Background

Credit (or blame) for the current retro-ponycar craze rests squarely on Ford. Their current-generation Mustang—a deliciously authentic recreation of the 1967 model—struck a chord with the general public in 2005, due to surging patriotic sentiment, yearning for simpler times, cheap gas, or some combination thereof. Chrysler and GM immediately began planning rival products, though you wouldn’t know it from their timetables.

Now, with the sun setting on 2008, wallets are thin, hybrids are in, foreign threats have faded from the public’s consciousness, and Dodge’s throwback Challenger has hit dealership floors. It’s stunningly faithful to the 1970 original, right down to the half-decade-late introduction.

With its racy looks and excess horsepower, some shoppers—particularly the young males most enthralled by those virtues—may be tempted to classify the Challenger as a “sports car.” It’s better not to. Like most of the late-‘60s muscle machines it pays homage to, the Challenger is more of a visual statement backed up with V8 thrust. Under the skin, it’s essentially a Dodge Charger sedan—just as the most valuable Super Bee 440 Six Pack is, at heart, a hopped-up Coronet.

The Challenger’s late arrival may render it irrelevant to most shoppers, but any car this gorgeous is sure to attract a fervent following. What kind of ownership experience should those followers expect? I drove a Challenger R/T at a recent ride-and-drive event to get a general idea.


Under the Hood

Initially available in only one trim level, the Challenger now comes in three flavors. The first, the entry-level SE, is powered by a 3.5-liter, 250 horsepower V6, mated exclusively to a rental-grade four-speed automatic. The mid-grade R/T features a 5.7-liter (or 350-cubic-inch, if you insist) 372-horse V8, matched with either a five-speed automatic or a six-speed manual. The top-of-the-line SRT8 boasts a thundering 6.1-liter (372 c.i.) V8 with 425 horsepower.

I can’t speak to the latter model’s performance, except to say that the R/T’s 5.7-liter V8 already does a fine job of belying the Challenger’s 4,041 lb (yes, really) bulk. Anyone who’s driven a Hemi-equipped Magnum or Charger knows what to expect here. Deep, sustained dips into the long-travel throttle call forth unrelenting floods of torque—not enough to take your breath away, but enough to compress your spine deep into the seatback. And the Hemi hardly lets up as your speed rises into triple digits.

This full-throttle ferocity might come as a surprise to casual test-drivers. That’s because, in around-town tootling, the Challenger presents a very different personality. Unlike some fast Detroiters, there’s no gimmicky twitchiness in the Challenger’s throttle; tip-in is very gradual, even syrupy. You ooze off the line slowly, and slink around town just as smoothly as you please.

No matter how gently you drive, though, you’ll be accompanied by a luscious Motown soundtrack. The Challenger plays its rich, burbly exhaust music in hi-fi, considerably less muffled than in the related Magnum and Charger. At full throttle, its guttural, hammering beat will prickle the hairs on your neck, particularly near the 5,700 rpm redline. Better yet, this V8 is notably smooth-spinning, with virtually zero cabin vibration to spoil your fun.

Unfortunately, the Challenger’s fuel economy is equally retro. The EPA estimates 16/25 MPG for the automatic R/T that I test-drove, and Dodge recommends feeding it mid-grade 89 octane. The V6-powered SE is hardly better at 17/25 MPG, while the muscle-bound SRT-8’s 14/22 MPG makes it an unabashed guzzler.


Changing Gears
 
While I would have loved to use the optional ($995) six-speed manual transmission to play riffs on the Challenger’s tuneful exhaust, my test car had the standard five-speed automatic. This wasn’t all bad—the five-speed goes about its business with the same stately decorum it exhibits in the Charger, shuffling gently between gears in normal driving. Trouble is, when you ask the Challenger to play, the auto runs interference. It dithers momentarily before kicking down a gear, stifling the V8’s response.  

In theory, this is where you’d use “AutoStick”—a shift gate that allows the driver to select gears by hand—to bend the transmission’s programming to your will. But in practice, the novelty of this feature wears quickly; the gearchanges it summons are too slow and slushy to approximate the feel of manual control. If that’s your need, get the six-speed stick. Bonus points: the manual features a straight-handled “pistol-grip” shift lever, just like in classic Mopar muscle.

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Twists and Turns

Less true to classic Mopars—thankfully—is the Challenger’s handling. The Challenger’s road manners are nearly identical to the Charger sedan’s, meaning that it’s a mature, composed mile-eater of a coupe that, from the driver’s seat, might as well be a four-door.

If you interpret that to mean “unexciting,” well, you’re not entirely off-base. Remember, at two tons and change, this car is heavier than a Toyota Avalon or Buick Lucerne (or a 1970 Hemi Challenger, for that matter, by nearly two hundred pounds). Still, like its Charger stablemate, the Challenger’s moves are equal parts deliberate and decisive. While the suspension may slosh a bit, the overriding impression is of a car that’s stable and foursquare, planted heavily on the road, feeling every bit the modernized ‘60’s road hugger.

Slightly lazy steering contributes greatly to the Challenger’s “vintage” feel. The thick, four-spoke steering wheel is the same one you grip in the Charger, and its unusually large diameter requires necessarily big, sweeping hand motions in routine turns. In fact, the steering carves very accurate arcs. But its weighting feels numb and artificially light at first, and the heft it develops at speed is more for effect than to tell you anything about the road surface.

