Love the front end of the car, but who was in charge of the design of turn signals on that car in the spot of the high beams?? Makes it look like there's a wiring problem with the high beams.

 

It's a nice looking car. It's a shame Chrysler wasn't thinking along these lines when they slapped the Charger name on what should have been a Magnum sedan.

 

It's nice to see the little 4.6 Mustang hanging with the Big 6.1 Challenger.

 

Would be nice if Ford brought back to life a few of it's other muscle cars....although I don't think we'll be seeing a Fairlane from Ford, since Ford seems to want to bring that back as a SUV/station-wagon...

Maybe they'll bring back the Talladega with a new 429! lol :P

 

There is no drivers race between the SRT8 Charger or Challenger. Its a drivers race with the RT. Just do the simple math on power to weight. The SRT8 is a sub 5 seconds to 60 and a low 13 second car.

 

itd be nice if EVERYBODY went oldschool for a few years...i wanna see a modern chevelle, a modern cuda, a modern judge, a modern trans am, a modern duster, and a modern cougar and i dont mean that homo cougar thats out now...i want the big boys back...dodge needs to take the charger badge off that magnum sedan and bring glory back to the general lee

 

...and the Road Runner...My father used to have one of those. Awesome car.

 

You must have a slow GT if you have a hard time with a R/T Charger.
They are 14 second cars.....
There are several guys posting 13.2 with a stock GT - that is directly in line with an SRT8. Try that math....

 

What? I have not seen stock times anywhere near that. It does not jive with power to weight either. Looking at the best stock times even on this site 13.5's are the lowest I see......and thats a rarity. I owned a Charger rt/rt until a year ago. Stock times on the RT were around 13.8-14.

 

That was planned until the gas price crisis of late. GM has shutdown plans to do other v8 rwd vehicles on the zeta platform. Everyone is talking high output or turbo v6 now. Maybe we will still see stying though.

 

Dude, that car is amazing.

Whats even more amazing is that I know exactly where you took those pictures!!!! Ozone Park! I live in Howard Beach. Do you live in the area? If so, PM me if you want some info for a local club. Loads of stangs, always hangin out in the area!

 

The special edition whippled GT owns them both for less money.

 

That's putting it too mildly. The interior of the Challenger looks like pure rubbish. The steering wheel and interior is almost the same as the other Chrysler LX cars (300/Magnum/Charger) and is totally wrong for the retro look. The seats look too bulky and the lack of a manual on the SRT-8 is a slap in the face, IMHO.

The new Camaro interior is an eye-sore as well. I have a poster of the 2009 Camaro and the speedometer is a joke. The gauges are the size of spit ***** all clustered in the center stack.

I also heard the Challenger and Camaro will be discontinued after a few years due to the 35-36 MPG CAFE requirement.

 

The SRT8 will have a 6 speed manual in the first full year production. I am not sure how you could possibly have a poster with the production camaro guages?? There is only a few recent photos out there and they are not approved or known to be the final design. In those pics they are aux guages for tq, oil pressure, oild temp and voltage in the center stack. Not to mention they are larger then almost any guages in any other car. Nowhere near "spitballs". The speedometer is in the traditional place in front of the driver. The camaro will evolve with cafe and likely change platforms and get smaller but there dont plan to kill it. As far as the challenger, that remains to be seen as chrysler is still up in the air as a company.

FYI, the interior in the LX cars is actually quite good. I owned one and it was much better then my mustang GT premiums. The seats are perfect. Go sit in a SRT8 or a charger RT with the road and track performance package. Also much better then the Mustang. It should be for a car that cost as much as it does. My Mustang with xplan cost 26k, the charger rt/rt cost me 32k 2 years ago. What use to be the rt performance package now costs 3000. At the time I bought mine it was 1000.

 

The SRT-8 is automatic only for the first year. In addition the SRT-8 will NOT have a limited slip rear-end. The 2009 SRT-8 is slated to get a manual gearbox, and possibly a limited slip rear differential. In addition, the 2009 Challenger will get HIDs. The Challenger weighs more than my Crown Victoria and has much less power than the GT500. The lack of a limited slip will hurt its traction.

My gripe with the LX interior is the steering wheel design and the IP layout. The 4-spoke steering wheel was popular in the 1980s and on rental cars. I wasn't a fan of 4-spoke or 2-spoke wheels on Fords either.

The S197 steering wheel is one of my favorite designs. The 3-spokes gives you the PERFECT driving position. All of the S197 gauges are in the right position, right size, etc... I find the S197 usability to be well above average as well. It's modern but has a slight hint of retro in the cluster styling.

I received a 2009 Camaro poster in the mail that GM sent out just a few days ago. The gauges look useless in the center stack. In order to use them, you'd have to peek down at your shifter while driving. I do not even spend 1/2 second to see if my A/C button is ON in the Stang, so why would I even look at the Camaro center stack gauges? In addition, the Camaro's tach and speedometer look tacky. Usability doesn't seem to be a factor in the Challenger or Camaro. The Camaro is slated to get 20"-22" wheels, so good luck with replacing tires on that car ($$$).

