Daimler's abuse of the Dodge Charger legacy.

coronet · October 2005

The new Dodge Meadowbrook, aka "Charger" is most definitely high tech, but style wise it sucks! Everything out of Dodge looks like a truck from the front. And yeah, there is no such thing as a 4 door Charger, and to true Dodge fanatics there never will be! You can stick any kind of label on any thing, means absolutely nothing! The best thing anyone can do with the new Meadowbrook is to scrap ALL of the sheet metal and slap a REAL Charger body on it!
By the way I own several Dodges from a 1960 D-500, a ' 65 Coronet 500 426, a ' 68 Charger RT, a 71 Cuda Pak ( original) and a 78 Magnum. All, except the ' 78 will EASILY smoke the new Charger, 0 to 60 or in the quarter. No, they won't equal the gas mileage, but who cares? They are my toys, not my daily transportation appliance! Which is all the new so-called Charger is, an ugly appliance! It's a shame, cause Daimler could have done it right, but they chose to pander to the morons that wear their pants down around their Knees and their caps on sidewise!

andre1969 · October 2005

is that 1960 D-500 one of the lighter Dart cars or is it a Polara/Matador? What engine do you have in that Magnum? I have a '79 New Yorker (basically a re-skinned B-body, although they called it the R) with a 360. It's hardly a screamer, but for what it is it ain't too bad.

john_324 · October 2005

I certainly understand the dissapointment that the enthusiasts are experiencing with the new Charger, but try to see things from Chrysler's perspective. A Charger like the one you're describing simply will not sell enough to make it profitable.

Consider the GM F-bodies (Camaro, Firebird)...these things were fire-breathing pony/muscle cars of the highest order. They were also a bargain (maybe not insurance-wise, but...

) and were relatively cheap to make. Even with all of this going for them, GM axed them. Why? Not enough people were willing to buy them.

Chrysler has to do the best it can in a very competitive marketplace. The Charger is a pretty good atttempt at balancing enthusiast concerns with the stuff that sells cars to the masses...

And don't forget, we do get the SRT-8 version soon...it'll take any of the classic Chargers in the quarter mile, and actually can brake and turn too. Surely that's worth a least a little understanding for Chrysler...

andre1969 · October 2005

that a 4-door Charger is an insult, well it could be a LOT worse!

herc · October 2005

I see coronet just doesn't get it. I had a number of Mopar muscle cars including a Road Runner, Cuda, and a Challenger. None of them would "smoke" a new Charger and I seriously doubt yours would either if they're stock. I know this because actually own a new Charger and old muscle. The new Charger will also actually go around curves as opposed to just a straight line. It will actually stop like a true sports sedan too! I also get as many or more thumbs up and compliments on my new Charger as I did with the old muscle. The folks who like the car range from young kids all the way to the old timers and all in between. The new Charger IS a muscle car and more.........and it does all of this on 87 octane pump gas. I'd suggest the whining be stopped and actually drive one. When you turn the wheel the car responds as opposed to having to wait until that slack from worn out recirculating ball steering in the old muscle catches up.

Look, old muscle has it's place, but let me tell ya' sir, I just spent a day at the Mopar drags in Milan, MI and I saw Neon SRT4s running 12.5 seconds in the quarter. On the best day a bone stock 426 hemi MIGHT get close to these numbers. Most ran high 12s/low 13s and required 100 octane to do it. The "new" muscle at the strip was just as potent as the big blocks of yore, but the folks then drove the new ones home from the track getting 25 MPG while the "real" muscle cars were put on a trailer. The styling of a car doesn't appeal to everyone. That's the way it works. Chrysler has stated for the last several years that it is their goal to have polarizing style. Without it we'd all be driving Accords. For the record, my 2006 Daytona Charger beats my 1969 Road Runner in every aspect. Yes, even 0-60 and in the quarter mile. I love the way my Charger looks and so do a lot of other folks. They did a great job on this car as virtually every car mag I've read has indicated. Also keep in mind that the new Charger gives people a car not that much short of much more expensive cars from the likes of BMW and others. Lastly, I do not wear a hat sideways, I do not wear my pants down around my knees, and I wouldn't part with my Charger for any car on the planet right now. It's really that good. Especially when considering price. So stop complaining about what is truly a great car and wait for the 2009 Challenger if all your worried about is how many doors the darned thing has.

