What’s the ultimate new car for real car guys and gals on a budget? Given that it has to work in every situation, including commuting to work and school and providing your back-road kicks on the weekends, it might be pretty tough to find a single car that does all of those thing well—and fits with your finances. But you can make a pretty good case that the 2013 Dodge Dart.

The new Dodge Dart started off this year with a vote of confidence from the editors of Autoweek, who named it the “Most Significant Vehicle” at the 2012 North American International Auto Show.

Underpinning the American-built Dart is a sport-tuned Alfa Romeo Giulietta chassis that lends a dash of European flair to its handling. The Dart’s powerplant combines fuel efficiency with performance, and with 10 airbags this sporty compact is a class leader in safety technology. More...

Speed Channel catches a lot of flack for the quantity of not-very-speed-related programming it shows, especially during the winter when all the major racing series have wound down until next year. But this weekend Speed has something worth watching, especially for Mopar fans, on the latest episode of “Test Drive,” featuring the entire 2012 SRT vehicle lineup.

Show host Tommy Kendall teams up with various professional drivers and personalities from the SRT brand and Dodge Motorsports, including Ralph Gilles, President and CEO, SRT and Motorsports, for driving exercises to show off the four benchmark American high-performance vehicles from Chrysler.

There are four segments in the 60-minute show. First, Kendall meets up with Kurt Busch at the Carolina Motorsports Park where the two take to the track in Dodge Charger SRT8s.

Next, Kendall goes to Fontana, California, where he and freestyle motocross athlete and Hart and Huntington Racing team owner Carey Hart drive Dodge Challenger SRT8s in a simulated movie chase scene.

Next up, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 is shown on quaint village roads in Germany before taking a few hot laps around the famed 12.9-mile Nürburgring Nordschleife.

Finally, Kendall and Gilles hop in a Chrysler 300 SRT8 for some on-track and on-road excitement in and around the Motor City.

The show premieres at noon (EST) on Sunday, December 18, on Speed. Tune in, rev up, and take off. Check out SpeedTV.com for more details.

There was a time when you could really get the job done in the Baja 1000 with a fiberglass-bodied dune buggy powered by a 1600cc VW engine pumping out a whopping 60 horsepower. These days, however, competitors in the famous off-road race are pulling out all the stops, including Mopar, which unholstered its new V-10 competition off-road race engine and scored the win at the 44th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.

The 800-horsepower V-10 Competition Race Engine for drag racing debuted at the 2011 SEMA show in Las Vegas. The drag-race engine spawned an off-road version that Kent Kroeker, owner of Kroeker Off-Road Engineering, shoehorned into a Ram 1500. This potent combination propelled Kroeker and his co-driver Alan Roach nearly 700 miles through the rugged desert of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula in just over 20 hours to bag the Class 8 victory. Kroeker began the race and drove through the San Felipe loop, with Roach then taking the wheel for the remainder of the distance.

“Winning the Baja 1000 means laser-focused excellence that can’t be demonstrated any other way,” said Kroeker. “The performance of the new Mopar V-10 was superb. We were the only vehicle in the Baja 1000 using Mopar power. Mopar engineers sculpted its characteristics around my description of what is needed to win in long-distance desert racing.”

The Class 8 division that Kroeker and Roach competed in with the Mopar V-10 is comprised of full-size, two-wheel-drive trucks. Kroeker and his team put the Ram 1500 for Baja together in six weeks, and were the only team in the race using Mopar power, although it’s a good bet they won’t be the only one next year.

Flowing lines and fat tires are fine in their own way, but for real car guys and gals it’s all about what’s under the hood, where there’s no such thing as too much power––or too many cylinders, according to Mopar, which now offers a 512-cubic-inch V-10 crate engine that churns out a whopping 800 horsepower.

The V-10 Competition Series engine is designed specifically for drag racing, with road-race and off-road versions planned for the future. It has an aluminum block and heads, and is hand-assembled by race-engine builders using a forged steel crankshaft and con rods and forged aluminum pistons that give a compression ratio of 12.5:1.

If you’re lucky enough to have a dodge Viper that already has a V-10, you can upgrade it to up to 650 horsepower with a Performance Upgrade Kit that includes aluminum heads, a larger throttle body on a custom upper intake manifold, and new fuel rails and injectors.

But maybe eight cylinders is enough for you. No fear, Mopar is watching out for you, too, with a new crate version of the Gen III 426 Hemi V8. At 590 horsepower, it’s down some on the pumped V-10, but still no slouch. It comes with a forged steel crank, H-beam forged steel rods, an aggressive roller cam, and cast-aluminum valve covers. It’s the perfect choice for a drag car, street rod, or that old go-kart frame in the back yard.

Summer is the time for road trips, and if you’re a Mopar fan, you could drive yourself right into $5,000 in Mopar parts and accessories by winning MoVenture, a seven-day road rally and scavenger hunt that will take 10 two-person teams on a wild ride from Detroit to Golden, Colorado.

Starting on July 15, 2011, the teams will compete in challenges from Detroit to the Mopar Mile High NHRA Nationals in Golden July 22, 2011, all while driving brand new 2011/2012 Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Fiat vehicles provided by Chrysler.

You should be ready for just about anything during MoVenture, from luxury technology to off-roading in the wilderness to partying like rockstars––and maybe even cow roping. All along the way, you'll share your experience with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers and others to keep them updated on the adventure and gain extra points. More...