The Dodge Challenger is a car that can seriously invoke both feeling of nostalgia and admiration. This is a car that has the looks and some of the features that were included on the original Challenger from the time when muscle cars proudly prowled the streets. The Challenger is fast, its powerful and it has a great deal more to offer than meets the eye, especially with the availability of the Hellcat or SRT models that can be perfect for your driving enjoyment. With a Challenger you know you have a car that will turn heads and give you excitement whenever you step behind the wheel.
Why then, does this car continue to fall behind in the pony car race? The three cars built in America that compete head to head to head are the Challenger, Mustang and Camaro. All three have taken to some form of throwback style and look more like muscle cars of old, although the Challenger carries this look more than the other two. Even though these three cars have the appearance of muscle cars they have all received modern updates and are built to take on the road or track and give you the most thrilling ride you can imagine.
Unfortunately for the Challenger, most of the time it’s left behind the other two. Even when the car is in Hellcat form the top models of the Mustang and Camaro are capable of running around a track and even completing a quarter mile much faster than the Challenger. Does this really make sense? The Hellcat brings in a massive 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine that has 707 horsepower which is attached to a six-speed manual transmission or an eight-speed automatic to give you the power you want, but for some reason this car still lags behind.
The reason for this tardiness off the line for the Challenger lies simply in its build. Instead of investing in a new platform on which to build this car, when FCA decided to resurrect the long dead Challenger they built it on the same platform as the Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300. These other cars are heavy, in fact they’re much heavier than they should be and both offer an excellent driving experience for someone who wants to cruise the backroads and just enjoy the drive on a Sunday afternoon, but the platform wasn’t built for speed or power.
In fact, until the Challenger came bac from the dead the Charger wasn’t offered with a Hellcat version, but since the Challenger has been on the streets the Charger also receive the 707 horsepower that’s under the hood of the Hellcat Challenger, giving us a four door sports sedan from Dodge that we love, but has the same issues as the Challenger when it comes to weight which robs the horsepower of actual performance.
Does the fact this car is third really made a difference? Not if you are just looking for some fun. The Challenger can be a lot of fun in many different forms and it offers a variety of V6 and V8 engines with differing power outputs to allow you to have a great time driving your updated and modern muscle car. If you love the Hellcat you can have the 707 horsepower and hear this beast grow and give you everything you could ask for from the car, just keep in mind taking on the top Mustang or Camaro isn’t a good idea, at least not until FCA figures out how to take a lot of weight out of this car.
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