Stellantis is the world’s fourth largest motor manufacturer. It was formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and the PSA Group and consequently it is the current owner of the Hemi V8. Introduced by Chrysler in 1951, the Hemi soon became a motorsport mainstay and today’s 11,000 bhp Top Fuel and Funny Car V8s have engine architecture derived from it in its traditional configuration.
There have been many Hemi variants over its nearly three quarters of a century lifespan but as a production engine it is now near the end of the road. That much was confirmed by Michael ‘Micky’ Bly, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Propulsion Systems for Stellantis at a Detroit press conference in October.
However, while Stellantis has committed to an electric-only propulsion strategy for its European cars from 2030, at the press conference Bly announced: "We have to balance this approach. ICE is here to stay for a period of time. We are growing capacity, adding capacity, for South America, the Middle East and Asia Pacific."
At the same time Bly said that Stellantis is going to streamline its lineup of ICE engines, especially ones “not performing well on our CO2 roadmap”. This signals the end of the Hemi V8, even in its latest guise with cylinder deactivation technology. However it is not the end of the road for a comparably potent ICE.
Bly explained, “the Hemi doesn't have all the attributes we needed. We could go and redo the Hemi, but we realised we needed to downsize the engine and bring up the power.”
The Hemi replacement will be a derivative of the 3.0-litre twin-turbo I6 ‘Hurricane’ that Stellantis unveiled in 2022. This produces more than 400 bhp and more than 450 ft.lb. torque in its initial ‘Standard Output’ (SO) guise with a ‘High Output’ (HO) version coming that will produce more than 500 bhp (rumoured to be 520 bhp) and more than 475 lb.ft. torque.
Moreover, Bly hinted that in the works is an even more potent version; “we just haven’t released it yet”. This is good news for future racers looking for a replacement for the ubiquitous Hemi.
