. 170 hp). The Dodge engine's extra displacement helps it generate 25 pound-feet of torque more than the Miata motor (165 lb-ft vs. 140 lb-ft). The Demon is even fitted with a six-speed manual transmission just like the latest Mazda MX-5.

Creed told us that if the Demon were ever to make it to production, the car also would use other versions of the "World Engine" family of four-cylinder power plants, including the 1.8-liter that makes 148 hp in the Caliber hatchback, and a turbocharged 2.4-liter that makes 300 horsepower in the Caliber SRT-4.

Like the Pontiac Solstice and the standard MX-5 Miata, a production Demon would feature a soft convertible top. Because it is unlikely to rain inside Geneva's PalExpo center during the auto show, the Demon concept has no top at all.

Pint-sized and pissed off
And the Demon certainly will garner some attention. Its Bright Amber Pearl paint alone should guarantee it. Chung, who is 28 and only two years out of design school, chose the color because he believes orange and yellow are particularly appealing to the youth market that Dodge covets. Also, it happens to contrast nicely with the dark gray carbon-fiber trim.

The Demon is not pretty in the way that a Solstice is. Nor does it have the clean simplicity of the lozengelike MX-5 Miata. This Dodge is a complicated piece of work, rendered in carbon fiber.

Seen from the front three-quarter view, the Demon has the tail-dragging stance of a hyena. This is actually an illusion, because the trunk lid is actually much taller than the hood. Credit or blame for the visual trickery goes to the body-side crease that starts in front of the front wheel, arcs over the top and then plunges down the body side, ending at a brake-cooling vent just in front of the rear wheel.

This detail recalls the BMW Z4 roadster, although the arc of the Z4 doesn't lead your eye so far down the flank as that of the Dodge. Also the BMW's rear wheel is accentuated with a tall arch, while the Dodge's pontoonlike rear fenders look wide and low.

Squinting projector-beam headlights (roughly the shape of the Honda S2000's peepers) bookend a huge trapezoidal grille with crossbars. "Aggressive" is one word you could use to describe it. You might also say that it's vaguely catfishlike. Whatever, the car is clearly not happy about something.

The Demon's tail has the bulbous quality of the Nissan 350Z convertible. From a direct rear view, the fenders look as if they might be separate pieces bolted to the taller central fuselage. The lines that separate the fenders from the center portion are carried down across the bumper cover at an angle that would have them meeting a couple of feet below the road. Even the twin trapezoidal exhaust tips are placed to visually continue this line.

Surely, the oddest detail of the design is the asymmetrical wheelwells. They're round at the front but nearly square at the trailing edge. Weird.

Inside line
The exterior might be all complex shapes and brash gold paint, but the interior has no such showiness. There are no glowing orange holograms in place of gauges. There are no floating seats. There is only a simple, functional sports car interior.

A thick horizontal band of brushed aluminum stretches across the instrument panel, incorporating holes for four, round air vents and an audio system head unit. The instrument binnacle bulges just enough to fit two primary and two secondary gauges.

Other than the aluminum trim, the interior fittings are entirely black, with contrasting silver stitching that graces the seats, dash-top and door panels.

The Dodge Demon looks production-ready, except perhaps for the carbon-fiber seat shells, roll-bar surrounds and windshield trim. Lead Interior Designer Dan Zimmermann has artfully incorporated a bunch of parts-pin pieces into an elegant whole that looks feasible for production. "I wanted to have my homework done if the thing goes to production," says Zimmermann, whose previous work has been mostly with Jeep interiors.

The old song and dance
There are, as they say, currently no plans to produce the Demon. But Dodge is, of course, not ruling it out either.

It's the typical concept car song-and-dance. Stacked against a Demon production model is the fact that no small rear-drive platform currently exists on which to build it. Dodge could use a version of the Mercedes-Benz SLK platform, as the Chrysler Crossfire does. This assumes that Daimler doesn't sell off Chrysler as current rumors suggest it might.

Dodge could design a fresh rear-drive platform as GM did for the Solstice. But without at least a couple spin-offs built from the same platform, this would probably prove prohibitively expensive.

Plus, we've been through this all before with Chrysler. Back in 1998, the company unveiled the Plymouth Pronto Spyder, a midengine roadster that was so right and so sexy-perky in every bit of its matte-silver body that we still haven't forgiven Chrysler for not building it. Later, we laughed heartily when Plymouth was euthanized.

The Demon is not the Pronto Spyder, which for all its shapely Porsche-550-meets-Dino-206 beauty, was constructed of recycled soda bottles and was a very, very long shot for production. The completely doable Demon is something different. Still, we're not holding our breath.