A European Driver's Review of an American Muscle Car

Hello everyone,

As they say in Monty Python, "And now for something completely different."

I travel to the US a few times a year on business and the company pays for a hire car when I need one, which is most of the time. If you've hired a car with any regularity, you know that a lot of the time you can get sweet deals and even free upgrades, because they don't pre-allocate you any particular car, you choose one when you go to pick it up. Also, hire car companies don't really try to keep any of a particular class in stock, so it is not too unusual for them not to have one in your particular class. So this is how you get the free upgrades.

And this is how I got an American muscle car for the price of a standard full-size sedan, a 5.7l v8 Dodge Challenger!

Because I got to enjoy this beast for a week, I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog my thoughts on it. As someone who only really knows anything about European cars, and even then I'd hardly call myself a petrolhead, I thought it might be an interesting insight for muscle car fans and European car fans alike.

Actually, having written this article once, I decided to re-write it. I felt my original article really missed the point of the American muscle car and probably would have upset fans of them to the point where what I wrote would have just been dismissed. And what's the point in that? I want to write something that fans and non-fans might find interesting. So this blog post is actually take 2.

First Things First - Performance.

This car is the epitome of what the American Muscle Car is all about, a 5.7l Hemi v8 engine that produces 375 hp. That's hp, not bhp, (you can read about the difference here) so that's even more impressive than a 375bhp car you'd read about in Europe.

The engine makes this car a beast. If you are one to appreciate cars and like the performance aspect of it, then the noise of the Challenger will make the hairs on your neck stand up. It is fantastic, I have never driven anything like it. I have a friend in the UK that has a Mercedes C63 AMG with a 4.0l v8 engine, a magnificent sounding car, but the Challenger is just louder, bassier and more guttural. I think it is actually probably quite likely that the Challenger wouldn't be legal in Europe because it doesn't have sufficient noise suppression in the exhaust, it is LOUD!

The 5.7l Hemi V8 Engine

My hire car is the automatic variant, which I understand to be an 8 speed. It's fairly responsive and seems perfectly good enough for the engine by American car standards. I don't know the specs for sure, but I bet this is a single clutch system. I'm lucky in that my own car at home, the Audi A4, has the S-Tronic system and obviously the dual clutch system on the S-Tronic gives it a big advantage. Compared to typical American hire car fare, however, the automatic clutch on the Challenger is definitely man enough.

Muscle car fans probably won't agree with my next statement however. Although the power of the Challenger made me laugh with pleasure every time I put my foot down, I still couldn't shake a feeling that it didn't quite have the same sense of urgency even as my own car. And this is where I think there is a key difference in the typical European sports car vs the American muscle car. For all of the Challenger's power, it is only 0.7 seconds quicker to 60 than my 250bhp A4. Once you start to look a bit deeper I think it becomes obvious why. In the Dodge Challenger you have 375 hp going through the rear wheels in a 2000kg car. In my A4 you have 250bhp going through 4 wheels in a 1350kg car. Even if you just look at the power to weight ratio you have 0.1875hp/kg in the Dodge and 0.1852bhp/kg in the Audi. That's not much of a difference, and if you consider that with Quattro you are getting power to all 4 wheels from a standing start, this is why I think the Challenger ultimately lacks that urgency and that "shoving you in the back of the seat" feeling you might expect with all that power.

The American muscle car is a frickin huge, powerful and heavy engine with just enough car round it to enjoy it. The European (or rather German) sports car is all about engineering, and that engineering largely gets you to the same place as the muscle car but with half the fuel consumption.

I know muscle car fans will probably not like the comparison and in a way it isn't fair, because really it is comparing apples to oranges. I do not mean to be negative about the Dodge Challenger at all, it was absolutely thrilling driving it for a week, but nonetheless that feeling about the lack of urgency despite all that power was there and I'm just trying to articulate why I think that is.

So, moving onto other points...

