This is a big old cartoon car that has brought unbounded joy to the world. Seeing it drive by makes people's legs collapse out from under them. A security guard ran out of a grocery store to babble over it. People in the parking lot at Jay's sporting goods in Clare, Michigan, did the cellphone camera salute. Every place I parked it, I came back to find someone looking in the window, taking a picture, stopped in their tracks staring. I think that means something. Yes it is heavy (opening the door five times on each side could be part of a daily exercise program). Yes. the interior is a throwback to the Seventies, when you could count on your slab o' dash to eventually crack in half at 100,000+ miles.
When you're driving, you sit low and feel like the outside world can see only your baseball hat. And it doesn't matter because you are CRUISIN in this beast. It is loud, thrilling, fast, and flashy in orange. Stomping on the gas is thrilling again and again. It roars and it flies and it is a joy to blast around in.
The Challenger SRT8 may be an anachronism in these fuel-crazed times (wow, those fill ups!), it may be too retro, it may be too cheap inside, but, Sam! The Challenger is hardly a let down. And how can you possibly compare the experience to a base, V-6 powered Charger?? Camaro is a lifetime away. We'll drive that car when it gets here.
Jean Jennings, President & Editor-in-Chief