The author does have a somewhat negative tone, but the goodness of this car shines through any bias and he must have enough journalistic principle to allow some of the truth to escape.....this passage especially....
There was, unfortunately, nowhere to hide the weight. At 4,140 pounds, the Challenger's poundage is the consequence of the project's short development and low budget (taking weight out of a car costs a lot of time and money). Still, there's no denying 425-hp, 420-torque V8 under the hood. This is big, cackling, evil-sounding thrust, with an angry lunge off the line and a peaky, on-the-cam feel in the upper registers. Zero-to-60-mph accel is about 5 seconds (the exhaust note has been engineered to sound like the old car) but the Challenger makes its happiest/orneriest noises at 5,000 rpm in third gear, as it snatches the air from the passing lane.