coronet · October 2005

Hi: I bought my ' 60 Dart Phoenix convertible D-500 new when i was 19 years old. Yep i am an old fart that basically and admittedly hates most of the new offerings! Mainly because of the style, not the tech! Hard to tell a Caddy from a Crysler if you can't read the label! Now that I got that out of the way: My ' 60 came with the state police suspension and brakes and the 383 dual quad with a 3 speed Borg Warner T- 85 trans. The trans was a mistake! Ran it Super Stock Optional back in the day! switched to a ' 62 413 and aluminum 727 back in the ' 60's. Now it has a 440, still ram inducted, and is wicked fast, and with poly bushings, sway bar, etc. actually handles pretty damn good! Stock from the factory, on skinny bias plys, with a 3:23 gear it ran 15:30 at 92 mph using about half the quarter, first run ever. Best the 383 did, still with street tires, 9:00/ 14 Atlas Bucrons, but still stock 383 was 13:10 in the qtr. Not too bad, you new Charger fans, eh? This was driving to and from the strip too! My ' 65 i also special ordered new, again with the state police suspension, big brakes, 426 wedge and hd 727. I have tweaked it a little with a comp cam, better carb and manifold, and am running Nitto tires. It handles pretty good too. I drove it to the strip, unbuckled my grand kids, and with a full tank of gas, tools and spare tire and full ice chest in the trunk ran 12:10, 118 ,mph thru the mufflers. Ran a 12:50 in "Drive"! Not too shabby for "old junk" eh? With good tires and a little traction, I have no doubt it will run deep in the 11's, and still be totally streetable! And for all you nay sayers, the only reason old Hemis did not do better was and still is a matter of traction! They did not come with a computer controlled trans that gave optimum grip or todays tires! I know plenty of guys that own basically stock hemis that with modern rubber and very little else WILL smoke your new "Hemi" Charger! Big time! You win on the gas mileage though!
My ' 78 Magnum is a GT with a two barrel 360 only. Has a pretty tall gear and is not a dragster, but looks good and will get 22mpg highway, even with the sad engine. One of these days............
Just to be clear. I have no doubt that new tech can get the job done. I also have no doubt that in my opinion and the opinions of most of the people i cruise with, that Chrysler blew it. Other makers have no problem selling two door cars, including Japanese and German marques! Also, the 4 door Charger that Chrysler was showing a few years ago at least looked like what a Charger should look like despite 4 doors! Hey, face it. Most car guys consider Neons, Magnums, Chargers, and so'called Chrysler 300's as high tech, but Coyote ugly! I can afford to buy whatever i want. It won't be a "Charger" in the current style!

coronet · October 2005

I said most of what I had to say in my other post, but I would like to specifically address a couple of points you made. First and foremost, I live in North West Indiana, close to the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan. If your ever in the area, and you see a white ' 60 Dart convt. or a dark metallic turquoise Coronet 500 cruising by, say hello, but don't try me out with your new ride unless you want to be disappointed, LOL! I can also be found most Friday nites when the weather is good at the local cruise in at the Target store just off SR 49 and SR 2 in Valparaiso, Indiana. There are usually upwards of 200 + really cool cars, all makes present. A really great free car show!
Now then! You say I "don't get it"! Lets take a look at what I don't get. What does the new Charger have in common with the real Chargers? Not much. First, it has more in common, heritage wise, with ANY 4 door sedan from the early ' 50's on up. An old early Dodge 4 door sedan from the early ' 50's could be ordered with a real Hemi! Minus 50 + years of technology, a lot closer to the new Charger in concept! Hell, the only thing the new Charger has in common with the classics is the label. Same for the so-called new Hemi. Might be a great motor, but it is NOT a "Hemi"! Spark plugs in the middle of valve covers that shout "Hemi", do not a "Hemi" make! Hemispherical combustion chambers are what make a "Hemi" a "Hemi"! Something the new "Hemi" does NOT have!
What really ticks me off though is that for years loyal Dodge fans have BEGGED Dodge for a RWD performance car to compete with cars like the Mustang. We even begged that the Charger concept car of a few years ago would be built, 4 doors or no! Instead, Dieter and the rest of the powers that be at Daimler-Chrysler basically spit in our eye and told us, for all intents and purposes, "to hell with what YOU want, you'll buy what we decide you'll buy!" Guess what. I don't think so! Sadly, some former Dodge owners have jumped to Ford, buying Mustangs since Dodge won't give them what they want.
Seems Ford has no problem selling Mustangs. Around here, new "Chargers" are not exactly flying out the dealers doors! I have actually only seen one on the road so far. As a local Dodge Dealerships owner said: "It's a shame. It's really a great car. Too bad Dodge didn't listen to their loyal customer base"!

