Tim Kuniskis has been the man behind some of the most memorable performance cars of the past decade — the Hellcat, the Redeye, the Demon — and now he's talking about what comes next. In an exclusive, on-the-record interview with The Drive published May 27, the CEO of Ram and head of American Brands for Stellantis laid out a four-year product roadmap that includes the Dodge SRT Copperhead, a two-door sports coupe that will serve as the flagship of the revived SRT lineup.

Follow and Like top authors, topics, and trends

Browse with fewer ads across the site

Personalize your profile to showcase your activity

Get a content feed tailored to your interests

By creating an account, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You also agree to receive our newsletters; you can unsubscribe any time.

*Required: 8 chars, 1 capital letter, 1 number

In an interview with The Drive, Kuniskis described the Copperhead as a "hyper-muscle car" — a term that signals something beyond the traditional muscle-car formula of big engine, rear-wheel drive, and a back seat. The car is a two-door coupe and, based on what Kuniskis confirmed, will sit at the very top of Dodge's SRT performance hierarchy, above the Charger and Challenger successors in the lineup.

The Copperhead name itself carries history. Stellantis first used it on a 1997 concept car (pictured above) — a low-slung, roadster-style study that never made production but planted the name firmly in enthusiast memory. Reviving it now, attached to a flagship sports coupe, is a deliberate signal about intent. The snake name is no accident...

The reason this announcement lands differently than a typical product tease is the person making it. Kuniskis is the executive who greenlit the 707-horsepower Hellcat when Chrysler was still finding its footing post-bankruptcy, then followed it with the 797-hp Redeye and the 807-hp Demon. He understands that performance credibility is built on delivered hardware, not press releases.

His willingness to go on record with a four-year roadmap — covering not just the Copperhead but also the Scrambler SRT, the Rumble Bee Hellcat truck (pictured above), and additional SRT models across the Stellantis portfolio — suggests this isn't a concept-car exercise. Kuniskis has historically been reluctant to announce products he can't deliver, which gives the Copperhead confirmation more weight than a typical auto-show reveal.

Positioning a flagship American sports coupe in 2026 is a more complicated task than it was when the Viper launched in 1992. The segment now includes the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 with its flat-plane-crank V8 making 670 horsepower, the Ford Mustang Dark Horse (above), and a growing list of European and Japanese competitors. Kuniskis's "hyper-muscle car" framing suggests Stellantis isn't trying to out-Corvette the Corvette — it's carving its own identity, one that leans into the raw, American-excess character that made the Viper a cult car in the first place.

The Copperhead will carry the SRT badge, which means it sits in a performance sub-brand that Stellantis has been deliberately rebuilding. The same roadmap that includes the Copperhead also confirmed eight new SRT models across Dodge, Ram, and Jeep — a coordinated push to re-establish SRT as a credible performance flag rather than a trim-level designation.

Kuniskis's four-year roadmap puts the Copperhead within Stellantis's planning horizon through roughly 2030, though a specific on-sale date wasn't confirmed in the interview. Given that the Rumble Bee SRT truck — also part of the same roadmap — has already been revealed with a 777-hp supercharged V8, the Copperhead appears to be further out in the pipeline rather than imminent.

What enthusiasts can watch for in the near term: additional SRT reveals across the Stellantis brands, which will likely include more detail on powertrain direction for the Copperhead as those announcements build toward the flagship reveal. Kuniskis has set the stage; the specs and the sheet metal are still coming.

For a community that watched the Viper get discontinued without a successor and spent years wondering whether Stellantis still had the appetite for a genuine American sports car, Kuniskis's on-the-record confirmation is meaningful. The Copperhead has a name, a position at the top of the SRT lineup, and the backing of the executive who has consistently delivered on performance promises. That's a better starting point than most enthusiasts had reason to expect.

Source: https://www.topspeed.com/father-hellcat-drops-details-stellantis-secret-sports-car/