Whatta Muscle Car!!! New Dodge Challenger

[GTO]

Apparently being lined up for production. With a 6.1 Hemi. Gosh, I got to say...Dodge sure builds cars with character!









More Pictures

Dodge Challenger Article

This is my kinda car.

GTO

[?ushk@r]

Wow..awesome car! Too much like a Mustang

Fabulous!

[zaphod]

Sexy car....just the thing D-C needed to challege the new Mustang.

Now if only they could come out with the Pontiac GTO, the Challenger and GM comes out with a new Camaro - of course - all styled with retro cues...

My kind of cars too GTO - I fell in love with the Mustang after I discoverd a copy of a 65 Popular Mechanics which belonged to my father during his DMET (MERI) days - had a review of the Mustang along with the Plymouth Barracuda and the Corsair Corsa.... In fact - when I have time - I'll have the article scanned and put up on T-BHP.


No matter how much I love the history of the 911 or the technology of the Skyline or the unimaginable fun offered by the Evo and the Impreza, if I had to choose , I 'd still go for a V8 powered muscle car. The sound, the road presence and of course I think I was a redneck alabama dude in my past life - I love pickups, proper body-on-ladder-frame-chassis-with-Low-and-High-modes 4x4's and pump action shotguns too - and '70's and '80's Rock !

cheers

zaphod

[Ram]

Originally Posted by GTO

Apparently being lined up for production. With a 6.1 Hemi. Gosh, I got to say...Dodge sure builds cars with character!



This is my kinda car.

GTO

Friends, please indulge me for
a) threading into this not so new post,
b) a walk down memory lane.

The picture reminds me of a toy scale-model car I built in 1968.
An avid-fan of cars, I had a 1/24th scale plastic model kit of a 1968 Dodge Charger.
The kit manufacturer was MPC.
Here's a picture.


Around my eleventh birthday, December 1968, Bombay was on the route of the Daily Express' London/Sydney Marathon. Car lovers in Bombay were thrilled to witness rally-prepared saloons with massive driving lights, blacked-out bonnets and Aussie-style "kangaroo" bull bars racing down Ambedkar Road, Dadar. The marathon (or carathon as the Times of India called it!) was won in Sydney by Andy Cowan in a 1968 Hillman Hunter.
The car to make it to Bombay with the least penalty points was a 1968 Ford Lotus-Cortina Mk.II, driven by Roger Clark (I think he was a film actor) with Ove Andersson.

The famous late Bollywood comedian, Mehmood made his famous movie "Padosan" starring Kishore Kumar, Mehmood, Saira Banu and Sunil Dutt. Lyndon Johnson was president of the USA.
The US dollar was worth Rs. 9/= only.

The Ford Mustang had defined the pony-car (long bonnet, short dikky) segment in mid 1964. By the time I was old enough to clip out pictures from Time, Life and Readers-Digest magazines, the 1968 Ford Mustang was IMHO the most beautiful Mustang ever. There was a special version called Shelby Mustang made by Carroll Shelby in California. With a 428 cu.in. 7-litre V8 engine called Cobra-Jet, it was the most powerful Mustang on the street, developing 335 bhp @ 5600 rpm and 597 Newton-metre of torque @ 3400 rpm.

In the Steve McQueen movie, "Bullitt", which IMHO is the best car-chase movie in the whold world, Steve McQueen drives a 1968 Ford Mustang. The villains drive a 1968 Dodge Charger. In those days, there was no computer graphics. The cars were actually driven and filmed in San Francisco at 160 km/hr. Interestingly the Mustang was highly modified to perform. The Charger was just an ordinary off-the-showroom car and could run rings around the Mustang!

Two years later came the Dodge's Challenger, a successor to the Charger.
The killer engine in this car was a 7.2 litre (440 cu.in) V8 engine with three twin-barrel carburettors. They were called the six-pack carburettors. The engine developed 390 bhp and 664 Newton-metre of torque.

Here's a pic of an original 1970 Dodge Challenger.


Thanks in advance, for your indulgence.

[1Day]

I saw it in person in the chicago auto show, i liked it, it looked great but do you know what look better a complete modern designed retro looking Camero..i never liked the cameros but man this one was nice..very nice..it also had more people hovering around it than this bad boy..but none the less in this segment its going to be a wild race between the Challenger, Camero and the Mustang..

[Aditya]

Ram, old man! Don't rub salt into my wounds.

