The 2025 Dodge Hornet Is Gone After This Year. Here's What It Gets You in Birmingham.

Production of the Dodge Hornet ended in early 2026, and no 2026 model was built. What that means for you right now is simple. The 2025 Hornets sitting on dealer lots are the last ones that'll ever exist new, and dealers are motivated to move them. If you're a UAB student or a young professional working through downtown Birmingham's tight grid and Red Mountain grades, that timing is worth a look.

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The Hornet's strengths don't always lead the reviews. Standard all-wheel drive on every single trim, a 268-horsepower turbocharged engine at the GT level, and a 10.25-inch Uconnect 5 touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto right out of the box. You don't add those as options. They come standard. We'll level with you on the tradeoff. The Hornet's resale picture got complicated the moment Dodge announced the discontinuation, and that's worth weighing. But if you're buying a car you plan to drive for five-plus years and you're not planning to flip it in 18 months, the feature stack per dollar is hard to match at this final-year pricing.

Let's break down how the trims fit the way Birmingham buyers live.

What Do You Actually Get at Each Trim Level?

You get a well-equipped car even at the entry point, and that surprises buyers used to other brands' bare-bones base trims. The Hornet GT isn't a stripped model, even though it sits at the bottom of the trim ladder. The GT delivers 268 horsepower from Dodge's 2.0-liter Hurricane4 turbocharged four-cylinder, a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, the 10.25-inch Uconnect 5 touchscreen, dual-zone automatic climate control, LED headlights, Koni shocks, and remote engine start. All-wheel drive is standard. Dodge built this trim to be the value entry, not a penalty box.

One number is worth calling out. The EPA rates the 2025 Dodge Hornet R/T at 29 miles per gallon combined on gasoline, with an additional 33 miles of EPA-estimated all-electric range. For the average round trip from Five Points South to UAB's campus and back, you could realistically finish a full day on battery alone if you charge overnight.

Why Standard AWD Actually Matters on Birmingham Streets

Standard all-wheel drive earns its place on these streets because Birmingham's terrain is hilly enough that front-wheel-drive compact crossovers can feel unbalanced on a wet morning ramp, and the system only trims a little fuel economy in exchange for traction you'll want when the mornings turn wet. Browse available Hornet inventory and you'll see AWD listed as standard equipment across the lineup. Few competitors in this class do that.

Think about the hills flanking Southside, the grade climbing from the valley floor toward Lakeview, and the slick October leaves on residential streets near the campus corridor. We drive those conditions ourselves, and they're real.

How it works: The Hornet's standard AWD system sends torque front to rear on its own. The driver never switches anything.

For someone coming from a smaller front-wheel-drive hatchback, the difference is immediate.

The tradeoff is straightforward. AWD adds a small fuel economy cost, and the GT's EPA-estimated 21 mpg city and 29 mpg highway reflect that. It isn't exceptional for the segment, and in stop-and-go on University Boulevard, you're probably seeing city numbers. If pure fuel economy is your main goal, the R/T's 33-mile electric range is a more compelling answer for Birmingham's short urban distances. But stay in the gas-only GT or GT Plus and you're trading a few MPGs for a traction system that earns its keep from October through March.

Explore financing options to see what monthly structure fits your budget.

The Discontinued Status: What It Means for Value

The value story cuts in two directions, and we'll give you both. The Hornet's resale picture is far from settled, since forum owners have noted pre-owned values dropped noticeably after the discontinuation announcement, and the purchase side is where the scarcity works in your favor right now. If you plan to trade in within two or three years, factor that into the decision.

The purchase side is where things get friendlier. Dealers with remaining 2025 inventory have strong motivation to discount, and final-year models on established lots are usually when motivated pricing shows up (not as marketing, but as math). You're buying the last of a nameplate that shares its platform with the Alfa Romeo Tonale, an Italian-built chassis that's still in production. Parts availability for mechanical maintenance should stay solid thanks to that shared lineage. Dodge has committed publicly to ongoing support for Hornet owners.

How the Hornet Fits the UAB and Southside Lifestyle

The Hornet fits this life largely because it's compact, and that pays off around the UAB campus perimeter where parallel spots and deck lanes run tight, though buyers wanting a roomier back seat will feel that compact footprint too. The stretch along 5th Avenue North and into the residential streets around Highland Avenue means tight parallel spots and structured deck parking with narrow lanes. The Hornet's overall length of 178 inches keeps it solidly in the compact footprint category, shorter than a Jeep Compass by a meaningful margin. You'll notice it when you're threading into a street spot on a weekday morning.

Is the tech built for how this group actually uses a car? We'd say yes. Wireless Apple CarPlay connects your phone to the 10.25-inch screen without a cable, Amazon Alexa integration is baked into the system, and the 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster is customizable. You don't pay extra for any of it on a different package. They're on the GT.

For a young professional commuting from Homewood or Mountain Brook into downtown, the R/T's electric range changes the fuel-stop math. Most commutes in that corridor stay well under 33 miles round-trip. A full overnight charge on a standard Level 2 home charger (completed in about 2.5 hours per Dodge's specification) means you're doing a large chunk of your weekly driving without buying gasoline, most weeks anyway. The R/T also makes 383 pound-feet of torque, and it's seriously quick. Dodge rated it at 0-60 in 5.6 seconds using the PowerShot feature, which delivers 30 additional horsepower in 15-second bursts.

You get more performance than most compact crossovers in this class offer at any trim. For a buyer who wants the Dodge driving character without a full-size Dodge Charger footprint, the Hornet was the crossover answer. And right now, it's still available.

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