andre1969 · October 2005

actually a "pent-roof" design? One thing that think is kinda cool about the new Hemi is that Chrysler chose to make it a 345 cubic inch, which was the displacement of the '57 DeSoto Adventurer's Hemi. The '57 Adventurer was also the first mass produced passenger car to offer 1 hp per cubic inch as standard equipment. Chevy offered 1 hp per cubic in on the 283 in '57, but only as an option, and Chrysler actually broke that barrier, with a 355 hp 354 Hemi in '56, but again it was an optional engine. For some reason though, Chevy advertising was all over their 1 hp per cubic inch, while DeSoto advertising seemed to side-step it, like they were ashamed of it or something!

Oh, one thing the new Charger DOES have in common with the old ones...I think it has the same 4.5" on 5 wheel bolt pattern! :P (at least, the LH cars did and the minivans do, so I'd imagine that the LX cars do, too..)

andre1969 · October 2005

Coronet, do you have any electronic pics of any of your cars? They sound really cool. I've always loved the 1960 Dodges, and even the '78-79 Magnums were way cool in my book!

coronet · October 2005

Actually I am amazed i do as much on the internet as I do, being the old dinosaur that I am. Photography has never been my strong suit. Maybe I can get my son to post some pics. Right now he has digital pics of the new motor I built for the ' 60. He made up some posters of it. That's the 440 I mentioned, when it was still on the engine stand. He could also take some pics of the ' 65 and probably send em out. My other son Tim is a painter by profession and as we speak is getting ready to re shoot the " 60. Years ago, I removed all of the badging, leaded in the seams, and shot it with the whitest white I could. My son finally convinced me to put it back to stock, ergo, it will be shot the original Satin White, and all of the badges, even the ugly hood badge will go back on. He promised me I would get it back in two weeks! If you don't mind, send me your email address and I will send you some pics as soon as I can get my other son to do it!

xtec · October 2005

I read a lot of critics about the looks of the Charger.I will admit that when I first saw the Charger I had the same reaction.What is Chrysler thinking.Given time it grew on me like the 300 did.Now that I own one They couldnt have done a better job.This car is awesome.Best riding and handling car I owned.Iv'e had mopars my whole life as well as a mechanic that worked on tons of police cars.I wish we had cars like that back then.For the people who dont like the looks ,dont look at them and let the ones who own them enjoy them like I am.

andre1969 · October 2005

sorry I didn't get back to ya sooner, but my email address is in my profile. BTW, if anybody's interested, here's a few pics of one of my old relics. And yeah, it's got a Hemi! :P

andre1969 · October 2005

congratulations on your purchase. I think the Charger, even in base and SXT form, gives you a lot of car for the money. At one point I had my heart set on a Hemi, but with the way fuel prices have gotten I've reconsidered. Plus I figure I'll drive my old Intrepid until it dies, and try to save up some more money. I'd definitely consider a Charger when that time comes. And the Intrepid's up to around 112,000 fairly troublefree miles, so it's beyond the potential of ever pissing me off enough to swear off Chrysler products...I figure anything that breaks from here on out I can attribute to the car getting up in age and miles! :shades:

xtec · October 2005

Thanks for your comment.The car I traded in was a 2002 Intrepid SXT.With only 10000 on it.I had a lot of talking to convince my wife I needed the Charger.I loved and enjoyed my Trep ,but glad I have the Charger.I saw your pixs and It looks great, i love old Mopars.The dart looked good also.Take care and thanks again.

andre1969 · October 2005

that's kind of ironic...every once in awhile I'll see an Intrepid SXT pop up at a local used car lot, and I'll think about trading in my '00 for it! It seems like every single one ends up being that Inferno Red. I guess it would be kinda silly though, to trade in a car that's still running fine for a newer, but still used, version of the same thing. Plus, I'm probably at the point of no return with regards to value. At 112,000 miles I probably should just run it into the ground.

