SPY PICS: Aussie-first 300 SRT

It's a tribute to the strength and passion of muscle-car buyers in Australia that our market will continue to see the Chrysler 300 SRT sold here, in the face of diminishing sales in its home market, the USA.

Those diminishing sales in the US – unlike Australia, where the SRT accounts for a third of all 300 variants sold here – have resulted in the 6.4-litre V8 rocketship being dropped from the Chrysler 300 line-up in the States. The SRT label will be exclusive to Dodge-branded vehicles in North America, motoring.com.au has been told.

But it has been speculated that the 300 SRT will make a return to North America in 2016 – in all but name. Whether that speculation is correct takes nothing away from the fact that the flagship performance sedan is definitely coming to Australia, first and foremost, and badged SRT.

Automedia's spy photographers have seen an updated 300 SRT testing in Detroit recently, and though it's a left-hook car, it's basically the car we'll see introduced here in the third quarter of this year, proving that for as long as FCA Australia can peddle 400 units in a six-month period, the importer won't superannuate the high-performance V8 sedan.

According to Automedia's sources, the 300 SRT could make a return to North America in 2016, as the 300S, offered with the 6.4-litre Hemi – which also remains on offer to American customers in the Dodge Charger and Challenger. The fact that neither of the Dodge muscle cars has been engineered for right-hand drive – taking them off the table for Australia – is likely the reason the 300 SRT continues to be such a strong-selling model here.

Whether that remains the case will doubtless depend on sales cannibalisation from the two Dodges in Australia. FCA is rumoured to be engineering both cars for right-hand drive in their next generation, which would make them almost a certainty to come here. If Charger and Challenger, including the hard-core Hellcat variants do make it to Australia, the Chrysler 300 SRT could see sales dive and be dropped here as well.

But then, one shouldn't discount the Ford/Holden factor in any assessment of the SRT's prospects in the future Australian market. Without the local manufacturers building cars here, the market for a high-performance sedan is potentially wide open.

The facelifted 2015 model year Chrysler 300 is due here in July, with SRT variants expected to follow in September.