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Dodge Charger 2006+
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The Mustang kept a 2 door theme, remaining loyal to it's roots and fans. The new Ford GT-40 remained loyal to it's roots and reputation, even the Cobra, aside from a V10 is traditional with retro cues. Could a 4 door sell more? Does corporate greed out weight originality? In this case yes. If they stuck to original 99 concept car everyone would be at the Dodge dealer signing the pre order forms. They created an unoriginal car because they raided the parts bin of using the Magnum/300C platform and for the most part body. The Charger has the same nose and front doors of the Magnum, only they cut the roof and replaced it with with glass(fastback) and gave a trunk instead of the hatchback.
Do we have to wait till the rumored Daytona comes out? Rumor is it's a 2 door. Will the rumored Challenger be coming back? I'm for calling this a Dodge Monaco and ending it. To use the name Hemi in that Charger is a sin.
1. As revealed in the previous few posts people get very (overly?) emotional about the Charger name. There is a perception that a true Charger must look like a 1969 Charger and sport a big cube hemi or 440 six pack.
2. The Challenger, to my eyes, was a much better looking car. It had sporty, clean lines on the outside and a purposeful, business-like interior.
3. The vehicle that last used the Charger name left a very bad taste in the buying public's mouth. At least the Mitsubishi-based Challenger was a decent car.
Just a thought, although, the Monaco name fits quite well, too.
Here is a beautiful example of a 1974 Challenger. Chrysler should be proud of the name and apply it to an appropriate vehicle. The Charger name should be reserved for some brutish rocket with a supercharged, +400 cube Hemi - if something like that ever comes to fruition.
As a former owner of a 1970 Challenger (it got stolen and stripped in 1985), I would not want that name sullied by the new "Charger". I've never been able to decide which of the older Chargers or the Challengers I liked the best, however, I don't think either name should be resurrected, at least not with the new car in question. Polara? Perfect! ;-) Monaco? Hmmm, maybe.
Best Regards,
Shipo
Some speculate that because the horrifying orange beast with the ridiculous big grill looks like a jack-o-lantern, or "The Great Pumpkin" from the Charlie Brown Halloween specials, that its launch date will in fact be Halloween.
While this may be a laughing matter for Chrysler's competition, this abortion of automotive engineering will certainly scare many perspective customers away.
Daimler's Dr. Dieter Zetsche should be slapped with a malpractice lawsuit for the Bait & Switch he has perpetrated by replacing the true heir to the Charger...the '99 Charger concept car...with "The Great Pumpkin."
Good Grief Dieter Braun
Thank you Dieter for ruining the dreams of so many Mopar fans. How did this current Charger get your signature of approval? To much beer and weiner schnitzle?
Well then, someone should slap Charles Darwin because the depiction that I saw of the new Charger was a vile and grotesque mutation, not an evolutionary improvement upon the appealing lines and aggressive stance that were the Charger's origin.
Instead of Mr. Creed bringing us "The Origin of Species," he has brought us "The Origin of Feces," because that is what his vision of the new Charger looks like.
For the evolutionary process there has to be at least some of the original DNA present at the end of each change. In the case of the new Charger there is absolutely none.
Instead, the common house fly has more in common with the American Bald Eagle than this new imposter vehicle has with the original Chargers. Furthermore, if this designer had been put in charge of the evolution of the dinosaurs, I would have voted for their extinction.
Daimler's design department may have whiz kids, super computers and 3-D modeling, but I believe that they may have gotten better results using an "Etch-A-Sketch," a monkey and a bottle of Jim Beam." At the least it may have gotten them away from their apparent fixation with the Ford Maverick.
Now in Singapore a person can be caned for spray-painting graffiti on automobiles. Tell me, what is the penalty for using a "Bait & Switch" routine: First, showcasing the exciting '99 Charger concept car, and then secondly, spreading graffiti across the muscle car heritage of the Chrysler Corporation and upon its loyal customers?
In closing, I apologize to Mr. Creed if these comments appear too harsh, but on this day it is too difficult to restrain the tremendous disappointment that this former Daimler-Chrysler customer now feels.
Please don't kill me for this by the way!
Awright lads, pitchforks and scythes at the ready - GET 'IM!
I can speak for me (unusual) and one or two others with a medium sense of history, I think. Yes, the name is a sticking point given the initial visual personality of the car. It doesn't look much like a Charger should, IMO.
But that begs perspective, and I can furnish two small points of said same:
A) Mustang. The car is a study in heritage. It is an appropriately updated gleening of key nostalgic styling cues brought together in a wholly current synthesis. It's an example of what retro can be at it's best, IMO (not unlike the PT). Others may think retro is a step backward; I say that depends on how well you do it, and right now Ford is aces. When many of us heard the name "Charger" being whispered once again, the excellent Mustang execution kind of popped in and the saliva started to flow.
That's the problem I think. Feels like a major bait and switch to me. They dangled fresh Beluga caviar on Melba toast in front of me and delivered Cheez-Whiz on a Ritz. It may be seriously wicked Cheez-Whiz, but it ain't what I was looking for at all.
