Cuda340

The January 2010 issue of Motor Trend has a well-written article about a B5 Challenger R/T on a 2,000 western road trip starting from from Los Angeles. It is mostly about the oddities and scenery encountered on the trip.

Some excerpts about the Challenger are:

""The thrum and trust of a Hemi V8...The sun is low as you rumble through downtown Los Angeles."

"A look over your shoulder reveals the parked Challenger, iconic bandit grill radiating early 1970s rebelliousness, a well bred express pony willing to wait for you but seemingly eager to press on."

"Twice already, the two teenage cooks have spilled out of the kitchen to ogle the Challenger parked outside. One is in lust with the car; the other isn't sure. 'That's why you drive a Sentra,' says the admirer."

"Before you park for the evening outside Tucson, you're stopped three times by makeshift border-patrol checkpoints. 'Very nice blue,' says one trooper."

"On every side the earth seems to spill into forever, Such is the latitude that created muscle rides like the Challenger- large, assertive, comfortable in epic environs that would swallow up effete machines."

"By day four, you're winding the Challenger through the thick woods and sinuous asphalt of Arizona Tonto National Forest. The R/T rises to your spurs- it's not a sports car, but its eager to hustle, the lion-hearted Hemi playing a movie-chase-scene soundtrack, the pistol-grip six-speed shifter firing like a quick-drawn Colt, the steering wheel languid but confident in your hands. Miles come easily to the Challenger; you've notched more than 1,500 miles on this trip already, nearly 500 each day without ever feeling drawn out. In a way, you feel like you shared the Challenger wherever you've gone. "Beautiful car, haven't seen that color before,' yet another R/T fan told you at a gas stop yesterday. And then he climbed into his sheriff's cruiser and motored away."

"You've kept your senses alert, your fingertips tapped to the R/T's pulse, your ears bent to its breathing, your brain always attuned to the fitness of your machine (the Challenger has run like a train."