The Exterior

The outside of the car looks great, it says American muscle car all over it. Aggressive styling from the front and rear, great looking rear light clusters, excellent side profile with obviously only 2 doors, this being a coupe. The car certainly looks the part from the outside and goes well with the engine sound. There's certainly no comparison to the (in)famously fairly modest looking Audi in the looks department (even though actually I love how my Audi looks, especially the rear lights).

The Interior

The stereo  and integrated controls, pretty poor.

Taking a serious look at the interior of the Challenger reinforces the ethos with cars of this type. The interior is quite sparse. The upholstery and quality of the fabric is fine, but there is no leather in sight. Even the steering wheel, whilst comfortable, is a poor fake-leather/rubbery type material. Looking at the Dodge website, leather doesn't even seem to be an option, I think that is quite a poor show for what is essentially meant to be a car you impress your friends with. Why wouldn't you want to add a harder wearing and better looking leather interior to go with all that muscle?

I could write pages about my feelings on the Dodge interior, so let's break this down into pros and cons:

Pros:

• Almost fully electric seats with adjustable back support. Electric windows and mirror adjustment.
• Keyless entry and engine start/stop.
• Having a touchscreen display in the centre console is a nice touch.
• Driver's dashboard, whilst basic, does fit in with the sportiness of the car and it also partially features an electronic display.
• The car does appear to have some kind of stability program, although I'm not sure if it is only ABS or if it includes traction control (having successfully had the wheels squealing during my second day in the car).

Keyless entry is a nice feature, however.

Cons:

• The seats have a manual fix/loose lever you open and close to adjust back tilt. Bizarre when all other seat controls are electric.
• Too many controls centralised on the touchscreen digital display and the stereo/control system itself frankly rubbish. In particular I don't like the way half of the AC controls are only accessible from the touch screen.
• The driver's dashboard is basic. An analog and digital speedo, rev counter, engine temperature and fuel gauge, and that's it. Quite the comedown when you are used to Audi's Virtual Cockpit.
• No leather interior option.

The stereo system and a lot of in-car controls are centralised on the touchscreen display. Frankly, it is a really poor and basic system. It pesters you with a pop-up message you have to say OK to every time you start the car (although that may be normal with American cars). I paired my phone to the stereo but it never remembers to use Bluetooth when you turn the car and on always switches back to radio. Half of the AC controls are on this touch-screen system and the other half are traditional dials. The display is too small and difficult to use when driving (even with sensible use such as when you are stopped at lights), although you can upgrade to a bigger display with more features as an optional extra.

Really, the interior does tell a story about the price you pay when buying an American muscle car, on top of the actual price of course. Essentially you are buying the 5.7l v8 engine and only enough car around it to enjoy using that engine, there is precious little on top in terms of toys. Keyless entry is a nice plus you might not expect, but a lack of any toys, even as additional extras, are huge negatives, and seems like a missed opportunity from Dodge. On the other hand, the car already weighs 2 metric tons, so maybe putting even more toys in it isn't the answer.

The Price

So, by looking at the features that are obvious (or rather the lack of them) and using Dodge's "Build & Price" feature on their website, I calculate that the car I have costs $34,840 brand new, which is £26,842 at the time of writing. That is quite a bit of money for a fantastic engine in a good looking but functionally basic car. You could spend that much money on a European car and get a top of the range model of a non-premium-brand car with a decent engine, although nothing like the v8 of course, and without four wheel drive you're not going to get close to the acceleration from standing either, so ultimately there is nothing comparable in the UK market that is "better."

Summary

Ultimately, the American Muscle car is not about having something that makes sense on paper, because they don't make any sense at all on paper. Heavier, thirstier, somewhat expensive and ultimately a fairly basic car with the old-school muscle engine in it.

But my god is it fantastic to drive!

And that sums it up, if you just look at the specs on paper and considering technical engineering points as a basis for reviewing the Dodge Challenger, you've missed the point (I know I've done that but only to try and articulate my thoughts). Driving a muscle car isn't about making sense, it's about having muscle and putting rubber down on the road, and it's as simple as that, and it's f*****g fantastic!

If I could get to drive a Dodge Challenger or another manufacturer's muscle car again in the future then I'd totally go for it!

I'm not sure I could own one as my everyday car though.