That's about it for me!
Basically, it's hard to disagree in part with you, hardhawk. A coupe would have been more palatable than this sedan, but for me, the '99 "sedan" would have been better (much) still. It's just so much more "Charger" to me.
The current idiom for Dodge and Chrysler is just a little too chunky and in-your-face to make me want to see it across the line. I'll accept it to a certain extent in the 300 and the Mag, but to apply it liberally seems too Cadillac-wannabe. Kind of trying too hard to be different, which is pretty common out there right now...
Some speculate that because the horrifying orange beast with the ridiculously overbearing grill looks like a jack-o-lantern, or "The Great Pumpkin" from the Charlie Brown Halloween specials, that its launch date will in fact be Halloween.
While this may be a laughing matter for Chrysler's competition, this abortion of automotive engineering will certainly scare many perspective customers away.
Daimler's Dr. Dieter Zetsche should be slapped with a malpractice lawsuit for the Bait & Switch he has perpetrated by replacing the true heir to the Charger...the '99 Charger concept car...with "The Great Pumpkin."
Good Grief Dieter Braun
http://img94.exs.cx/img94/5839/picture03920zl.jpg
Source: Motortrend
They should have gone with the '99 concept. I can live with it being a 4-door, but I can't live with it being ugly.
Thanks for the excellent post, Oedipus. I wish it made me happier.
I once owned a 1970 AMX, which was sold to buy a 1979 Trans-Am, but have no urge to go out and buy either of them now. The times I have driven such old cars reminded me of how primative they are compared to modern designs.
The new Mustang is clearly a success and a good car, but the Charger name is far less well known, and the market for sedans is far larger than for two-door specialty cars.
http://www.ssmoparmuscle.com/cars/66_67charger.htm
This is simply a marketing ploy to sell T-shirts for NASCAR because this is one ugly car, and a 4 door at that. I was hoping that the pics we all were seeing were maybe a "fool ya" attempt by mother Mopar so that when the real thing was released we would all plotz our pants, but as we can all see from the pics floating around the net and on t. v. Chrysler has decided to give us a 4 door Dart called a Charger. Thanks Chrysler for killing the hopes of having a wild, tire burning muscle car. I hope in an effort to save pennies with your parts bin special you may make a profit compared to your competition. As for me I will be waiting for the Mustang Cobra to come out and happily pay what ever Ford is asking, because in this case even the mighty Hemi has been tarnished with this atrocity you call the Charger.
Turboshadow
http://www.popularhotrodding.com/features/0404phr_dodge/
This car will never grow on me, to unoriginal, seems like the "bean counters" got there way with this car.
The concept version of the Charger was stunning. A perfect blend of past with present(like the new Mustang). I would of bought it in a heartbeat, but now, it seems it is an abomination of other DC cars. In fact, I read that Dodge engineers were forced to use parts from the 300C bin in order to save money. So sad, I think DC blew it. I won't say that the new one is ugly, just not near as good as the concept promised.
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You could call this new Charger the "Princess" or the "Queen Mary" and it would still be a quantum leap over the original.
I could have had the original when I was younger and past it over for a Mercury Cougar GTE. It may have been a Ford but at least the interior colors matched.
I have been driving Mopar products since I bought my 93 Dakota and have worked my way up to a Hemi Ram. I know what my next vehicle will be and it will have 4 doors, I love this Charger! Face it, the majority of buyers want a 4 door. The market is not there to support a 2 door in the volume needed to be profitable. No someone will say "What about the Mustang? Its a 2 door" Yes it is! You will be seeing lots of them receding in the rear view mirror of your 4 door Hemi Charger too!
I know that Dodge is pushing the corporate gun-sight grill, but I wish that they could have put a few more Charger cues on the front end of the car. When I see it, I think Magnum rather than Charger.
For those that haven't seen it, the official Charger is on the Dodge website, and is just as ugly as ever.
As for the four door, could this be a ploy to step back into selling fleet vehicles to the law enforcement agencies across the country? Faster then a Vic or Caprice, better handling, what cop wouldn't want to fly up the fast lane with a HEMI? Good for cops, the ugly shape is bad for true Charger fans. Still should have been called a Dodge Monoco, or Polara. See you Thursday Burke Brown.
I liked the 1999 concept Charger with 4 doors because it reminded me of my first Charger (1968). That Charger was light on it's feet- you could order it with a 225 slant six if you wanted, and it would still chirp the bias ply tires. Order it with a Hemi and the tires it needed were not even born yet.
These days I like a four door, but it doesn't have to look like that slab sided turkey that is sold as Charger today.
DC needs to pay attention to us nostalgic middle agers, because we have the cash to buy a new car or buy an 35 old car and restore it.
While I think that they devalued the Charger name already with rebadged Cordobas and Omnis, I don't know why they backed off of the concept car and made it less Charger like. Maybe they're fearing a retro car backlash? GM keeps screwing up the retro formula with the SSR and HHR, but based on the reception of the Mustang, it can still work when done right.