Glad you liked the pics! That Dart has around 338,000 miles on it and is a little roughed up. Common sense is telling me to get rid of it, but when it comes to me and old cars, common sense usually doesn't win out...

explorerx4 · October 2005

you are going to buy a charger, don't buy a white one. trust me on this.

xtec · October 2005

My SXT happens to be stone white.My wife wanted a black one till she saw it.I
had a stone white 02 Intrepid SXT that got a lot of looks because it was white.IN Arizona white's the car to have.I must say MY Charger looks better than any other color I've seen.But then again thats my opinion,just like yours.

xtec · October 2005

You said that you keep looking at the Trep SXTs.If you drive one ,you will see a big differance than your trep you have now.I had one of the mechanics at the dealer brought back my car and said he drove a lot of treps ,but that felt like no trep.
I think you'll like it.What ever you decide good luck.

andre1969 · October 2005

with white? My supervisor has a 300 Touring in that white they call "Cool Vanilla", and I think it's attractive. I'm actually a sucker for green, so if I were to get a Charger or 300, it would probably be in that Magnesium color.

The only thing I really don't like about white is that I'm a bit tired of it, I guess. I've had my white Dart now for over 13 years. And every single car my stepdad has owned has been white. Still, I could see how white would have its advantages out in the desert! I've also pretty much sworn off grays and silvers, because I've had too many of them now. In addition to my silver Intrepid I've had a silver '89 Gran Fury copcar, a gray '85 LeSabre that my grandma gave me, and a two-tone gray over silver '86 Monte that my Mom gave me.

Xtec, a few years ago I found a 2002 Intrepid R/T at the dealer where I bought my Intrepid, and I fell in love. Once I drove it though, I hate to say it, but I wasn't THAT impressed with it. It was definitely quicker than my Trep, and better optioned out, but the more thought about it, the more I started having second thoughts. One thing I didn't like about it was that on acceleration, it almost felt like the tranny was keeping the engine from realizing its full potential. On the 2.7 it does that to a small extent, trying to upshift too quickly, but on this R/T, it also felt really slow to shift between gears. Now it did have around 35,000 miles on it, so it might have just been driven hard, but then I drove a 2005 Magnum SXT, and the tranny did the same thing. I think they've phased that 4-speed tranny out in all of the LX cars except for the 2.7 Magnum/300, so most of them these days should have the 5-speed tranny.

Another thing that made me a bit jittery was getting into that much debt again. The price on this R/T was $15,995. They had come down from around $17,995, so I guess it had been on their lot for awhile. This was in September, 2003. At first they offered me $3500 for my Trep, which had around 86,000 miles on it at the time. However, they upped that offer to what I owed on the car, which at the time was something like $4722. So that would've put me back into debt again. Another thing that bothered me is that they couldn't give me a straight answer as to the warranty on the car. Chrysler played around with their warranties some in 2002, so some models have the 3/36K bumper-to-bumper, but some have the powertrain part of that bumped out to 7/70K. If this thing had the good warranty, I would've been more tempted. Another thing that made me reconsider was that they didn't have any maintenance records for the car (supposedly the previous owner was a mechanic's wife...yeah, aren't they all? :P ) Plus, I remembered that around that mileage was when my '00 started needing a few things, like new tires (I actually wore mine out at 30K) new front brake pads (39K), the door seals started shrinking up after less than two years, and the thermostat housing started leaking a bit and was replaced around 51K, same as the rear pads. Now maybe the 3.5 had a different thermostat housing, so that might not have been an issue.

Still, thinking about it all was enough to make me just keep the car I had! And that turned out to be for the best, because now it's paid off, and November will mark my 12th month without a car payment!

john_324 · October 2005

Yeah, what's wrong with white? I've seen a couple, and I think it's a good color for the new Charger.

Kinda reminds me of a modern version of Kowalsky's Challenger from Vanishing Point...

explorerx4 · October 2005

there was one behind me in traffic yesterday. the front just looked wimpy in my rear view mirrior. a 300 has a totally different look. maybe it's because it wasn't a true white. i have a white car also.

xtec · November 2005

The white you are talking about is called cool vanilla.This is not white.My car is stone white which is a true white.The cool vanilla wasn't my first choice that's why I waited for the true white .My new Charger book doesn't show the vanilla ,so maybe that color is gone.

explorerx4 · November 2005

i guess i would like your car a whole lot better!

gotav8 · November 2005

The new Charger is NOT a muscle car. It's a heavy 4100+ lb family 4 door sedan with a wimpy automatic tranny only. Muscle car by definition is a midsized COUPE (2 door) with a Big motor (V8)stuffed in with a lot of power that offers a manual shift or automatic.

