The Hemi Edition
On cult engines, rapper shoutouts, and a decision for Stellantis.
Ryan McManus (RMM) is head of Competitive Intelligence at Ford and a longstanding friend of WITI. He has previously written about the fate of concept cars, the mystery of the Mystic Cobra, the simple elegance of SecuriCode, and how to start your own town. He owns a disgusting number of Hot Wheels. Really, it’s too many.
Ryan here. Spend any time in the comments section of any social media post or story about a new Dodge, Jeep, Ram or even Chrysler vehicle, and invariably you will come across some variation of the lament “Should have put a Hemi in it!”. Indeed, when parent company Stellantis recently announced that they were unretiring executive Tim Kuniskis to take the helm of the Ram brand, the MOPAR faithful answered with “maybe he’ll bring back the Hemi!” And with good reason—for those who live and breathe muscle car culture, Tim is anointed the patron saint of what is considered maybe the most famous V8 in automotive history: the Hemi. But why do we even know the name Hemi, anyway?
Why is this interesting?
For those hoping for a detailed technical history of the Hemi (short for hemispherical, the particular shape of the combustion chamber in the engine’s cylinder heads), sorry to disappoint—this isn’t that kind of article. Instead, what is interesting is how the name “Hemi” has endured to become a brand all its own, overshadowing even the cars and trucks it’s powered since the 1940s.
This isn’t how automotive branding and marketing is supposed to work, after all. Sure, car engines have often been branded, with special badges signaling their presence. And those who follow car culture closely will likely have heated opinions on the superiority of a Ford “Coyote” V-8 vs a Chevy LS, not to mention the rabid tuning fanbases for the Honda K motors. Hell, even Springsteen sang about his “Cobra Jet”. But these are car nerds we’re talking about (sorry, “gearheads”). Arcane knowledge of engine codes and displacement numbers and the shape of their cylinder heads are the coin of the realm. The Hemi was somehow different. Despite marketing budgets for engines being a fractional pittance of the car’s overall marketing budget, the Hemi name somehow escaped the labyrinth of muscle car pendentry and entered into the public awareness. It became its own brand. Why?
There are probably several different reasons for this. For one, the Hemi is not a new thing—versions of the engine date back to World War II (and despite its total narrative command of the Hemi name today, the first Hemi engines weren’t even from Stellantis brands. The first one was in 1905, and Belgian!). The Hemi brand and legend really took off in the halcyon days of the muscle car, the 1960s. In 1964, the 426ci Hemi took the top 3 spots at the Daytona 500 inside a Plymouth Belvedere. (Though disputed, 1964 was the unofficial beginning of the Muscle Car era). This canonical version of the Hemi would eventually find its way to the street in over a dozen MOPAR products from 1966 until 1971, likely searing its legendary name into a generation of car fans. In the parlance of marketing, the continual and consistent use of the name Hemi may have created a reliable memory structure for even the casual enthusiast.
This would pay off later, when Dodge resurrected the Hemi in 2003, and those fans had grown up and were looking to buy something fun . First appearing in a Ram pickup, the Hemi would again span several cars, trucks, and SUVs across Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler and Ram. The Hemi would then reach new levels of brand awareness in 2015 with its most powerful variant, the Hellcat.
Maybe the fact that the MOPAR companies have always been a collection of different sub-brands under varying corporate umbrellas (first Chrysler, then FCA and finally Stellantis—for now) helped the Hemi name find footing: an easy to remember, bisyllabic, defining quality in a diverse family of products. Or maybe it was some perfect storm of all of these qualities, both architected and organic. What’s undeniable is that the Hemi has transcended the corners of culture that typically keep these names to themselves, and has become a kind of shorthand known and referenced by rappers and the NYT crossword (Powerful engine, for short) alike.
If you’re Stellantis, how long would you keep that on the shelf? (RMM)
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If you have any questions, please be in touch.
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