Bob Lutz has already commented that the Camaro's life is very limited. The Challenger isn't expected to be a long-term platform either. A 4-banger in a 4100 lb chassis isn't going to get the required amount of gas mileage, regardless of how much marketing they do to sell old tech.

Turbocharged gasoline direct-injected engines are nothing new and the Japanese have been using it in production engines for quite some time. Ford is touting Eco-Boost like it is their gift to mankind. All I can say is that the EcoBoost concept is 5 years late.

 

Mustang GT
300hp
3483 lbs
11.61hp/lb

Charger RT
340hp
4085 lbs
12.01hp/lb

It's a massive, end-all, whopping 0.4hp/lb difference.


As for the uninformed populace pacification act, or CAFE, I bet we see another round of underrated production vehicles.

"Oh no worries. That 429 only makes 300hp. Promise."



The SoT can kiss my hind end. The lingering CAFE is a crappy solution to only part of a problem.

Either way, the current penalty is $5.50 per tenth of a mpg under the bar. So lets say the bar is at 35mpg and our 'Stangs are rated at 23mpg. So that's 12mpg difference, or 120-tenths under bar. So it's a penalty of $660 per vehicle, or a total fine to Ford of $660 * total_vehicles_produced. Let's assume Ford has sold 80,000 year 2007 GTs. So that's a penalty of about $52 million. Honestly, tho, it's $660. Ford can slap that onto the tag and us buyers won't really be hurting.

 

The production interior looks pretty nice. Someone snapped some pics of a few days ago and it was posted on AutoBlog.com. Given what GM has been doing with interiors lately, I think it will be impressive.

I hope that Ford steps up the interior a bit for the 2010 Mustang.

 

For 2008, only the Challenger SRT-8 will be available. For 2009, there will be a base V6 Challenger, a 370 hp Challenger R/T, and the SRT-8.

The 2008 Challenger SRT-8 specs:
4140 lb
425 hp
9.7 lb per hp

Assuming the 2009 Challenger R/T has the same weight:
4140 lb
370 hp
11.2 lb per hp

GM's latest interiors look like they were made for rental cars. They LOOK impressive but it still feels cheap as heck. The leather feels cheap, like it was made in China. The silver painted plastic is just like Ford's plastic and wears out. Then again I've never judged the quality of the car just from the interior. The engine and transmission is more important, along with ergonomics.

IIRC, CAFE uses the average MPG of a vehicle, not just the highway MPG.

 

0-60 in a stock manual GT with a good driver is right at 5 seconds flat. Again, with a good driver, 13.5 in the 1/4 is pretty normal, and I've heard of some getting lower than that. The SRT8 does 0-60 in 4.9 and 1/4 in 13.2. How is that not a drivers race?

Try more like 14.5. I had a Magnum RT when we first got our 2005. The 2005 would beat it, both cars being stock, every time. Whether it was from a dig or roll, the RT couldn't keep up. The RT's 0-60 is over 6 seconds and 1/4 time is around 14.5 seconds.

While the interiors of the LX cars are nice and roomy, and the seats fairly comfortable (though the leather feels as cheap as ours), it has no place in the Challenger. The Challenger is a throw-back car. Dare I say, it's even more retro than the S197 on the exterior. But they went and threw the same boring interior in from the rest of the LX cars. If you're going to make the outside retro, you've gotta do it with the interior, too. Ford and Chevy got it. Dodge's protype looked like they understood that. But in a rush to get their car out (and save a few bucks), they went cheap and lazy and kept the same interior.

 

I'm in total agreement with DarkFireGT. The LX interior is NICE for a sedan or something more conservative than a modern-retro muscle car. The seats are reported to be one of the best designs from the Big 3 domestics, but it looks very out of place in a muscle car.

The stock Charger R/T and Magnum R/T are known to run 14.1-14.3 bone stock in the 1/4 mile. The R/T's have 340-345 hp 5.7L OHV V8 (Hemi) with MDS.

The SRT-8s have always had the 6.1L Hemi V8 with 425 hp and no MDS. I think people are getting the R/T and SRT-8's confused.

Yes, I agree with DarkFireGT that the Challenger R/T and pre-10 Mustang GT will be a tight race, possibly with the Challenger R/T ousting the pre-10 S197 GT mainly because it has more power (370 hp).

Keep in mind that there are NO reports of a 2008 Challenger R/T, just a 2008 Challenger SRT-8. When the R/T debuts in 2009, it will get the improved 370 hp 5.7 V8 that all the other LX cars are getting.

The 2010 re-styled Mustang is slated to receive the 6.2L Boss V8 that is rumored to produce over 400 hp. The people that worked on the 6.2 said the engine is definitely coming out for the F-series and you know it will find its way into the Mustang.