The only car today that qualifies as a muscle car is the NEW GTO. Mid-sized coupe, 6 liter (364cid) V8 with 400hp stuffed in. Manual or auto tranny, no wimpy base V6 models.

The V8 Mustang today is a PONY CAR, not a muscle car. although you could apply the muscle car moniker much easier to it then Charger.

The HEMI name is a joke. The so called HEMI today is NOT a real Hemi. It's marketing hype.

xkss · November 2005

The Mustang will have an all-new DOHC 3.5 liter V-6 engine with at least 250 hp by 2007-08. It will have more performance than a 2004 Mustang GT.

Muscle car or not, the new Charger is a heck of a lot better than the fwd Intrepid that is replaced.

The new GTO doesn't have a 6.0 liter V-8 "stuffed in." The 2005 GTO has more powerful brakes than the 2004 model. GM has revived rwd plans so a new GTO and/or Firebird will debut by 2009/2010.

andre1969 · November 2005

on how you define the term "musclecar", on whether the Charger is or not. Essentially a musclecar is a high-performance version of a family car, with a bigger, higher-performance engine, quicker gearing, etc. Back in the day, when they made 2-door and convertible family cars, that's what they based the musclecars on, as 4-door cars simply weren't considered sporty back then. Unless they were special-ordered, usually the only high-performance 4-door cars were police cars.

However, in the 70's, things started to change. As the hardtop and convertible started to fade away, and opera-windowed personal luxury coupes became all the rage, not to mention skyrocketing insurance rates and plummeting hp figures, the musclecar as we knew it was on its way out. In 1973, Pontiac supplanted the GTO with the Grand Am, which was available in 2- and 4-door guise. I'd consider the Grand Am, even the 4-door version, to be a musclecar. Chevy had the Laguna S-3, which was available in 2-door, 4-door, and even a station wagon! It could be had with a pretty potent (for the time) 454-4bbl, which would put it at 0-60 in around 8 seconds, with an automatic transmission. Not bad at all considering the timeframe.

Nowadays, they just don't make 2-door family cars, so the musclecar has to be based on whatever's out there. The '94-96 Impala SS was a musclecar, and so was the recent Marauder. Okay, so the Marauder was a lame musclecar, but a musclecar nonetheless! :P

Now if you want to take the purist 1964 GM marketing definition, no, the Charger isn't a musclecar. But over time, definitions change and evolve to reflect the times. Sometimes they get watered down in the process, but that's just life. And technically, the Charger in general never was a musclecar. It started off as an attempt at a personal luxury coupe, which back in the 60's was considered sporty, as opposed to the full-blown pimpiness that evoked in the 70's. Now there were musclecar variants of the Charger, such as the R/T. But essentially it was a high-style, upscale version of the Coronet, like what a Monte Carlo was to a Chevelle. There were Chargers with 225 slant six engines, 318-2bbls, all the way up to 440 6-packs and Hemis.

xtec · November 2005

I couldn't agree with you more.You know your cars more then gotav8 will ever know.You forgot to mention that the new Hemi's are real Hemi's.Its shows v8 doesn't know much.

andre1969 · November 2005

how's this for a musclecar? Hey, it IS a GTO! :P

xtec · November 2005

GOOD POINT!!!!

john_324 · November 2005

Earlier, there was some discussion about how the new Charger would look as a police car. Has anyone seen the movie "The Island"? A sci-fi action film that came and went, but it's actually pretty decent for what it is.

It's about a man who lives in a utopian futuristic city that he believes is the last outpost of humanity after a world-wide plague. Turns out there is no plauge, and he's really a clone created as a living organ donor for rich people. Anyway, he escapes to the "real world" and tries to expose the conspiracy.

As he navigates the real world, the cops have new Charger police cars, and they look fantastic! Done in the traditional black and white, they look as cool as did the Taurus cop cars did in the original Robocop (remember how different and futuristic they looked back then in that movie?).

andre1969 · November 2005

but here are some highlights of the Michigan State Police's 2006 car test: http://www.policedriving.com/2006carpreview.htm

Looks like the Charger did VERY well! Also, looks like if you go here: http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,1607,7-123-1645_4607_4612-16274--,00.html you can download some prelminary test results.

lemmer · November 2005

I like this quote -

Despite being the fastest, the Dodges gained some of the top scores on braking. Both the Magnum and the Charger had the shortest stopping distance at 60 mph and the highest deceleration rate.

