The Checkered History Of The Dodge Charger

I have talked about the mistakes made by Ford, and GM, but what about the other member of the big three, Chrysler. Well apart from getting a lot of things right, the mad trucks like the Dude, and Lil Red Express, and amazing powerplants like the hemi, Chrysler have made some mistakes, and this one is the biggest.

In the 60s the Dodge Charger was one of the coolest cars on the road. This car was so amazing, it almost outshined the Mustang GT390 in Bullet, and The General Lee was the coolest car on TV in the 80s. It had a brief life compared to other muscle cars, and the Charger of the late 60s early 70s was the king of muscle cars. Sporting three different engines, the 383, 440, and the daddy the 426 hemi, this car not only looked good, it sounded good too.

This all changed in 1971, with the third gen Charger Chrysler wanted it to look sportier, and it did, but it looked more like a Challenger, than a Charger. Then in 75 it all went to hell, it looked like a normal every day car, there was nothing special about this car. It had an iconic name, but awful styling.

In the 80s Chrysler tried changing the recipe again, but left out the most important ingredients, its massive v8, and while it had a turbocharged 4 cylinder, it still did not have the presence. The fact that it lost half its cylinder count could've been forgiven, but the fact that it was basically a hyped up Omni, with Charger badges, and front wheel drive, that was enough to kill this goliath.

It would be 20 years before we would see a new Charger, so Chrysler had plenty of time to perfect it. Unfortunately their idea of perfection was adding more doors, and a V6. This icon, the first car to hit 200mph in NASCAR, was now a boring 4 door...or was it. Sure it has 2 more doors, but the 5.7 hemi means you're never short on power, and if you go for the Hellcat, you'll have the fastest 4 door production car, with a top speed of 204mph. In terms of looks it's not as sexy as the Charger of the late 60s, but don't let the 2 extra doors fool you, there's still plenty on muscle under the hood.