In early November, Dodge embarked on a new two-year business plan called Never Lift, in which the company pledges some kind of enthusiast-based announcement at least every three months. The marketing team thus created a 24 Months of Muscle countdown, in which these announcements can be teased beforehand and referenced once they become official.
That's the backstory, and some announcements such as Direct Connection have already been revealed. For this article, we're obviously interested in the teasers, and Dodge's website for the campaign shows several interesting images on garage doors. We're particularly intrigued by the one simply showing tire tracks running over a horse.
That's clearly a Ford Mustang reference, but if you zoom in, you see it's not actually a horse. Rather, it looks like a coyote.
If that's not enough, try downloading that particular image. If you do, you'll see the image actually has dead coyote in the file name. That's not just a jab at the Ford Mustang, which is currently available with three engine options. It's a specific callout to the 5.0-liter Coyote V8 used in the GT and Mach 1. We don't often see such specific callouts from an automaker, so when it happens, it usually comes with some fireworks. We like fireworks.
Gallery: 2021 Ford Mustang Mach 1: First Drive
Of course, this isn't the first time a brand from Stellantis prodded Ford in public. It's hard to forget Ram boldly telling Ford to pop the hood on the new F-150 Raptor on its big debut day, no doubt ready to challenge the off-roader with the Hellcat-powered TRX. And with the Dodge Challenger beating Mustang in US sales for 2021, we suspect Dodge executives are feeling pretty bold these days.
As for what will kill the Coyote, that remains a complete mystery. The teaser image is near the bottom of the reveal list so it could be quite some time before the truth is revealed.
