Flying in the face of any attempts to launch cars with better fuel mileage and common sense, here’s the new Dodge Challenger.
Like alcoholics who can’t walk away from a bar, Detroit’s Big Three can’t resist dipping back into the vat of vintages that once earned them fame and fortune. Ford has done a masterful – and profitable – job of staying faithful to Mustang owners over the years, never backing away from its 44-year-old pony car. GM and Chrysler couldn’t keep the faith and so the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird, Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Challenger flamed out, becoming memories for old guys.
When Chevy resurrected the Camaro, Chrysler was drawn like an ant to a discarded donut to also create a muscle car. In fact the coolest car from that automaker in the early 1970s was the Plymouth Barracuda, but Chrysler killed Plymouth years ago, so it had to resurrect the ’Cuda’s corporate equivalent, the 1970 Dodge Challenger.
Now that we’ve driven it, I can say they’ve done a nice job with the Dodge sports coupe.
Like any proper retro machine, the Challenger looks very much like the original. The job of translating the 1970 design cues to the 2008 Challenger was given to Jeff Gale, the talented son of Tom Gale, who led Chrysler through its most creative design years in the 1990s and into this century. The tough part was adapting the vintage shape to a narrower platform. They’ve been quite successful, though the new car loses the sensual roundness and squished oval feeling of the original.
Most importantly, the new Challenger has a good stance on the road and draws in crowds with ease. Drive one on a California freeway and you’ll get more drivers honking, happily waving and photographing you with their camera phones than you will in any Ferrari or Lamborghini.
I can’t be as enthusiastic about the interior. There’s nothing wrong with the basic shapes and layout, and the seats are good – and 1000 times better than in 1970 – in supporting you on the track and road. But as with so many interiors from Chrysler of late some materials are second rate, especially the one thing you see every time you drive, the graining on the dashboard.
As you’d probably expect, an 1878kg automobile with a Chrysler Hemi V8 spinning out 317kW at 6200rpm and 570Nm of torque at 4800 with aggressive gearing in its 5-speed automatic driveline is a hoot to drive. Chrysler claims the 0-60mph (96km/h) time at 4.9 seconds, the 1/4-mile (0-400m) in 13.3 seconds and a top speed of about 258km/h. Mileage is rated at 18L/100km city and 13/L/100km highway, though with the Challenger’s strong-but-mellow exhaust note it’s tough to keep your foot out of the gas.
A classic smoky burnout is simple with the Challenger, as is smoking to 100km/h time after time with ease. Just as easy is whipping the Challenger around a road course (old Willow Springs in California for us) and having it feel like a proper, modern sports coupe developed by road racers. Nice balance, good turn in and, thanks to Brembo brakes, the ability to haul it down from 193km/h at the end of the front straight repeatedly without so much as a thought they might not work this time.
Those are the sorts of things that separate this from the 1970 Challenger, back when consistent brake performance would be a serious consideration. So too would the fundamental mediocre handling of the muscle car back then as Chrysler was famous in the early 1970s for using cheap parts in its suspensions, regardless of a car’s performance potential.
This time around it’s quite the opposite. With the platform under the Challenger inherited from the Dodge Charger/Chrysler 300, the new muscle car has suspension pieces that began life under a Mercedes-Benz E-Class. You can feel it from the time you first turn the steering wheel, which feels like it’s rooted on a block of German steel. In fact, the entire Challenger feels solidly made with no squeaks or rattles ... again a far cry from Chrysler's sloppily-made early-70s muscle cars.
Chrysler starts deliveries of the Challenger soon and you can have it in any colour as long as it’s orange, black or silver ... and you have the US$37,995 to pay for the car.
Things will change. There will obviously be more colours later, along with a less expensive V6 version, but it’s interesting that for all the hoopla from Chevrolet about creating the new Camaro, Dodge beat it to market with the Challenger. Ironically, this “American muscle coupe,” as Dodge calls it, is assembled in Canada.
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Dodge launches Challenger