Just out of my curiosity, if the Challenger is such a good looking and fun to drive drive car, how come there are still plenty of them unsold? Its not like Dodge build 100,000 of them or something, they built only 6,400 models for 2008. It may be a good looking and fun to drive car, but I guess customers want more than just that.

There is a silver one at my local Dodge dealer, it's been sitting there for at least 4 weeks (maybe more, I'm not sure, at was in Europe for a month before that).

 

If i could answer that I'd hire myself out to dealers as a consultant

They were all supposedly spoken for..but who knows

 

GT = RT
Bullitt = SRT8
GT500 = SRT8 Supercharged
Super snake = ?

 

OMG a bunch of Mustang owners thinking their cars are better than some other cars. What is wrong with this world?

 

Everybody is just taking things to personally. I happen to be an avid mustang fan (like many here) so I thought I'd post what type of numbers a competing car in the same price range puts up, that's all. It's just nice to know that the current mustang is cheaper and faster than it's dodge counterpart.

If you like the challenger then you like the challenger plain and simple. No big deal...

 

The Challenger does, perhaps out of necessity, seem to be going the slighter more refined Grand Touring route than the more bare bones Mustang. In character, it seems a bit more like the late GTO, albeit with more exciting styling.

It's main problem is, obviously, its excess size and weight, and that was probably unavoidable given that it is built on the full size LX platform. The other realistic option was that it not be built at all, I'll take the former. It does have an excellent suspension that seems to trade off some smooth test track bragging number for a better real world, real roads level of compliance which, given its more "GT" character, seems appropriate.

Straight line performance is a simple mass vs energy equation, no surprises here really. The Hemis are great, powerful motors, but there's just a lot of pig iron to push down the road. They ain't slow, certainly, and arguably more than adequate, but they ain't the Nth degree fastest cars either.

That all said, I think they look fantastic, the best of the three pony cars IMO though we haven't seen the Mustang's '10 primp job yet, so my jury's still out.

I really think it needs to be considered as a slightly different car than the Stang, and I think it comes off generally well in that consideration. The Camaro, as mentioned by others, might be the more direct competition to the Stang in terms of size, weight, mission, price and performance.

I can't wait for the inevitable heads-to-heads comparison tests, both in terms of hard track numbers and, even more importantly (to me at least) real world, real roads, daily driving impressions too.

 

Doug, you seem quite frustrated with everyones opinions. We all knew it would be heavy, too me and prob everyone else they wanted a car that would be fast as well as look cool.

I think people really thought dodge was going to try to match what the mustang is. It suprised me for sure, its not that dodge didn't know what kind of times that the mustang ran, I figured they would do what they could to try not to be embarrsed by 1999 260hp mustangs and atleast match the current GT with their R/T.

But even though the dodge challenger was classified as a "pony" car, they aren't really shooting for the same thing as Ford. I think thats where a lot of confusion, that we(TMS) are trying to compare the mustang and chally apples to apples when the Challenger is not supposed to be that.

Correct me if I'm wrong doug, but it seems you are saying that the challenger is what it is a **** good looking grand tourer. Refined, comfortable and has more then adequete speed with 375hp base to really enjoy the ride. And in that sense Dodge has done a great job.

 

I'll answer it for you.

The Dodge Boys REALLY DROPPED THE BALL.
No manual transmission!
No locking rear end!

Many "spoken for" Challengers are going uncollected because their buyers are opting to wait for the manual transmission & locking rear end!

The saddest thing about this is they already had all of these parts the 6-speed manual transmission & locking rear end in their pipeline for the Viper...

 

That was only that first batch, this one has the 6-speed manual and i presume the locking rear as well.

 

For 2008, all Challengers are stuck with an automatic transmission only and a "Brake-Lock Differential". The axle ratio in all of the automatics is 3.06:1

"The '08 car doesn't have a true limited-slip; it has what they call brake-lock differential. It's a halfassed electronic version of a limited-slip. It works by slowing one wheel down to match the other wheel. But it doesn't really instantaneously put all of the power to the ground.


For 2009, the Challenger will have the option of a six-speed manual gearbox and a limited-slip differential.

 

Again, if you read the article, the cars are 2009's and the R/T is running a 6-speed manual. refer to the link in post 1.

 

What are you talking about?

Red Star Asked

burningman replied


I responded with

 

I bet the dealers are marking them up

and i bet the 6 speed will sell better than the auto

 

They are. There is an SRT-8 out here for 52K in the dealership. I would buy one of those if I could. I don't care if it is slower, it looks a whole lot better than the new mustangs do.

 

I only responded to your part where they dropped the ball not having 6-speed and was saying that the test this post refered to was 6-speed.

and you continued saying it wasn't yet it was. not sure whats confusing you.

 

In my opinion, DC (now just C), made a mistake building a pony car on a fullsize platform. They should have built a modern '68-70 Charger on the LX platform, which would have made more sense and kept the car from being compared to the Mustang, and would have put it in a class by itself. I can accept a 4000 lb modern interpretation of a '68 Charger, since the originals were around 3800 lbs anyway. Plus the '68-70 Charger was one of the best looking cars out of Detroit, ever. But they wasted the Charger name on the Dodge version of the 300 sedan.

 

Confusing me?
You are the one who is confused.

I never refered to "this test" you seem unable to get past. My comments have NOTHING what-so-ever to do with it!

My comments were in direct response to questions about reserved yet unclaimed 2008 AUTOMATIC transmission ONLY Challengers, not some published tests about 2009 manual transmission Challengers...

You took one little snip of an entire conversation and attempted to distort it out of context.

That you are still attempting to defend that after I clarified it for you in post #32 is silly at best.