"Star Wars" fans, this one's for you. Designer Scott Anderson, of Chrysler's advanced interior studio, counts himself among those who were affected by the movie at a young age, and so when he set out to turn the Dodge Avenger into a SEMA custom, he looked to the movie's bad guys in white as his style inspiration.
The monochromatic pearl white exterior features sill extensions, a low-profile rear spoiler, flush exhaust tips integrated into the lower rear valence, and twenty-by-nine-inch Charger rims painted white. "I tried to clean up the exterior, to make it look longer, lower, and wider," he says. The car is lower by one and a half inches and features Stoptech brakes with six-piston calipers in front and four-piston at the rear.
Up front, BMW-style halo rings set off the blacked-out headlamps. Special PPG glass film provides a blue sheen but a yellow tint. The white-and-black theme continues inside, where everything is upholstered in suede. The four bucket seats, the door panel inserts, and the center stack stand in stark white relief against a mostly-black background.
In place of Chrysler's MyGig hard drive there is an in-dash PC for the front seat riders, and a second one in the rear console. The PC connects to an engine controller kit in the glove box, allowing the driver to tune the engine from the driver's seat. The PC is also connected to the web, and Anderson envisions a future where a tuner could call up the Mopar web site from his car and order parts and accessories.
Mechanically, the car is Anderson's response to a personal challenge from Chrysler's Ralph Gillies, who asked him, "What would it take to get you to buy an Avenger?" More power was part of the answer, so in the engine bay of this Avenger is a 4.0-liter V-6 from a Dodge Nitro that produces 260 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque. It drives all four wheels via a six-speed Autostick transmission, which has been modified with paddle shifts. A Borla exhaust provides a sound unlike any other Avenger and the lower, firmer suspension and beefy brakes wake up the responses. "This is basically the car I've wanted Dodge to build for the last ten years," says Anderson. His hope is that Chrysler's SRT division will pick up the ball from here and do some type of production version.