2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year Contender: Dodge Challenger R/T
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The 2009 Dodge Challenger is more fun than a renaissance festival. Just to catch a glimpse of the Challenger from any angle is to turn the clock back to the happy-go-lucky free-love decade of the 1970s. So faithful is the reinterpretation of nearly every character line and design flourish, even the interior looks period correct -- right down to the shiny black plastic dash and door panels (it works, really). The Hemi's rumbly roar and the manual six-speed's pistol-grip shifter (complete with trigger notch) are the best parts. Everything's so familiar, it's just inflated to 8/7ths scale.
Some of that familiarity breeds contempt. Authentic-looking pull-up door handles will have the fingernailed set relearning to open doors with their knuckles. The sound made by closing the doors or trunk lid is disconcertingly Nixon-era, and access to the Challenger's rear compartment is woefully inadequate: Either laboriously motor the power driver's seat forward or grapple with the coupe world's worst manual seat release on the passenger side. Once back there, the seats are commodious, though cavelike on the visibility front.
Built on full-size LX sedan underpinnings, the Challenger looks, feels, and drives big. If you insist on flailing away at the accurate but lifeless steering, the R/T will hustle around turns, but you'll feel loads of body motion and weight transfer. It really excels at the smoky burnout and the dragstrip hustle. The 0-to-60-mph-sprint takes 5.1 sec and the quarter flashes by in 13.6 at 104.9 mph, tying the lighter, larger Pontiac G8 GT to 60 and besting it in the quarter mile.
Can the Dodge Challenger take home the Motor Trend Car of the Year award? Find out on Nov. 18.
Photography by Brian Vance and Julia LaPalme
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