2023 Dodge Hornet GT Review // $30,000 Turbo Machine

so you're telling me he's called buzzand they gave him wings but he doesn'tbuzz and he can't fly yeah that'sridiculous what happened to Fairrepresentation in the media exactly I'msick of these oh my God what don't movewhat is it do you see that be I thinkthat's a hornet be careful this is notime for puns what actually you knowwhat that's that's a pretty good lookingbee what are you talking talking about Ijust I just want to get a little closerdon't come on I'm only human man noyou're not listen the last time I madelove was almost a lifetime ago that wasthis morning exactly what's the WorstThat Could Happen come on I just want tointroduce myselfum hey hey honey is your name a b drillbecause I'm a bee drilling you laterohthat's gross James you ready to drivefirst yep coming what's our intro forthisI don't know but that B sure is sexy[Music]foreignyou're watching throttle house I'mThomasand I'm Jamesand this[Music]the Dodge hornet[Music]maybe a Honda is too practical for you aToyota too reliable and a master simplytoo luxurious if that's the case thenperhaps your thirty thousand dollarstack of American Benjamins is betteroff in the hands of Dodge and their newperformance oriented crossover TheHornet built alongside its sister carthe Alfa Romeo tonale in Italy thanks tothe wonderful team at Peel Chrysler wehave one today in GT form and it hasfancy things like torque vectoring andBrembo brakes an our tester today evenhas the track pack so among other thingsit gets dual stage valve suspension andbigger wheels for the price packed withthe amount of tech and performancegoodies that it has it should be a hugewinbut we've been hurt before let's have atitand if you're new to throttle house[Applause]we do car reviewstrack tests and quite a lot of messingabout so subscribe hit the Bell[Music]on it GT[Music]Northern 60 in six and a half secondsall wheel drive is standard and a twoliter four-cylinder hurricane fourcylinder the new name for their enginefamily that puts out 268 horsepower and295 pound-feet of torque[Applause]a baby that's significant that's almostWRX power that's more torque than a grCorolla it does feel front-wheel drivebiased I'll say that when I put my footdown there's some unwanted talks thereespecially on the first to second shiftbut it feels Peppy in fact I've only gotgood things to say about the engine itpulls thanks to the 9-speed transmissionit always stays in the torque band Ijust can't engage with it there's no wayto engage with it there's no paddleshifters the Alpha Romeo tonight getspaddle shifters why don't we have thatthe answer is we do get shift paddles inthe Hornet but they're reserved for themore powerful electrified trip the sameis true for the alpha all I have is thisshifter down here and I'm not going touse that unfortunately it stays out yourway but I'm just not used to the pairingof a sport button on a steering wheeland then no way to engage with thetransmission on the wheel itselfbut consider for a moment this is thebaby this is the Hornet GT there's ahornet RT coming which has electricassistance going on so it has morehorsepower way more torque and it evenhas a power shot feature which soundslike something I normally scroll to toget to the end of an adult video but infact it just increases the horsepowerfor a brief amount of time which givesit a more aggressive naught to 60 timeand then their room ringers go like hellversion which is just a concept at themoment but as is in this form it's it'squick it's engagingso hot hatch power numbers and quitefrankly hot hatch pricingdoes it handle like one[Applause]alright since this has that Italianblood that is it is built in Italybeside the Alpha Romeo tonale it has theAlfa Romeo steering which means theratio is quick the steering is actuallyquite sharp it makes the whole car muchmore engagingand this is the track package whichmeans that it gets adjustable suspensionwhen I click the sport mode heretightens up the steering shortens thethrottle and stiffens the dampers buthonestly even in sport mode I don't findthe ride to be that bad it's wellcontrolled there's no you know egregiousside to side stiffening the sway barsaren't horrible and uncomfortable it'sjust well damped and it's actually quitequiet and comfortablebut since it is a rather small vehicleoverallit kind of drives like a raised hothatch more than it drives like a smallercrossover