And I found the exhaust note was, for lack of a better word, delicious. Not too loud but still retaining the classic V8 roar. Dad is seriously considering one, or a Camaro SS if it ever gets made, and despite my aversion to American cars I think this one is a winner and I think I’ll have to “borrow” it as much as I can.

Just to point out: GM didn’t invent the word supercar.

It was coined by the press (Car Life’s Roger Huntington) and used by enthusiasts well into the seventies.

Even a 1977 Car Craft Test of big block pickups declared “Supercars of the 70’s are where you find them – Car Craft’s first truck-off.”

Seriously, it was supercars. I’ve combed through a zillion 60’s magazines and they nearly all used the term ’supercar.’

KingElvis: “By the way, it wasn’t MUSCLE cars – they were SUPERCARS. Go get yourself a May 1965 Car Life. Roger Huntington coined the term Supercar to describe the GTO and it’s cousins from GM.

Everyone said Supercar at least until about 1967 – then effete Euro-centric rags like “Road Test” used the ‘muscle’ moniker in a decidedly pejorative sense.”

Insisting that musclecars be referred to as supercars is rather like Frank Sinatra insisting that The Rat Pack be referred to as The Summit.

Or, for a more relative example, GM insisting that the late sixties’ GTO be referred to as The Great One rather than what everyone was really calling them, i.e., goat.

I doubt Chrysler would make such drastic changes to the LX platform, even if it had the money to proportion up the Challenger correctly.

Its still a German car. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case.

Which calls into question why you wouldn’t want to just buy a restored 1970’s Challenger for $30K – you’d have the real thing.

I’ll bet your house is cool. I’d rather have something charming, even if less practical, than something boring.

I want a Challenger. Bad. Call me crazy.

I was amazed at how short the hood was. The thing is, the firewall on the Charger – and evidently this too – is actually BEHIND the the windsheild, which is held up with a kind of shelf.

Why in God’s name didn’t they just make the windsheild end at the firewall instead of going past it? It’s MADDENING since the whole point of this car is to be an analogue of past glory.

I have a suspicion the pushed forward windshield has something to do with aerodynamics and the SRT’s vaunted 170mph top end.

WHO CARES? They could have made a speed cutoff at the ‘gay’ speed of 130mph and got the styling right. As long as it burns up the quarter mile, no one would have complained that it couldn’t run three times faster than the speed limit.

The Camaro people had the sense to give it a real long hood instead of a stub.

By the way, it wasn’t MUSCLE cars – they were SUPERCARS. Go get yourself a May 1965 Car Life. Roger Huntington coined the term Supercar to describe the GTO and it’s cousins from GM.

Everyone said Supercar at least until about 1967 – then effete Euro-centric rags like “Road Test” used the ‘muscle’ moniker in a decidedly pejorative sense.

When I was in college We would race after school. I to had a friend with 71 4spd pistol grip challenger. This car was fast but not as fast as my 350 cid plain jane Chevy Nova that cost me a thousand dollars less.

Napper: “wasn’t your L76 a premium motor.”

It was an RPO, just like the 426 Hemi in the E-body Challenger.

The fact is that the Hemi, although fast, wasn’t the all encompassing ‘king of the street’ as myth and legend would have one believe, at least not in factory stock tune. The ‘66-’71 factory option Hemi was a race engine that was detuned for street use and, as such, was temperamental and prone to failure, particularly if the maintenance schedule to continually adjust the valve lash wasn’t followed.

As a race engine, it was designed to make the maximum horsepower/torque at the upper end of the RPM band. It didn’t perform well at the lower end and the detuning required to make it street legal made it worse. If a competitor with a good running engine could get a good jump from a standing start, a Hemi-powered car wasn’t very hard to beat. This was the way smart guys with cars like the L78 375hp 396 Chevelle would race a Hemi. I would imagine Corvettes with the L76 327 (which in and of itself was a good engine, too) beat them in the same manner.

few small blocks with the exception of those that weree aluminum and factory high reving…7-8k rpm redline……and they did’t come out the hole as strong….

I wonder how your stock l76 would do against a stock LS7 just happen to have one…or a LS2 happen to have 2 of those as well.

the Challenger is a hit.

because it follows what i’ve been saying for years
build ..classic retro.. If the sold like hot cakes during the opec oil embargo….people will buy them..if only to relive there youth.

what i would give for a 71 cougar with a 351 windsor… 4 barrel headers, rear end shiftkit. and some fat rear tires and a Jensen 100 watt system.

this is what i mean…to me that car kicked butt.
but the whole scene was dying frommthe opec thing.

yet on U tube you see those same opec nation driving the most ineffeceint superfast cars….racingand laughing…adopting our passtime at 1/10 the price.

