IF YOU CAN’T FIND something to like about the Dodge Magnum SRT-8, Chrysler’s “performance sports tourer” answer to the Audi allroad, may we suggest you check your pulse? Not since Lee Iacocca roamed the halls of the former No. 3 American automaker has the phrase, “If you can find a better car, buy it,” carried the same urgency and intent.

Consider the goods, as revealed at the Los Angeles auto show (and also appearing on the Dodge stand in Detroit): SRT-8 represents the first rear-wheel-drive car offered by Chrysler in more than 30 years, as well as the first Hemi in a passenger-car since the Nixon administration.

Yet this is no ordinary Hemi. This one takes the garden-truck-variety 5.7-liter Hemi V8 built for the Ram pickup and adds a Whipple supercharger that boosts output from 345 hp to an estimated 430 hp to 450 hp and raises torque from 375 lb-ft to 480. Chrysler says this performance version (there will be a de-tuned model) will go from 0 to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds and top out at 150 mph.

This is no smoke-and-mirrors “conceptual” rear-drive chassis. Rather, the underpinnings of the SRT-8 foreshadow the next-generation four-door, five-seat Chrysler LX platform. The SRT-8 concept will go on sale in 2004 as a 2005 production model called Magnum, along with sedan siblings like the Hemi-powered rear-wheel-drive Chrysler 300N. The first rear-drive Chrysler LX sedans arrive later this year. Need a topper? Chrysler promises all-wheel drive on the chassis as well.

For enthusiasts used to a steady diet of German engineering, Magnum represents more fruits of the Daimler-Benz/Chrysler marriage, in Mercedes components such as its five-speed automatic transmission, steering, front and rear suspension systems, and electronic wizardry.

Is a Mercedes—and then an AMG—version far behind? It’s enough to make you forget that this is a station wagon.

Originally posted by Akiata

And now the automakers have started the "sporty" cars again.