A wise man once told me, “Don’t make a career out of your passions and hobbies, you’ll end up hating them.” That’s true in many cases and if we’re blessed to work in a profession we love and be an integral part of an industry we’re passionate and obsessive about, we walk that fine line between burnout, flaming out and checking out. But if you went from playing with Hot Wheels as a child, then growing up developing, engineering and driving some of the fastest, over-the-top muscle cars ever to emerge from an automaker, then every day is an adventure. It’s like a trip to the amusement park with no lines to ride the baddest rollercoasters while having unlimited cotton candy. For SRT^® Engineer Jim Wilder, he has the honor of not only being part of a team of dedicated engineers striving to exceed the performance car buyer’s needs while blowing the competition out of the water, but also strapping into these early production prototypes and engineering “mules” and running them flat out down the drag strip. This soft-spoken, mild-mannered 50-something has been an engineer at Stellantis for over two decades. Wilder looks more like a high school algebra teacher than someone that dons a fire suit, full-face helmet, gloves and Hans device. He hops in a 1,000-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 that’s never been flogged or hammered and goes about his business. Wilder pushes these test cars to their limits with the goal of shattering the driveline or having the engine puke its guts out on the track. The blood trail of this wounded animal consisting of synthetic oil with shiny bits of aluminum chunks mixed in is a good indicator to head back to the drawing board and dyno cells to improve the breed. Wilder may not be like Chuck Yeager trying to break the sound barrier, but he’s a hero of sorts to the dedicated followers of the Dodge//SRT brand whose religion evolves around the horsepower gods.

It’s these same folks that name their pets “HEMI^®” and get tattoos of Hellcat or Demon logos along with Challengers and Chargers doing hellacious fiery burnouts. They get married at NHRA or NMCA drag races or car shows like the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals. They love their family, country and Mopar_® vehicles. Wilder knows this all too well and it’s just one of his many missions not to let this group of diehard fans down when he and the team are developing these high-performance SRT machines.

To understand Wilder, we need to look at his humble beginnings as a kid growing up in a suburb outside Detroit. His father was a drag racer and took him to many races and car shows. When in high school, Wilder didn’t drive fast cars but rather hand-me-down beaters that included an AMC Gremlin. When Wilder headed off to Lawrence Tech University in Southfield, Michigan, to pursue his Mechanical Engineering degree, he needed a car since he’d be commuting every day. He found a 1965 Plymouth Satellite with a big block and that’s what ignited him to modify the car and it became a father-and-son project. Eventually, Wilder would race it in NMCA’s Nostalgia Super Stock class and run the 11- and 10-second index. He loved the competition, the camaraderie, and had great success during his time racing his consistent Plymouth.

After graduating, Wilder set off down the path of various engineering jobs at numerous companies before ending up at Stellantis. “After finishing up my degree in Mechanical Engineering, I was hired by the Lear Corporation and worked in seating systems for the Ford Windstar minivan. Less than a year later, I was working at Cosworth Engineering on a Ford SVO Escort powered by a turbo four-cylinder engine. It never made it into production, but by 1995, I was hired by Stellantis (then known as Chrysler) and worked on the GEN 1 and GEN 2 Neon exhaust systems,” said Wilder. Around 1999, there was a movement afoot at the company to create a specialized group of diehard and passionate “car people” within the corporation. It was known as Performance Vehicle Operations, better known as PVO. “I got wind of PVO and learned of a plan to install a turbo 2.4L four-cylinder engine in a Neon ‘mule’ for evaluation. I was recruited by this group and was responsible for fuel, exhaust and cooling systems. I also became the ‘intercooler guy’ and after much testing and validation, we created the Neon SRT4 and launched this very fast sport compact in 2003,” noted Wilder. Once the Neon SRT4 was launched and on its way destroying Camaros and Mustangs at the drag strip, Wilder began working on the really cool stuff. The 6.1L HEMI engine and the SRT8 LX vehicles it would go in. The new rear-wheel-drive HEMI V8 engine-powered performance cars were about to shake up the auto industry and be a major game changer and Wilder was already slated to have a starring role on a team that would be known as SRT.

Coming up in part two, we’ll discuss the birth of the Challenger, Charger and Magnum SRT8 models and the new 6.1L HEMI V8 engine. We’ll take a deep dive on how Wilder, and his team of ravenous gearheads, created the 707-horsepower Challenger SRT Hellcat and with the lessons learned from that program, spawned something more sinister, the Challenger SRT Demon. This car, and many others that rolled out of the SRT Garage with Wilder’s fingerprints all over them, would forever cement the Dodge//SRT brand as the rowdy, unruly bad boys in the neighborhood!

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