2006 Dodge Challenger
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
The new 2006 Dodge Charger, one of the biggest names from the muscle car era, will muscle its way back onto streets and racetracks across America early this summer. R/T models feature a standard 340-horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI® V8 and five-speed AutoStick® transmission. Need even more? The new Charger SRT8 packs a 6.1-liter HEMI® V8 with 425 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque to satisfy even the deepest passion for power.
Unlike Chargers of yesteryear, this one has four doors. However, as our illustrations indicate, the Charger exterior design team—Ralph Gilles, Jeff Gale, and Mark Hall—seeks to preserve a coupe-ish look with a sloping rear roofline culminating in a steeply raked rear window and short decklid.
The decklid ends in a raised lip, which should reduce lift when you’re cruising your neighborhood at 130 mph, and the trailing edges of the rear doors are cut well into the bulging rear fenders, reinforcing the coupe look and lending brawn to the package. There’s also plenty of muscle in the front-end presentation, with flared fenders and Dodge’s trademark gun-sight grille. And we anticipate the muscular presence to be backed up with plenty of grunt. More on that in a minute.
The Charger will ride on the same rear-drive platform that supports the Chrysler 300-series and the Magnum. No surprise there. That means the same 120.0-inch wheelbase, with track dimensions similar to those of the 300—63.0 inches in front, 63.1 inches in the rear—if not identical. Its overall length will probably be about the same as the 300’s—about 197 inches—but we expect its roofline to be slightly lower than those of the 300 and Magnum wagon. The swoopy rear roofline mitigates the turret-top look of the 300, but the high beltline yields the same low glass-to-body ratio that’s a key element in these new Chrysler Group designs, as well as an industry-wide trend. Feedback from consumer clinics suggests that reduced glass area and higher cowls give occupants a sense of heightened security.
When the original Charger went on sale in 1966, the top engine was a 426-cubic-inch (7.0-liter) HEMI V8. Naturally, to Dodge this new version wouldn’t be a Charger if it wasn’t available with a HEMI.
The R/T gets a 340-horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI V8 that features Chrysler’s Multi-Displacement System (MDS). MDS seamlessly deactivates four cylinders in just 40 milliseconds when full V8 power is not needed, improving fuel economy by as much as 20 percent. Fuel economy for the V8 is estimated at 17 mpg in the city and 25 mpg on the highway. Sure, the new Charger doesn’t have quite the grunt of the original 426 HEMI, but the modern HEMI runs much cleaner and gets much better fuel economy.
For additional power, the Road/Track Performance Package or Daytona R/T Package adds a specially tuned exhaust and induction system that bumps horsepower of the 5.7-liter V8 up to 350.
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