RoswellGrey

One thing I should note, Joe, is that I bought my 70 in 1974 and drove it regularly till it was totaled in 2001. Hence, my memories of the original model aren't entirely from "back in the day" in the 1970s.

While I had the 70, I also owned at one time or another a 1977 Maverick, 1985 Thunderbird, 1986 Thunderbird, 1994 Thunderbird and 2000 Mustang. Of all those cars, the ONLY one I preferred driving over the relatively primitive mechanics of the 70 Challenger was the 94 Thunderbird.

Technologically, is the current Challenger a better car than the 70? By any standard you could use, it definitely is. But the point of the guy's piece was whether the current car has the gravitas or coolness factor of the original. In my opinion, while today's car is a good representation of the original, it is not as cool as the 1970 model. Yeah, probably a lot of that is because of government safety regulations. That's unfortunate.

Quite frankly, had the price of the original Challengers not exploded to the obscene levels they've reached in the past five or six year, I had fully intended to buy another 70 (due to circumstances at home, I couldn't make the expenditure till this year). Had I been able to get a 1970 model in excellent condition for $26,000 (which you could have EASILY done in most of the country till about 2002 or 2003, and which is about the absolute limit I personally would ever spend on ANY car), I would have. Since I couldn't, I bought the next best thing for the money: the 09.