"Hauntingly distressing to behold": why the Dodge Super8 concept was an Epic Fail

What is the point of a concept car? Probably requires more than a single whimsical page to properly answer. But if at least one purpose of a concept is to prepare the ground for a future production car, to gently expand a brand’s Overton window, then Chrysler’s Super8 was an absolute smash hit of a success.

Introduced at the 2001 Detroit Auto Show it subtly ushered in not only a whole new juicy rear-drive architecture, but a whole new juicy V8 engine too. The Super8 didn’t just tease, it delivered.

That rear drive architecture was the LX platform, which within a few years would underpin the estimable Chrysler 300C and Dodge Charger. In profile especially, the Super8 offered future echoes of both cars, subtly priming buyers for what was to come.

The juicy V8 engine was, of course, Chrysler’s new Hemi, an engine that would eventually crest 1,000bhp in the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. The Super8, in other words, set some serious, smoking wheels in motion.

It also smartly anticipated a bunch of tech trends including live traffic updates, in-car gaming and wireless networking. However. Chrysler crystal ball the Super8 may have been, but it did suffer one teeny tiny flaw: it was hauntingly distressing to behold.

Time tends to soften the greatest shocks, but if anything the Super8 looks more upsetting with each passing year. Its most traumatic feature? Tough to decide between that gaping crosshair snout and the front screen, which was surely amputated from the rear of a Renault Avantime.

Maybe, though, the fugliness was all part of the plan. By being quite so unfathomably janky, at least the Super8 made every gopping Chrysler product that followed (*cough* Crossfire *cough*) marginally less grim by comparison. Overton window, successfully expanded.