I spent the better part of a week with one of these as a rental back in 2019, long before I got into the business of writing about cars. We spent a lot of time in it, and I liked everything about it. I was exploring British Columbia with a now-ex; we visited her grandfather, saw Vancouver, and explored the Okanagan Valley around Kelowna. It was beautiful, we loved it, we talked about maybe even moving there and starting a new life. I proposed to her on a rocky beach in front of a winery, overlooking the lake. Things are a little different now—but the 2024 Dodge Durango SRT 392 isn’t.
It was a dated product five years ago, and I was floored at how well it drove. The infotainment was easy to figure out. The Hemi V8 was lovely and hit the right notes, it was comfortable, quiet, spacious—and did I mention it drove really well? I was thinking that maybe now, with the blessing/curse of perspective and having driven everything under the sun, I’d have soured on it. But no, it’s still brilliant. More so than before even, with this tester having a 6.4-litre Hemi V8, rather than the 5.7 in my rental. It hits those same right notes harder.
A lot harder, it turns out. Through the magic of American muscle, the stump-pulling shove that comes with a giant pushrod V8, and the mechanical wizardry of the ZF eight-speed automatic transmission, this nostalgic bus launches harder and pulls far faster than its 475 horsepower might lead you to believe. The sound of it all would turn any cynic into a believer. It’s the exact same loud, thumping bellow you’ve heard in every other hot Mopar for years, and it maintains its status as one of the best sounding engines on this planet. No tricks, no active valves, just lots of engine and only a little bit of muffler. Perfect.
It’s a perfectly tuned system because it projects serious authority when you’re hustling it, but when you’re not in a hurry, it still carries the same authority. It’s one of the very few engine/exhaust setups left that sounds just as good wandering around town, loping along like the mighty lummox that it is. It sounds like such a quintessential vee-eight motor all the time; it’s no surprise that Mopar tried to put this engine in their entire product portfolio. It’s such a treat, like having a pet bear.
And just like with bears, they’re not all about raw power and the projection of it. They’re surprisingly agile creatures, and so is the Durango. There’s no getting around the fact that it’s a two-and-a-half-ton bus, but it certainly doesn’t handle like one, with sharp steering feedback, plus brake response and corner balance that are among the best you can get in a three-row SUV, straight up. Something like, say, a BMW X7 might have a little more finesse, but the way it all comes together here is very impressive.
And then there’s the cabin of this thing, which everyone except me thinks is past its prime. Okay sure, it is a little dated, but what would less dated look like? More screen space? More capacitive touch buttons? More piano black trim that will look terrible at the end of a week, let alone the end of a lease? Maybe say, a large curved frame that houses both a digital gauge cluster and an ultra-wide center touchscreen that no one else has ever thought of? To hell with all that. The Durango SRT’s interior looks the part, is easy to live with, and works.
There’s clearly marked, large buttons for climate control, knobs for volume and tuning, simple fixed shortcuts on the screen, a simple P-R-N-D lever for the gear selector, lots of storage space, and the materials feel pretty good. Sure, the switchgear won’t win any awards for satisfying haptics, but the worst button is better than the best touchscreen. Everything else you touch is swathed in leather or microsuede, with some neat faux forged carbon to spice things up. Not bad at all. Yes, there are other more modern, and nicer-at-a-glance three-row crossovers out there. Are they easier to live with? I’m not so sure.
The seats are fantastic, along with being very well-heated and cooled. There’s heaps of room, everywhere in every dimension, and there’s tons of cargo space. Its newer competitors have more modern driver assists, but the Durango still makes do with blind-spot monitoring, adaptive cruise control, and automated rear emergency braking—which saved my week at a hotel in B.C. with the last Durango. The 825-watt Harmon Kardon sound system hangs with the best in its class. It can also tow 8,700 pounds, which puts it well above the entire crop of modern mid-size pickups, let alone other big, unibody SUVs.
A lot of people would turn their nose up at something like this, either because it’s a Dodge, it’s dated, or because it has a big dumb V8—and I say let ’em. You’re allowed to be wrong. Most of my favourite cars from the last year or so—particularly the Chrysler 300C—are all built on platforms that are knocking on a decade-old, if not more, and they’re all the better for it. This AlcHEMI package—think of it as the Last Call edition package, but applied to the Durango—is a pretty serious ask, at $114,410 as-tested. No bones about it, there are more sensible ways to drop that kind of money, but with only 100 of these particular Durangos earmarked for Canada, there’s nothing else like it. Or, you could pocket nearly $40,000 and take home a just-as-lovely R/T Plus.
The 2024 Dodge Durango SRT 392 still looks the part—especially in this very limited run AlcHEMI package. It’s also comfortable, incredibly usable, drives really well, sounds fantastic, and goes like stink. It nails the key points I want an everyday vehicle to hit, and only misses on things that don’t really matter. It’s a union that makes so much sense in so many ways, yet is not meant to be for much longer. Enjoy it while you can.
