rising to the challenge

I am a purist when it comes to muscle cars. I don't consider my own old Cutlass a true member of the breed- it lacks the bucket seats and big block engine but the styling was dead-on. No, in order to be a muscle car, a vehicle has to meet certain specific requirements. It has to be a V-8. It has to be a BIG V-8. It has to be built for comfort, but mostly for strength- hence the bucket seats. It has to have a somewhat reasonable starting price- back in the day, any kid with a summer job could get a decent deal on a GTO or a Chevelle. And finally, it has to have that sound. That throaty, dig-dig-dig sound that says "whenever you need me to, I can chew up this road like a rottweiler will take to a plate of bacon."

It has been a long time since the death of these great giants. Camaros and Mustangs have long since dissolved into over-the-top eighties miscalculations and concerns over efficiency and emissions. But at long last, Dodge has finally brought America a muscle car for the age of the Prius. Behold. The Challenger.

It would have been easy to simply recreate a big, lumbering V-8 driven sedan and tried to pass it off as a muscle car. And Dodge did, and they called it a Charger (and everyone who had ever owned a true Charger collectively sighed in disgust). But the Challenger is decidedly different. Take the styling for starters. The perfect marriage of curves and heft without relying on cheap plastic body kits. That expansive grill, reminiscent of the old Plymouth GTX.

But what's under the hood is the most innovative thing to come out of Detroit in a very long time. Of course it's a Hemi. Of course it's a V-8. But it's a Hemi V-8 that can switch off half the cylinders if necessary (in stop and go traffic, slow traffic, whenever you don't need all eight cylinders tap dancing under the hood), thereby saving gas and cutting emissions. While the system is nothing new (it's another little bit of thievery from the Daimler-Chrysler days) it makes the Challenger more politically correct without sacrificing power where a muscle car is at its best- on the wide open straightaways.

It's been a long time since I've been this fired up about an American car. Especially an American car with a base price around 22k. But there is something so beautifully American about this baby. Something so nostalgic and yet so new. This is what Detroit has always been about, and it brings me hope for what American carmakers are still capable of.