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Filed under: In the Autoblog Garage , Coupes , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge Click above for high-res image gallery of the Dodge Challenger SRT8 Back in September we reviewed the V6-powered Dodge Challenger SE, and our conclusion was that an uninspiring engine and benign handling was trumped by terrific curb appeal and an affordable price tag. The R/T model we reviewed yesterday fared even better, with a near perfect combination of brawn and beauty. It was fun spending time behind the wheel of both the SE and R/T models, but we knew we had to get our hands on a fire-breathing, 425-hp 6.1L HEMI V8 to see how capable the Challenger could be at full tilt. After all, there are few things in life better than classic muscle car looks combined with a brute-force V8. And if there are two available V8 engines, it just makes sense that we'd prefer the Challenger with the most powerful powerplant. Did Dodge hit the mark with its top Challenger? We welcomed the Challenger SRT8 into the Autoblog Garage...
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Filed under: Coupes , Sedans/Saloons , Videos , Supercars , Cadillac , Chevrolet , Dodge Click above to view videos from the latest Top Gear after the jump Top Gear is widely regarded as the best television show ever produced about cars. The production values are outstanding, the hosts are amusing and their tamed racing driver, "the Stig", is amazing to watch as he improves his mind while hustling cars around the test track. A few months back we all got wind that Jeremy, Richard and James had returned to the U.S. for another road trip. This time around they headed to the West Coast to drive a new Corvette ZR1, Cadillac CTS-V and Dodge Challenger SRT-8 from San Francisco to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Along the way, Jezza decided to stop at some desolate spot somewhere in Nevada or Utah to lay down some black lines on the pavement. Now while we generally love to watch Mr. Clarkson playing with fast cars, he doesn't quite seem to have mastered the art of the burnout. If you start...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , Concept Cars , SEMA , Time Warp , Coupes , Sports/GTs , Dodge Click above for hi-res gallery of the Challenger Targa We hope you're loving the Dodge Challengers here at SEMA as much as we are. When you build a car that's a throwback to such an iconic vehicle, it's easy to anticipate that tuners will try to recreate every example that made the Challenger such a legend way back when. While some of the cars here are great examples of that spirit, these two official ones give us a more modern take on the theme. As we told you when we previewed them last week, the Challenger Targa was built to campaign in the Targa Newfoundland enduro race. It features a 540-hp HEMI V8 with 490 lb-ft of torque, a Tremec six-speed manual and a modified rear diff. It wears the same acid green paint you can order on the Viper and also features a KW race-ready suspension with massive Stop-Tech six-piston calipers and rotors. And it looks even better in person than official...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , Concept Cars , SEMA , Tuners , Coupes , Sports/GTs , Dodge Click above for the Camaro vs Challenger Smackdown Earlier this week we published live shots of four Camaro Concepts that Chevy had brought to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas. As the Official Car of the show this year, the Camaro was expected to be present in full force. What we didn't expect were all the great Dodge Challengers that we've found. We've shared some of our favorites with you already, but the official Challengers from Mopar alone are pretty spectacular. Today we went back and took another look at the Challengers in Mopar Alley and realized something: Black is to Blacktop as LS7 is to SRT10 as GS is to Targa . The Camaro and Challenger concepts at SEMA match up pretty well. Coincidence? We think not. So, building on our recent GM/Chrysler Battle Royale, we decided to find out which muscle car concepts were king at the 2008 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. Camaro VS Challenger Smackdown! SEMA...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , SEMA , Coupes , Sports/GTs , Dodge Click above for high-res gallery of Challengers SRT10 from SEMA That thing got a Hemi in it? Nope. Doesn't need one. It has a Viper V10. Oh. Ohhhhh . The Challenger SRT10 Concept , as you no doubt know, sports the 8.4L V10 engine from the Viper SRT10. All 600 horsepower and 560 lb-ft of torque in that retro mod muscle car is probably too much power for the Challenger's rear tires, so expect smokey skies to always accompany overambitious throttle inputs. Besides the obviously welcome Viper mill, the Challenger SRT10 concept features a carbon fiber front splitter and rear deck lid, a new rear spoiler, BILSTEIN shocks at all four corners, larger wheels, bigger brakes and quad exhaust tips out back. There's also carbon fiber trim inside the cockpit along with new sports seats and a red engine push-button start just like in the Viper. It all ads up to one seriously awesome piece of retro goodness. Check out the gallery...