Who the heck would expect someone to put decent brakes on a car that goes 150mph? That is just crazy. Four wheel drum brakes would have been adequate, right?

john_324 · November 2005

Who the heck would expect someone to put decent brakes on a car that goes 150mph?

Well, if you ask some of the Charger purists, they'd say this is just one more indication that this isn't a "real" Dodge Charger... :P

lemmer · November 2005

I saw a "real" Charger over the weekend when I was jogging out in the country - a late 60s model. The other car in the garage, their daily driver I would guess, was a late model Accord.

Next door they had a 60s Impala with a new Corolla as their driver. A few houses down, a nice classic Chevy truck with a '90s Civic as their driver. This seems like a sign of the times.

andre1969 · November 2005

about having the best brakes was worded a bit awkwardly. I think I had to read it a couple times to figure out what they were saying. Usually when a sentence starts off with "despite being the fastest (or whatever) usually they follow it up with a negative!

I doubt that many people drive real old cars on a daily basis anymore, as many of them are all fixed up and the owners are trying to preserve them now. Heck, as much as I love old cars and get all nostalgic from time to time, my '00 Intrepid still logs most of the miles. I drove a '69 Dart from 1990-1992 and a '68 from 1992-1997, and it wasn't an experience that left me emotionally scarred or anything. I wouldn't want to do it today though, partly because of the fuel prices (the '68 was a 318 that got around 13/17), and partly because of the proliferation of big SUVs these days. A Dart could handle itself well in an accident with the typical traffic of the 90's, but these days even something like a Cobalt weighs about as much as my Dart!

lemmer · November 2005

Yeah, but you were faithful to your car company. All of these Alabama country boys I am talking about bought little Japanese cars.

andre1969 · November 2005

back around 1990 when I first got my DeSoto, I started running into this local guy at car shows who was a real Mopar or Nocar nut. If it wasn't Mopar he hated it, and if it was Japanese he absolultely reviled it. He actually got pissed at me and quit talking to me when I bought my '67 Catalina!

Well, I hadn't seen him for years, but last year I ran into him at a local show in Rockville, MD. I didn't even recgnize him, but then I hear this "you still got that DeSoto?" and it registered. Well, we got to talking about cars, and I asked him if he still had any old cars. He said no, that he was tired of them breaking down and leaking all over the driveway and leaving him stranded, so his family had nothing but Toyotas now!

Now if that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is! :shades:

magnumengine · November 2005

:mad: just do us all a favor and pull them out. just because it has a hemi doesn't make it a muscle car look at the dodge ram pickup with a hemi call that a charger while your at it. oh and by the way 440 magnum beats a 426 hemi m/f. :P

xtec · December 2005

For all you people bad mouthing the new Charger,if you don't like it don't buy it.Look the other way when you see one.All I know I don't care what they call it if I like it I buy it and thats what I did.I think My charger is awesome car with geat looks and when I drive it people look at it.When I see it in the parking lot it looks like a car with muscles.Who cares if its called a muscle car or not I think its as good as the 68 Road runner I had in my younger days and I enjoy driving my Charger as much as I did my old muscle car.I think is a good thing that it has geat brakes to stop I wish I had them on my Road Runner which caused me trouble some times when I had the speedometer buried.

andre1969 · December 2005

down to southern MD today for a funeral, and at one point I saw a black Charger coming up on me. That thing looked downright sinister. George Barris couldn't have made it look any meaner! And as it passed, I saw it was just a stripper model! It didn't even have alloys! But damn that was a good looking car!

I had my grandma in the car with me, and she even commented on it. Love it or hate it, the car definitely has presence.

Another thing that I thought was cool is that the guy driving it looked to be about 3 days older than Moses. Kinda makes me think about the old advertising saying, about how you can sell an old man a young man's car, but you can't sell a young man an old man's car. It's good to see a large-ish (I have a problem calling something that's really not much longer than my '68 Dart a "large" car :P ) that can appeal to both old and young alike.

