DSkippy

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[quote]Trunk

By Joe Wiesenfelder
Cars.com
April 30, 2008

As if I didn't already know I was in a special car, I was about 30 seconds out of the parking lot when a roadside workman exclaimed, "Son of a bitch!" Had I run over his foot? No, he was reacting as if he had seen a ghost. In fact, he had. I was driving a 2008 Dodge Challenger, designed after the classic muscle car. Similarly extreme — if less profane — reactions would continue throughout my day of testing the rolling spectacle around Pasadena, Calif.

The Challenger is arriving a few years too late to meet its true potential in the American market, but it's a capable, livable car that I enjoyed the heck out of simply for what it is.

Now, I'd hate for you to desert this review, but I'm duty-bound to tell you that the 2008 models are already sold out. If you want a 2009 model, which will come this fall, get in line now. You'll have your pick of the lower-priced and lesser-powered Challenger SE and R/T as well as the SRT8. The 2008 model year's 6,400 cars come only in the ultimate-performance SRT8 trim level.

Exterior & Styling
If Dodge had it to do over again, the company probably wouldn't have given the Charger name to the four-door sedan on whose platform the Challenger is based. The uproar among nostalgists — and other people with nothing else to do — was predictable because the new Charger had nothing to do with the original one, which was also an iconic late-60s two-door muscle car. It didn't look like the original Charger; it looked like many other current Dodges — unmistakable and in your face. Though I like that car, I must say that the one copy Dodge had on hand to drive at Willow Springs Raceway along with the Challengers looked a little ... overdone in comparison.

Unlike the Charger, the Challenger is very much a Challenger — unmistakably so. Naturally, there are people out there who say it looks too much like the old one, and others who say not enough. If I worked at Dodge, I suppose I'd have to listen to this and bite my tongue. I do not, so I'll say it: Shut up already.

The Challenger SRT8 looks terrific in person — I might even go so far as to say breathtaking, especially in the metal-flake black paint. The presence that wowed people at the auto shows has carried over to the street. Where I think the Challenger exceeds the current Ford Mustang — its closest competitor and itself a reworking of a 1960s design — is in the 360-degree test. The current Mustang also stunned showgoers when it made its debut, but when you walk around it, the rear end is comparatively uninspiring. The Challenger is a winner from every angle.

Each color brings out different elements of the car's exterior. For example, in the orange and silver models, the black rocker panels and bumper extensions make the car appear to ride higher than it does, recalling the classic Challenger. The black one looks lower and sleeker. If Dodge had only three colors to offer, I think it chose the right ones. (I especially think so having seen the blue paint on the SE trim level at the auto show. Eech. Maybe it's better in natural light.)

From the panel gaps to the way the rectangular tailpipes fit into the bumper cutouts, it looks like Dodge has cut few, if any, corners.

Going & Stopping
The nostalgia doesn't end with the name and design. Under the hood lurks a Hemi engine. The term "hemi" refers to hemispherical, which was the shape of the combustion chambers in Dodge's original, legendary V-8 of the same name. In today's Hemi the combustion chambers aren't really hemispherical. Maybe semihemispherical, but "That thing got a Semihemi?" doesn't have quite the same marketing appeal.

No matter the details. What matters is that the modern Hemi is a powerful, smooth V-8. Being an SRT8, this Challenger has the largest of the Hemi

RLSH700

Even though it discusses the things we pretty much already know, it's a good read regardless. Thanks for posting it DSkippy.