does that make any sense thisdoes have a lot of competitors like theMazda CX-5 but Mazda these days I findis taking themselves maybe a little bittoo seriously they're trying to be allclassy and it's very nice it's Debonairthis is not that this is playful andkind of silly it's it's fun it feelsmore fun you can tell that that was whatwas on their mind when they made itbut I will say though from an ownershipperspectiveowning a Mazda you know it's probablygoing to last for a little while this iswell this is a Dodge that's based on anAlfa Romeo which is based on a Jeepthis does have an all-wheel drive systemand it has a limited slip differentialnot that it's making me able to kick thetail out or anything like that but it'snice to know when the surface is looseor slippery or snowy or icy but it cando that but for the time being for thepriceI think this is a great little drivingcar[Music]it's not so bad you know no not bad atall reasonable which is refreshing likehow when was the last time we drove acar and the asking price kind of justmade sense yeah it does exactly what itsays on the box radius look at the funlittle sporty crossover it's got a coolname the sexy bee on the side it's alsoquite smart looking like the Alfa Romeotoenail is there if you want the toenailyeah well they call it that way itpromises you a choice between a toenailand and a hornet and a hornet yes itdoes I think it's honey honey yesthey've gone classy honey yeah until youget very close to the logo on the backit straight up looks like two endsuh but yeah so this is gray cray thecolor they've still tried to have funwith the color names great great yeah soit's cray cray like cray cray cray crayall right hit me up I know you'vememorized all the rest of the colornamesbut matching what they were doing on thetable when they were thinking of thesecolor names though if you get it inBlack it's eight ballokay yeah there's cue ball for the whiterightum embarrassingly I thought there waswhen I was going through it I thoughtthere wasAppley Blue Bayouthat says apply yesapply blue bio paint yeah I thought itwas aptly blue happily blue what isBluetooth a raspberry lemonade it waspossible anyway I think it's quite funThe Hornet as you said is veryattractive and then you know instead ofDodge on the front they've got these twolines I like that because yeah Iassociate the I shouldn't say this but Iassociate the word Dodge on a thing witha with a gentleman that is ever soslightly more abrasive in uh no cardbabyso this is the track packs I've gotthese 20s it's a former Ram owner I'mallowed to say this there's a formaround moment you don't get to sayanything you you're a benefitno I like that it's a good idea it's agood idea the size is quite nice as wellit's not as a like if you look at likethe cx50 there's all the rugged stuffthis has kind of gone clean look yeah noI do I do like that and it matches thered brick also part of the track packyes right yes that's very cool no it'sit's a pretty design it looks straightout of Italyyes well I mean it is an Italian car butit's got the signature like Dodge taillights which looks like aphone that's being hung up yeah no it'sa good look I like it yeah the HornetThe Hornet there it is GTum and the two lines light up on therear brake light that's pretty fancy andthat's quite a tight trunk actually it'snot it's not huge it's high it's justnot wide pretty goodit does get the job done right anywayshould we look at the interior yeah okayall right okay inside the Hornet yesvery much a toenail I use your toe I useyour joke it's not a joke so they calledit yes this shares a lot with the AlfaRomeo in fact the screens everythingabout this cluster the steering wheel isidentical yeah from obviously we havethe emblem of Dodge here obviouslybecause stalantis owns the whole thingand so they're just going to share itbecause except where our stock enginestop button is on the alpha that's thedriving mode there stop stop button iswhere the sport is they they the AlphaTeam the Alpha Team yeah like a Ferrariwhich I do like this has the alpha seatsas well same style yeah well this is thetrack pack so we've got the Alcantaraseats in the in the GT plus you get theleather the nicer leather seats yesthese are like they're comfy but they'relike a touch narrow on the edges and Icould see how on like a six hour driveit might get a little bit irritatingyeah untested for us yeah yes but that'sspeculation