Pastrana to GRC in Dodge Dart?

Our American friend and colleague Bill Wood of ‘Tech House & Speed’ is certain that the US manufacturer Dodge is preparing a programme for the 2012 Global Rallycross Championship (GRC). He claims to have understood during his researchs that it will be a two car project for no-one less than action sports Superstar Travis Pastrana and the US based Formula Drift  racer Samuel Hübinette from Sweden. It seems that Dodge is trying to walk in the shoes of Ford (Fiesta VII) and Hyundai (Veloster) by using the sport of Rallycross to introduce the 2013 Dodge Dart to the American market.

The new Dodge Dart is widely based on the 2010 Alfa Romeo Giulietta with its by the Fiat group developed C-Evo platform, but will have a rather ‘American design’ to suit the US market. So far there have only been a very few teaser pictures published by Dodge, two of them to be found below. Bill has not been able to find out yet whether the Rallycross cars are under construction in the United States or Europe, but believes that the job will be done on this side of the big pond “where there are shops that specialize in Rallycross technology”.

If Dodge, as part of the Chrysler group, jumps on the GRC bandwagon the series will have its fourth manufacturer involved, the other three commited are Ford, Hyundai and Subaru. The Dodge Dart is due to make its World debut at the 2012 ‘North American International Auto Show’ (NAIAS) on January 9 at the Cobo Center in Detroit (Michigan). As Wood understood that the programme announcement from Dodge is “imminent” we possibly get more information today a week.

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