Good going dodge the Srt’s all of them are hits and this will be too.

It’s unclear to me how Ford will deal with its RWD platforms going forward, but it would make great sense to, as you say, use the RX-8 for the next Mustang. That platform would be small and sophisticated enough for Ford to sell the Mustang internationally. And if IRS and all offends the old boy racers, then Ford can also bring back the five-seater T-Bird on the existing Mustang platform.

As for the Challenger, in order for Chrysler to meet CAFE standards it may eventually have to downsize the LX platform and switch back to a more aerodynamic look. Hard to say whether the Challenger name is worth keeping if that occurred. Why not a two-door coupe and convertible variant of the 300C or Charger?

This is true. They had no other way to do the car. Personally, I don’t think they should have done it at all.

Stick shift Magnum, baby. All the way.

Ford arguably had more options. My preference would have been that Ford had updated the Fox platform, because I think that’s pretty close to the ideal size for such a modern pony car — particularly once inevitably rising fuel prices required offering a bottom-end four-cylinder engine

The Fox was ancient; I think only the S10, Panther and E-Series vans are older. I don’t think Ford could have met standards for chassis rigidity and performance on the back of a platform that’s more than half as old as I am.

But yes, a lighter Mustang would be nice. I think Ford has an opportunity here, especially with the scale-cracking weight of the LX and Zeta competition. Get the weight down (the current GT is, what, ~3400,next to the ~3800-4100lbs of it’s competition) and, live axle or not, the Mustang is going to have a huge advantage.

Maybe, oh, I don’t know, rip off the 2900lb RX-8 or something.

Ah… if I was a single man… LOL

Yea this would be a great addition.

Back when TTAC reviewed the Police Package Charger V8 (priced at about $25k), I wrote that if Dodge sold that as a civilian model I would buy it.

I mentioned the idea of offering the 5.7L in a more stripped-out version of the Charger to a Dodge dealer once and his response was “Well, there are market price points.” But, who knows if Dodge will do it with the Challenger.

windswords Says: “A ultra lux version, “

Also an ultra strippo version. The Challenger ‘Deputy’ (RPO A93) was introduced around the same time as the Challenger T/A. The Deputy came standard with the smallest six (198cid) and fixed quarter windows. Appointments were bargain-basement, and there were a minimum of available options, including the choice of only two interior colors (black or white), and the seats were from the base Barracuda, too.

However, V8 engines were available in the Deputy all the way up to the 383-4v. Only six 383-4v Deputies were supposedly built, though. Technically, this means that even back in 1970, a high-performance Challenger could be had with fixed quarter windows (just like 2008). Of course, a new 383-4v Deputy would have been priced substantially…less…than the 2008 SRT8 (even adjusted for inflation).

I’m liking the revival of muscle-cardom that we see in the Camaro and Challenger, because it’s a nice challenge to both the aesthetic and dynamic philosophy of the BMW 3-series. I have been wanting for a long time to see an alternative to the yuppie 3-series, with its mindless overcomplexity and underwhelming road presence, and a return to the more expansive, free-riding American tradition of fast cars.

I see the Challenger as a return to the Peter Fonda road movies of the 70s. Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry, here we come!

Forget about the C4, you can get a C5 in the US for a little more than $10k, and the C5 is a much better car. Vettes are overpriced in Canada

I like the exterior of the Camaro better, and I say this as someone who’s first car (senior year in highschool) was a Challenger. The Camaro is retro touches without being retro, like your children have aspects of you without being a clone. The Challenger is too much a copy of the original. The interior in the Challenger is better looking than the Camaro however. The interior bits in the Camaro just. look. odd. The steering wheel in the Camaro is better, the Challenger steering just sucks. It’s the corporate wheel and screams for something unique.

Expect Chrylser to issue an updated tiller in the future. Maybe when the new V6 is introduced. If you want a V6 model stay away until the new mill is out. That and a 6 speed auto will probably make for a decent less expensive daily driver with style. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they tackle the weight problem. They already have a special race only version that is 800 lbs lighter. Removing a couple hundred pounds should not be out of the question.

If Hemi orange is not your hue, they look stunning is silver, blue, and black. I haven’t seen the other available colors yet to render an opinion.