As you’ve surely guessed, twisty-road agility is not the Challenger’s forte. Body motions become pronounced in such environs: it lolls in corners, squats heavily into dips, and floats up on its tiptoes when cresting rises. But the Dodge isn’t devoid of back-road entertainment value. Once you give up trying to drive it with your fingertips, and accept that you’ll have to saw at the wheel a bit, the Challenger’s rear-drive balance shines through—it digs in and relinquishes grip evenly at both ends, rather than chewing on its front tires. The resulting four-wheel drifts are good for some grins.


Easy Rider?
 
This being a defiantly American car—albeit one built in Canada—the Challenger’s ride-and-handling compromise is tipped mildly towards the former. In fact, Dodge tuned the Challenger’s springs even softer than the four-door Charger’s, to mitigate the jumpier ride from its shortened wheelbase. As a result, this muscle car rolls softly over most pavement imperfections, its fleshy tire sidewalls damping out textures in the asphalt.

Even more surprising than the Challenger’s gracious softness, though, is the granitic solidity of its structure. Like the Charger, this coupe has a vaultlike, ingot-tight feel that’s more often associated with German cars, or Abrams tanks. Add this to the Challenger’s muted noise levels, and the result is a serene, settled highway cruiser.


Inside Story

Over the past few years, Chrysler has seemingly worked hard to establish itself as purveyor of the cheapest, bleakest vehicle interiors on the market. And upon swinging open the Challenger’s long, heavy driver’s door, first impression is that the Challenger upholds this reputation. Peering into the gloom, you can make out slit-thin windows, dark monochrome surfaces, and what appears to be a lot of gray, slab-shaped plastic.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, though, it becomes apparent that Chrysler put greater-than-usual effort into giving this cabin a sense of occasion. Unless your last new-car purchase took place in the ‘60s or ‘70s, the Challenger’s interior will come off as exceptionally atmospheric: It’s dark and brooding inside, with super-thick roof pillars and a short, mail-slot windshield. That windshield’s bottom half is filled with a long, flat expanse of hood, making the Challenger feel extraordinarily big, low, and wide. Impenetrable acres of metal seem to separate the driver from the outside world.

Buyers who are intimately familiar with the vinyl contours of the 1970 Challenger’s interior will have fun spotting similar cues in the new car—the trapezoidal hollows in each door panel, the hooded instrument binnacle, the ever-so-slight tilt of the console towards the driver. But these surface flourishes are understated to a fault, subtle to the point of invisibility for most shoppers. Most of them will simply see a dark, anonymous, and very gray cave of a cabin, fit for a Detroit taxicab.

Poking at the various surfaces might brighten their evaluation, but only a little. Most of the cabin’s key touch points—the armrests, door pulls, and steering wheel—are made of solid stuff, and the dash plastic yields slightly to prodding fingers. But the remaining décor is comprised of hard, coarse-grained plastics, which look tough but repel the hand with their thin construction. Buttons and knobs feel similarly hollow, with gritty detents.

Many of these faults can be traced to the sedans with which the Challenger shares its architecture. These include the pedal activated parking brake, which is all wrong for a manually-shifted sporty car, and the low-hanging turn-signal stalk, which sprouts from eight o’clock on the steering column. Fortunately, there’s an upside to the Challenger’s sedan DNA: interior space. The Challenger fits loosely around the legs, elbows, and even the head of the driver, who is seated on broad, flat, appropriately elevated cushions. Comfort in the rear is in shorter supply, as expected, but legroom is far better than the coupe norm.


Fill ‘Er Up

Of all the Challenger’s retro characteristics, its trunk may be the most authentic of all—and don’t mistake that for a compliment. While the Challenger’s square, sharp-edged trunk lid is the size of a large card table, it opens to reveal a surprisingly small opening, pinched in on all sides by a wide metal lip. The rubber weatherstripping surrounding said lip is wavy and ill-fitting, just like in cars built thirty years ago. At least the fuel-filler tube doesn’t run naked through the cargo area, as in the 1970 original.

If you manage to cram anything bulky through the trunk’s narrow opening, you’ll find 16.2 cubic feet of volume at your disposal—3.3 cubic feet more than what the Mustang, let alone many sedans, can offer—and a split-folding rear seatback to help accommodate the load. In the cabin, meanwhile, you get a paper-thin glovebox, a center-console bin, a shallow pocket in each door, and that’s about it—don’t go looking for “clever” storage solutions.


Summing Up
 
After driving the new Challenger, I was interested to gauge public interest in it at the local San Francisco International Auto Show, which I attended a couple of Saturdays ago. Sure enough, it drew one of the bigger crowds on the floor—but not as big as those surrounding the 2009 Honda Fit, Smart Fortwo, or Ford Fusion Hybrid. Granted, S.F. may not be an accurate barometer for the rest of the country’s interests, but when the state that brought you the Beach Boys and Bullitt has moved on to high-tech gas-savers… well, I’ll leave the interpretation up to you.

While the Challenger may never sell in the numbers Chrysler had hoped for, it seems to have carved out a tidy niche for itself in the neo-pony segment. It’s comfier and more genteel than Ford’s Mustang, with a much smoother ride, a more spacious interior, and a usable back seat. The Dodge is also far prettier than the upcoming Chevrolet Camaro, which, in this reviewer’s opinion, looks more like a Terminator set prop than its 1960s namesake.

Bottom line: the Challenger may not be the fastest coupe in its class, nor the highest-quality, nor the best-handling, but if looks and livability describe your top priorities in a ponycar, give the Dodge a whirl. It’s a feel-good retro-revival experience that will warm the hearts of those who remember (or covet) the original. By the time the new Camaro arrives in 2010, no one may care how the new-age pony triple-throwdown shakes out. In the meantime, the Challenger isn’t a bad way to relive the good old days.
Amount Paid (US$): N/A