• Detroit News , Friday, May 4, 2012 10:26 AM

Reviewer Doug Guthrie, who drove the new Dodge Dart at a journalist event in Austin, Texas (an appropriate spot for such an event given the youth focus) says only the name is the same as the car from bygone days. The big difference, of course, is that it's as much Italian as American.  "Its ancestry is clear as the first American offspring of the Fiat-Chrysler marriage. Behind that trademark Dodge crosshair grille is a comfortable and nimble Alfa Romeo Giulietta," he writes. He and the other scribes got to drive the car around Texas Hill Country. "It's no Ferrari," he writes, "but its optional 1.4-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder engine and standard six-speed manual transmission are the same as in the Fiat 500 Abarth performance edition."

He writes that the retro marketing plan will be aimed at a new generation of buyers born after the original Dodge Dart ended its 16-year run in 1976. That plan is to bring back a broad spectrum of options to let consumers customize their own car, straight from the factory. 

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