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Filed under: Coupes , Government/Legal , Safety , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge Click above for gallery of 2009 Dodge Challenger crash pics, and here to view video We like our pony cars to have that muscle car look with the power to back it up. The Dodge Challenger makes good on both counts (at least when it's sporting a V8) and now has a five-star safety record to match its performance. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration slammed some Challengers into brick walls to test the new pony car's crash-worthiness, and the results were five stars for both the driver and front passenger in frontal and side impacts. A front crash impact score of five stars means that there is a 10% or less chance of serious injury at 35 mph, and the five-star side impact score indicates a 5% chance of serious injury at 38.5 mph. Follow the jump to watch video of the Dodge Challenger taking on the NHTSA's infamous wall of punishment. The Challenger's sheet metal does a good job of absorbing...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , SEMA , Tuners , Coupes , Dodge Click above for a high-res image of Hotchkis' 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A For this year's SEMA show, the crew at Hotchkis will unveil a pair of modified Dodge Challengers highlighting its focus on classic muscle and its modern-day counterpart. The two matching Challengers - a 1970 T/A 340 Six-Pack and a 2009 SRT8 - will share yellow paint schemes, graphics and wheels, along with a host of parts that should make the T/A stick as well as - if not better - than the 2009 model. The 1970 Challenger, known as E-MAX, was originally converted to 340 Six-Pack trim by the previous owner, and now features new fabricated steel upper A-arms bolted into relocated pickup points, strut rods with Heim joints, aluminum steering rods and a set of front and rear way bars, along with a new set of springs that lower the Granddaddy Challenger by two inches. In addition to replacing the aging front suspension, Hotchkis set out to create a well-rounded...
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Filed under: Convertibles , Coupes , Sports/GTs , Etc. , Dodge , Rumormill In a recent post about the 2009 Dodge Challenger SE , KickingTires quotes director of Dodge brand marketing, Mike Accavitti, saying that there will be no convertible version of the reborn muscle car in Dodge showrooms. Apparently the platform would require too much additional hardware to handle the extra flex from cutting the roof off, and the added weight would push the car too far into the Sumo class. And that would be with just a simple manual soft-top, not one of them there new-fangled retractable hardtops that are the top du jour for convertible buyers. There's also the issue of cost and the fact that Dodge's market analysis seems to indicate there isn't a huge market for them. We understand the reasoning and know that even the coupes are going to be low-volume, but we would humbly like to suggest a limited run of SRT-8 convertibles at double the coupe's asking price. Say 20 or so. Buyers will...
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Filed under: Coupes , Sedans/Saloons , Sports/GTs , Supercars , Cadillac , Chevrolet , Dodge , UK , Celebrities Click above for high-res gallery Not long after we learned that the famous Top Gear trio was in the U.S. , a fan managed to snap some shots of Clarkson, Hammond and Mays testing their favorite examples of American muscle at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The hosts made their way to salt flats by way of Reno, Nevada where they had a few modifications done to each vehicle in the name of high speed safety, namely driveshaft loops and fire extinguishers. If you saw our previous post on the subject, you already know that Clarkson is driving a Corvette ZR1 , Hamster a Challenger SRT8 and May the super-fast but still luxurious Cadillac CTS-V , a car that shares much of its supercharged V8 architecture with the new force-fed mill in the 'Vette. We can already surmise that the ZR1 easily took top honors at Bonneville thanks to its slippery shape and abundance of power. Now, which...
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Filed under: Coupes , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge Big name designers often skip from one job to another in the automotive world. Chrysler seems to be losing more than its fair share of artistic types, as the Auburn Hills-based automaker has lost two top designers in recent weeks. First, long time design chief Trevor Creed retired . Now Dodge Challenger Concept designer Micheal Castiglione has left for a smaller, more diversified design house. Castiglione has joined Ken Okuyama Design as their chief designer where he will work on everything from eye glasses and furniture to trains and planes. Okuyama also has some automotive interests, including the K.O 7 open wheel and the interesting-looking K.O 8 coupe (above). During his 15-year tenure with the Pentastar, Castiglione's best work came in the form of the Dodge Challenger Concept, but he also worked on the Jeep Compass concept and the Chrysler 300 production car. [Source: Car Design News ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: In the Autoblog Garage , Coupes , Chrysler, LLC. , Dodge Click above for high-res gallery of the 2009 Dodge Challenger SE Chrysler pays the bills with big sellers like the Dodge Ram and Caravan, but when it comes to passion and excitement, the 2009 Dodge Challenger sits with the Viper atop the Pentastar throne. The new Dodge Challenger is retro done right, with the wide stance and long hood of the original mixed with the clean lines and aggressive dimensions of a modern pony car. For the 2008 model year, Chrysler introduced only the SRT version of the Challenger. The first production model sold for $400,000 at auction, and the entire stock of HEMI-packing, Mopar goodness was history faster than it takes to hit 125 mph on a barren back road. The reality of today's high gas prices combined with strict new fuel economy standards means that, unfortunately, it's unreasonable for every Challenger to pack a fire-breathing, neck snapping 425-hp, 6.1L V8. So for 2009, Chrysler...