Seeing how good the Charger looks, even the total strippo edition, only makes me want one all the more. The only problem I have now is that I really had my heart set on Magnesium. Now I'm kinda torn between that and black!

acura_el2000 · December 2005

Oh man, the charger is not what I call a car to be desired. The only good thing from this package is the engine, and the rear wheel drive. I dosent even come with a manual version. Such a dissapointment. I like how they try to call that a coke bottle upkick, when it just looks like a machine had the wrong programming when it was stamping out the sheetmetal. ahah. and whats with the back looking like an intrepid/stratus, I just want to spit on this car. Oh yeah, and it be a great feeling driving the same car that cops use. probly about as nice as having a last model impala, very exciting.

andre1969 · December 2005

the "Coke bottle" upkick looks a bit more awkward on the Charger is because proportionally, the car has a large passenger cabin and a relatively short hood and trunk. The Coke bottle look worked beautifully on cars like the '68-70 Mopar intermediates, the big '65-68 GM cars, and the '66-67 GM intermediates. But those were all cars that were longer than the Charger, especially on the rear deck, and had shorter rooflines.

And yeah, the first thing I noticed about the Charger is that the rear-end does share a resemblance to the Intrepid. But since I have an Intrepid now, I don't view that as a bad thing. And I always thought the '98-04 Intrepid had a very faint resemblance to the '68-70 Charger rear end. With the fast rear window rake and just a hint of flying buttress, and the taillight treatment that goes full-width and tapers toward the center.

I drove a copcar once...a used '89 Gran Fury police interceptor. It was a good car in just about every aspect, except that it got horrible fuel economy (around 11-13 around town, but could break 20 on the highway), tended to eat starters (lightweight little things that by that time were actually made by an outside supplier that also supplied Honda) and tended to have carb problems (which were GM Rochester QuadraFloods by that time). It wasn't too exciting to look at...had an unpretentious, utilitarian look about it, but it had decent acceleration and awesome handling.

The new Charger is also, IMO, a very comfortable car. The driving position fits me very well.

xtec · December 2005

First of all acura that tells me right there you drive a piece of garbage rice machine and you have the gull to talk about Chargers being ugly.Give me a break.Just today I went to the drive thru at my bank,and the girls said is that a Charger and I said yes.She then said I love those.I
never heard that before and it does get a lot of looks more than a Acura.

lemmer · December 2005

"garbage rice machine"

Thanks for your unbiased views. It plays right into the negative stereotypes of the muscle car owner, ensuring that a portion of the car buying populace will never buy such a car for fear of being associated with such people.

Why do people think being insulting and ignorant adds to their argument?

I doubt people generally buy Acuras to get in hopes of having their choice validated by people at drive-thrus. I also doubt owners of Acura EL's are cross-shopping Chargers anyway.

As Rodney King says "Can't we all just get along?" (and have a friendly discussion about cars). I believe Rodney drove a Hyundai in the past.

PF_Flyer · December 2005

Let's not fall into the trap of making things personal here.

Stick to the cars please. Thanks!

andre1969 · December 2005

isn't an Acura EL a Canadian Civic? That's almost the polar opposite of a Charger! We might as well save our breath here, because this type of argument would be about as productive as explaining the merits of a Mercedes to my buddy who proudly owns two Mark V Diamond Jubilees! Just as a Benz and a pimp-barge are going to appeal to two totally different types of people, so would a Civic and a Charger.

Lemmer, I believe a Hyundai Excel was what started the whole Rodney King thing in the first place! Supposedly he was doing around 115 mph in it when the police chased him down.

lemmer · December 2005

That was my thoughts on the subject - What intelligent discourse can come between a Charger owner and an EL owner.

The mark of a true car guy - we have a supposedly defining moment in our nation's history, and me and Andre are trying to figure out what kind of cars are in the background.

andre1969 · December 2005

as I recall, Hyundai even tried to capitalize on that event, by showing a Hyundai outrunning the cops in a tv commercial! It was yanked pretty quickly though, as it was considered in poor taste.

john_324 · December 2005

"isn't an Acura EL a Canadian Civic?"

Is this an insult against Acuras, or Canada??

xtec · December 2005

First of all you people come on this forum trash talk the Charger ,but I'm not suppose to defend I car I own and think its one of the best cars out there.Why do you people even care about the Charger if you don't like them? Stay on your own forums and talk about your own cars or are they to boring to talk about. :P

Daimler's abuse of the Dodge Charger legacy.

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