Stellantis, the overall company that owns brands like Jeep, Dodge, Chrysler, Ram Truck, Fiat, and others, is hinging most of its future on one guy. His name is Tim Kuniskis. This could be a make or break for the company, similar to what happened at Harley-Davidson in the recent past.
Kuniskis was the head of the Dodge Brand until 2023 when he was also given the CEO position of the Ram brand. He did both until May of 2024 when it was announced that he was leaving Stellantis. He came back a few months later to retake the helm of the Ram brand amidst a serious decline in Stellantis’ sales and popularity. And the public’s perception of reliability.
Now he’s also been named the new head of the Street and Racing Technology (SRT) division. Which itself left and is now seeing a revival. And is now head of North American marketing for all of Stellantis as well.
Kuniskis has been a part of the various Chrysler-related brands since 1992, heading most of them at one point or another during his long career at what is now Stellantis. Everywhere he’s been in the company, the brand associated with him has seemed to see an uptick. He’s become the go-to magician for dying brands at Stellantis, but his fixes seem to often be short-lived. As soon as Kaniskis leaves, the brand he helmed begins to falter again.
Today, Stellantis announced that Kuniskis, who retook the lead role at Ram Truck just last year in hopes of (and by most accounts, successfully) turning it around, will now take over the revival of the SRT brand. SRT died with the last of the Hellcat models as Dodge and its performance-oriented self moved on to electric versions of its muscle cars. Much to fans’ dismay, it appears.
Dodge is struggling to sell its EVs and with the arrival of looser regulations thanks to a changing of the winds in D.C., the early retirement of the SRT brand appears to be rescinded.
Can Kuniskis fix what ails Stellantis?
Maybe. But probably only temporarily. During his tenure as head of Dodge, we saw the “Hellcat everything” stage that prompted lots of media attention and steady sales for the brand. During his short tenure as head of the Ram Truck brand, we saw the TRX and more and more off-road-centric and high-dollar trucks bringing the brand back to the spotlight.
It’s pretty safe to say that Kuniskis at the helm of the SRT brand will mean more SRT-enabled trucks. At the very least. And it’s already pretty clear that the Dodge Hellcat and perhaps the Demon are likely to see comebacks as well. But the “SRT everything” mindset of the early 2020s may not work into the 2030s.
Stellantis, especially its truck and performance car brands, needs a future beyond just “slam the biggest engine possible into it.” It needs to reestablish public trust in its reliability, for one, and it needs to figure out what’s going to be its role in the market 10 and 20 years from now. A turning point that Harley-Davidson faced a few years ago and then failed to navigate.
The performance and off-road models Stellantis has relied on as mainstays are likely to keep carrying it forward. It will, however, require some changes to how those models are introduced. Throaty V8s and powerful exhaust sounds are great. But that audience is aging. And like the aging audience for H-D pipe noise, interest in new models with poor reliability and high price tags will wane as well.
But the Kuniskis magic could at least bolster the company’s brands in a comeback for a little while. Which may be enough for Stellantis to figure itself out.