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Filed under: Coupes , Sports/GTs , Chevrolet , Dodge , Ford , GM Credit goes to our friends at Jalopnik for orchestrating the shot you see above, which took some quick planning and a lot of luck. General Motors recently held a sneak peak media drive for the Chevy Camaro V6 out in San Diego, and unfortunately only the biggest buff books and Edmunds Inside Line were invited (tsk, tsk). Jalopnik decided to crash the party the best way they know how - by showing up driving the Camaro's two biggest competitors, the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger. Classic Jalopnik, and how they managed to find two black ones we'll never know. This is the first published picture of all three modern muscle cars together, at least that we know of. Jalopnik EIC Ray Wert and his team weathered an extremely miffed GM PR person to get it, and word is we'll have video later of the heated exchange. What GM got miffed about is unknown, since last we checked San Diego had no laws against driving your car...
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Filed under: Car Buying , Coupes , Chrysler, LLC. If you want to sport a Dodge Challenger without the fire-breathing V8 or the hefty price tag, the time to act is now. The first two Dodge Challenger SE models have arrived in Ohio this week, and 500 models are en-route to dealerships in the U.S. and Canada as you read this. The SE Challenger packs Chrysler's ho-hum 3.5L V6 with 250 horsepower and a truly retro four speed automatic, but the news is far from all bad. You still get the Challenger's muscular looks, power flowing through the rear wheels, and a hard to beat entry price of only $21,995 . You probably won't win many races, but at least you won't be driving an Avenger . Seriously, though, the Challenger SE charmed us at the 2008 Chicago Auto Show where it debuted with a simple proposition: cheap, rear-wheel-drive fun on four wheels. Gallery: 2009 Dodge Challenger SE - Live Reveal [Source: Red Letter Dodge ] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Filed under: Coupes , Dodge , First Drive Click above for high-res gallery of Autoblog autocrossing Yesterday at Chrysler's annual media gathering to show off new products at the its proving grounds in Chelsea, MI, the struggling automaker wanted to demonstrate the performance capabilities of its SRT branded vehicles. SRT staff set up an autocross course on the vehicle dynamics pad and brought out examples of every SRT vehicle from the Caliber SRT-4 to the mighty Dodge Viper ACR. Before we were allowed to hop in the cars, we had listen to a short briefing that described the course and some safety rules. And before being allowed to climb into the big snake, we had to complete at least a couple of laps in one of the five Challenger SRT-8s to get familiarized with the course. For a big 4,140-lb coupe, the Challenger proved surprisingly nimble. We learned that with the electronic stability control enabled, it's almost impossible to get the back end to swing wide. The stability control...
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Filed under: Aftermarket , Tuners , Coupes , Sports/GTs , Dodge Click above to enlarge this shot and see the dyno graph Whenever a new performance vehicle makes it into the hands of eager customers, a run to the dyno never seems to be far behind. This has again proven to be the case with the new Dodge Challenger, as a company known as Speedfactory has just done the deed on its new steed. What sets this particular vehicle and its dyno numbers apart from other SRT8s, though, is its Vortech supercharger . Considering that the 6.1 liter HEMI V8 under the Challenger's long, scooped hood is the same one available these last few years in other SRT-branded eight-cylinder vehicles, we're not too surprised to see that the system is pretty mature and posts rather good horsepower and torque numbers right out of the gate. Coming in at about 495 horses at the rear tires, Speedfactory surmises that its Challenger is making around six hundred ponies at the crank. If owners of the GT500 weren't...
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