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Just in time to celebrate Dodge’s return to NASCAR after an absence of twenty years is a bright red row of new performance models, all bearing the venerable Mopar name, “R/T.”  The moniker has denoted hot Dodges since the late 1960s, but hasn’t been seen much lately.

But here we are, starting off a new millennium, and the R/T is back.  The new name graces the Neon, Stratus, Dakota pickup, and the vehicle that will be starring in oval track action for the 2001 Winston Cup season, the Intrepid.  So will the sporty new Intrepid R/T bring the thrills of NASCAR home, should you be a fan?

Well, probably not.  The Intrepid shares about as much with the stock cars roaring around Daytona as do the Ford Taurus, Pontiac Grand Prix, and Chevy Monte Carlos whose names are represented amid the corporate sponsorships.  All stock cars are rear-wheel drive coupes, powered by V8 engines.  The Intrepid is, as it’s always been, an front-wheel-drive sedan.  But don’t hold that against it.  The Intrepid R/T has more than a bit of its own excitement to share.

Redesigned from the ground up for 1998, the Intrepid’s slick shape still looks new. Dodge’s cab-forward design stretches the passenger cabin out to the wheel wells, bringing the leading edge of the windshield forward almost to the front wheels.  The roof sweeps down to thick C-pillars, sloping to a sharply cut off trunk.  The rear window is at a Sixties muscle car angle, closer to horizontal than vertical.  With its foreshortened nose and dramatically stretched-out tail, the Intrepid resembles nothing so much as an amimator’s rendering of a car at speed.  From a distance, the swoopy design masks the car’s size; it’s not till you’re up close that you realize the Intrepid is as big as a Lexus LS430 or BMW 7-Series.  R/T models look just like standard Intrepids, except for subtle R/T badging and special 17″ wheels.  A low, wide grille is split by a panel and vaguely approximates the look of a Grand Prix car.  Fog lights live in the outer corners of the lower grille.  A full-width taillight unit graces the rear of the Intrepid, and looks best on dark-colored cars.

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