The 300C is ugly as sin, in my opinion, but this is a tough lookign, goes like hell muscle sedan and it doesnt pretend to be classy (which the 300 doesnt really pull off, IMO, it looks really PIMP).
I am not typically a fan of retro-detrout vehicles, but this and the new Mustang are AWESOME.
I cannot wait to see this vehicle in the flesh, I hope the interior is well constructed with quality materials, I would look long and hard at this.
~alpha
It's not only the over 60 crowd that doesn't want to see vaunted nameplates devalued. Even at 36, I've got a few new cars left in me.
If it is an excellent muscle car, will people really NOT buy it simply for the fact that the name is not attached to the exact type of vehicle they remember wearing that badge? Time will tell.
~alpha
My thinking is that the youger males that Chrysler is targeting... dont have strong connotations of the Charger name in conjunction with the old cars.
~alpha
~alpha
Really, who's more likely to hit that $65k to $90k range... males under 30 or 31 to 39? Probably 31 to 39 and we're more likely to hold the Charger name in esteem. I don't mind that it's a 4 door car. Some of the sportiest cars on the road are 4 doors but this car has lost most of it's Charger design cues that were present on the concept car. This is a Magnum sedan.
I'm also not that sure that Chrysler is on a roll. It's takes more than 1 hit (the 300) recycled multiple times (Magnum, Charger, Lord knows what else) to be on a roll. The Pacifica, Crossfire, and PT Convertible have not been flying out of showrooms and they still don't have a competitive product in the all important mid-size class.
This car will steal buyers from mostly the two other domestics (GM and Ford). Also, in a weird way, there is possibly a group of luxury import purchase intenders that will consider this as a purchase choice. This will be men in their late-40's to 50's who've had the luxury rides, don't like the styling of the new Bimmers or Lexus, and realize they have better things to do with their money than pay through the nose for import sedans which don't offer the power and feel of the Hemi.
Thank you
"While I agree that Dodge has resurrected an old nameplate and tacked it on to an LX platform vehicle that may offend MOPAR purists, it simply doesn't matter...this car will sell. Most buyers will recall the Charger name and not the details of the former muscle car"
~alpha
There is no doubt a group of hardocore Mopar/Chrysler Purists (myself included) that are dealing with this "new" Charger and what it means to the loyalists of the Chrysler/Mopar/DC brand. I have owned several Mopar Muscle Cars including a few Chargers, so I think I know where alot of the Mopar Faithful are coming from.
I couldn't agree more that the "Charger" name carries with it a legacy that made Chrysler Corp. famous for it's prescence on the muscle car scene back in the 60's and 70's. Through all the variations of the car, each variant of the Charger namesake has it's fans. You cannot deny that there are those who very much liked the 70's "plush Chargers" as well as those Turbo 2.2 Shelby Charger GLHS that Shelby himself produced. With that in mind, and knowing that those who embrace the original Chargers of '66-'74 are a strong and large number of fans as well, it's not hard to try and imagine that there will be those who will embrace this car and make it their "favorite" Charger.
I remain tossed up about using the Charger name on a four door sedan and that uncertainty comes from some of the styling elements on this new '06 model. While the basic idea of making the car look like a coupe is admirable and in fact the rear flanks appearing attractive, I have reservations about the front end styling, in particular, Dodge's famous signature "truck" grille. I have to say that even though the rake of the front end appears agressive and with even the headlights giving it strong character, I am troubled by Dodge's insistence on using this "truck style" grille as signture on all Dodge products. In the Charger's case, it seems to muddle the message a bit. Perhaps DC should consider modifying this styling element once and for all, and instead give the passenger cars, starting with the future refreshing of the Charger a few years down the road, with a new face for Dodge Cars.
All in all, I give DC credit for being brave in introducing this car as it stands and despite my concerns, I would consider one. I can understand that we are not in the 60's anymore, but it would be nice to have some additional touches to make this Charger something special from the other LX platforms. I think that is what most people are/were/still may be hoping for.
You have to give Ford credit for standing out there and making a very good retro 'stang and you also have to remeber DC, that while this Charger might be a sales hit and a sedan that Dodge Dealers really want to sell, you have to remember that there are some real strong loyalists out there to the MOPAR brand that have been waiting for DC to do at least "one" car for us to relish and recapture the spirit in performance, style and price that made us those hardcore loyalists that we still are today.
Might we see some variant of the LX platform? Despite marketing research and current trends, might we see a LX derived coupe of this Charger? I've seen mock up photos of a 300C coupe, so it can't be out of the realm. I believe if DC thinks carefully about it, goes against the grain of automotive trends and reaches down to the loyalists hopes, might they find it worthy to make even a small run of an honest 2 door RWD Hemi Chryslers/Dodges/DC's? Perhaps a Charger, maybe a new day Challenger or Cuda? Make 15-30,000 copies and see if all Us holdouts weren't right about waiting? You might be surprised DC!
Until then, I think we should all be glad that DC at least has brought back some of that MOPAR essence. Sorry this was long, but I have been brewing on this for a long time now. Despite it all, Count me in DC!
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