Back to the original topic, this Challenger looks fantastic! It's muscular and mean looking. It retains the lines, stance and character of the old car.
The present generation Ford Mustang did a great job of getting the retro look back. Now all the long dead American muscle cars are slowly rising. The only time any manufacturer has goofed up is when Dodge made the Charger a 4 door saloon.
From an Indian point of view, maybe it's time for HM to wake up.

[islero]

Originally Posted by ram

In the Steve McQueen movie, "Bullitt", which IMHO is the best car-chase movie in the whold world, Steve McQueen drives a 1968 Ford Mustang. The villains drive a 1968 Dodge Charger. In those days, there was no computer graphics. The cars were actually driven and filmed in San Francisco at 160 km/hr. Interestingly the Mustang was highly modified to perform. The Charger was just an ordinary off-the-showroom car and could run rings around the Mustang![/IMG]

Actually, the Mustang was a GT390. To make the chase a bit more cool, they dubbed a soundtrack from the GT40 onto it!!!!

And another story is that after each scene where the cars jump and land a LOT, the Mustang needed cosntant fettling and repair to set it right wheras the Charger just chugged on unfluttered!!!

Thats why the Charger and Camaro are my favourite muscle cars. The only Mustangs I'm intersted in are the Boss 302 form 1970, and the original 1965 Shelby GT350 (the pure one before the luxuries started creeping in in '66 onwards).

[Motorholic]

This car is just beautiful. The current mustang has some retro cues. But this car looks like they just took the original drawing and smoothened out a few lines for todays market. Now this car rocks!

[khanak]

Buyers who shell out $40,095 (plus what's likely to be a staggering dealer surcharge) for the 2008 Dodge Charger SRT8 can at least rest in the knowledge that the cars they're getting are loaded to the gills with standard features. In fact, there are only three options. For $50, you can upgrade to summer tires (all-season performance rubber is standard). $890 replaces the base head unit with the MyGig infotainment/navigation system, and $950 adds a power sunroof. Everything else is part of the standard equipment list -- even a stint at the SRT Track Experience. Head on over to Allpar to see the complete rundown, which includes the minutiae like "6.1L badge." More info on the Challenger is coming very soon, so keep your eyes peeled as Chrysler gets into full ramp-up-the-excitement mode.

[Source: Allpar]


Standard features and options revealed for 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 - Autoblog

[R32_GTR]

Who gives a damn about performance figures when it looks so wicked!!

First the camaro..now this..what next..the plymouth barracudu??

Simply awesome..

[khanak]

Originally Posted by R32_GTR

Who gives a damn about performance figures when it looks so wicked!!

First the camaro..now this..what next..the plymouth barracudu??

Simply awesome..

And at 40k it certainly seems like a bargain !!

[Nitin]

This is one mean American muscle car! Loads & loads of style & character.
Can't wait to see these on the roads here..

[Harbir]

Its funny, the corner Dodge painted itself into. The Challenger, till recently was forgotten and quite obscure. the chrysler cars more remembered were the Chargers, Daytonas, Cudas, all variations of the same platform. When Chrysler decided on the new car, they decided to use the Charger name but on a 4 door body, instead of a coupe. DOdge fans were quite upset here in the US because not only was it being used on a 4 door, it didn't even really look like Charger. But dodge didn't think there was a market for american retro two doors. the Chevy SSR retro pick up had failed, the retro ford thunderbird had failed. the camaro was dead. Mustang was on its last legs. So Charger was going to be a sedan.

Except the new mustang came along, very retro, very 1969, and really caught the public's imagination. Then GM announced they were going to bring back the Camaro in a form that would pay tribute to the '67-'69 Camaro. So now there were TWO of the three big three about to go head to head with retro cars going back to the late 60s era. THe natural for Dodge was the Charger. Except they'd already shot that bolt.

So they dug up the challenger. A lot of people scratched their heads and wondered what the heck a challenger was. Then they did some googling and found out.

I saw the Challenger concept at the detroit auto show earlier this year, and I love its simplicity and authenticity, but I can't help feeling that had they been bringing out an authentic Charger, the world would be a lot more excited about it.....

[Harbir]

An Original Dodge Challenger

[1100D]

When can we have a car like this under 10 lakhs in our own country. (Ok, I hear it, when the dollar falls further and we decide not to pay taxes on both our income as well as purchases)