now the rest of it's listenthe materials in here are not the nicestthey're not top top notch no but thenthis isn't sixty thousand dollars noexactly I like the gauge cluster I thinkit looks cool it changes when you clicksport mode that's pretty neat that's ahuge change it does not change that muchbut the black levels are good yeah thisgreen statement has been a little bitinconsistent yeah now it's fast as hellseems to be working very well now butearlier we were trying it and it didn'trespond to that the performance mode islow quickly and I remember in the oldSRT stuff you could have a drink inbetween you could pour a drink you couldhave a brunch yeah yeah in between theperformance no obviously there's lessthings loading there's turbo and torquewell we've got consumption pressure yeahaccessory gauges okay there's some stuffgoing on there well we're missing somethings this isn't the GT plus all rightthe GT plus has a wireless charger yepit has ventilated seats which I couldn'tdo with today there's a heat warning yeswe do have a heated steering wheel butI'm wondering if that's Canada what'sthat you have a sweaty bottom no Ididn't Betty swallexwe have a heated steering wheel yes wedo yeah I like the steering wheel by theway it's really nicely shaped thediameter is good the Leathers feelreally high-end yeah it it's like thecenter piece of the Interior it ismissing shift paddles it's not exactlyexciting to shift with this no you justdon't you wouldn't use it luckily thenine speed stays out your way it'spretty good yeah it's fine the rearseats I mean this has been criticized alot for being quite tight and Harrisonour sound engineer is six foot five andhe doesn't fit yeah however me amedium-sized man who can still buy thebig stuff at Gap Kids I fit comfortablyat 5 10. yep and I fit as well and it'sfine yeah they're just a bit stiff it'ssporty yeah it's about sports SUVsvisibility is good we haven't got asunroof the GT plus gets a sunroofthere's a ton of Headroom as a result uphere yeah there's a little extra cavityso no I I like this I don't uh what'sthe word I don't know if I would takethis over the equivalent Mazdabut then again maybe I would I'll takethis over 650 I think I think this takesitself less seriously I take a CX-5 Ithink the CX-5 I don't know if I wouldnow that I think about it becauseI mean yeah that's gonna probably be amore reliable vehicle than thisobviously that's brand new we can't saywe can I said probably Italy plus it'snot the entirety of the information wehave throughout all of history of carsit's like this is gonna be as reliableas the Mazda but I think that this is ittakes itself less seriously it's alittle bit more of a fun car than theCX-5 I'm I'm curious to try the RT eventhough it's not sexy sounding it's theone that gets the electric assistancewith much more torque and a lot ofhorsepower well the sexiness is in theHornet it is in the Hornet so it iswhich is okay fine the ghost like hellone the rumoring this goes like thatwhich is concept right now which may ormay not get the hurricane six cylinderengine which would be quite nutty andbut I think one of the things that wehaven't mentioned is is how narrow thisis it feels like a BMW I3 yeah I wasgonna say I I didn't I didn't thinkabout it because it bugged me when I wasdriving but I didn't realize it here butmy knee hits thiscenter console on both sides and if youlook if you actually pay attention lookin front of you this is very a small boxas is their trunk right so great forlittle City Driving yes but yeah if youwant if you want if you are a wideperson perhaps apparently that's youyeah they just needed to cushion this Iam filling out these seats I will saythatum anyway that was fine I I like a Ilike a good old-fashioned crossoverreview every once in a while you knowyeah it's refresh refresher a refresheruh shall we do a journalistic conclusionsure okayso we think the Hornet is pretty cool wewere kind of hoping that the goofballsover a Dodge would have applied a bitmore of their usual silliness to what isalready a fun little crossover eventhough it isn't the RT we'd like to havehad a bit more of a fun exhaust note oreven an exhaust tip and definitely someshift paddles but overall a re-skinnedAlfa Romeo for a bit less money soundspretty good in our book and it lookspretty great too especially that littleHornet on the side Thomas is theresomething you're not telling me nopethanks for watching