DRIVING: that's what it's ALL ABOUT! A blog and website for automotive driving enthusiasts, featuring my interests as I see them: news and opinion about manufacturers of interest, significant enthusiast cars, and driving them hard and well.
According to a Chrysler press release of this afternoon, on Monday (the first day the Challenger orders were taken), 4300 people have put down a deposit. The total this week has surpassed 6000 orders.
Looks like the Challenger is off to an excellent start.... but can this really be sustained?
Chrysler Press release follows:
Orders flood in for 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8®
What has muscle cars fans squealing like teenage girls at a Hannah Montana concert?
Try the all-new 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8®. Just in the first DAY of orders, more than 4,300 people plunked down a deposit for the American muscle coupe. And more than 6,000 have made deposits with dealers since orders opened on Monday, months before the limited-edition Challenger SRT8 goes into production.
“This is unprecedented,” said Mark Mallie, Challenger Brand Manager – Dodge Marketing. “Customers were actually coming to us and pushing us, so we thought this was a good time to take pre-sale orders.”
Orders are still coming in – long before enthusiasts have even seen the car. They’ll have to wait until the production Dodge Challenger SRT8 makes its debut at the Chicago Auto Show next February. But there’s no surprise about the benchmark performance of the Challenger SRT8. Each is powered by a 6.1-liter HEMI V-8, and features a numbered dash plaque, plus dual “carbon-fiber” hood stripes that harken back to the original Dodge Challenger.
The car is available in black, silver or HEMI orange.
“More than half of the orders are HEMI Orange,” Mallie said. “It’s been almost 35 years since the last Challenger, and there’s a lot of interest. There’s a lot of people anxious for it. It’s certainly an iconic muscle car.”
The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $37,995, including a $675 destination fee. Remember – this is a SRT, delivering top-of-the-line performance, world-class ride and handling, benchmark braking and a race-inspired interior. Pricing on the rest of the Challenger lineup will be announced at a later date.
Since pricing was announced on Nov. 29, Web site traffic to www.Dodge.com has spiked up 23 percent, Mallie said.
The muscle car wars start next spring, when deliveries begin for the Challenger SRT8.
But later this week, muscle car fans will have more to squeal about, when we release some eye candy. Check back here later.
Dodge dealers started taking order this week Monday, for delivery in the springs. Only 1 Challenger model will be for sale for the 2008 model year - the SRT model with an automatic transmission. Only three colors will be offered, and only a handful of options. This is being positioned as a "Limited Edition", however the reality of it is that it is limited production because of cost and other scheduling options. The semi-hemi engine, for example, will receive technical updates for the 2009 model year that aren't ready yet - so only the off-the-shelf SRT engine is ready. Ditto for the future V-6. Manual transmissions will come later.
The following images are of a small brochure the dealers have been given. Presumably a full brochure will follow in February once the car is formally introduced. Other than a short list of options and minimal specs, this is all the dealers have to offer potential customers.
And it's probably enough. The arrival of the Challenger has been greatly anticipated... the first set of buyers know exactly what they want.
But that's not enough for the dealers. One dealer is offering a Challenger thru eBay at a minimum of $10,000 over the MSRP of $37,995 (plus $2100 gas guzzler tax!), and a maximum of $25,000 (although that could be bid even higher). There will certainly be buyers who will pay this, and the dealers can do what they want despite any wishes Chrysler Corp. may or may not have. Many potential buyers, who have been making plans for months to buy the muscle car of their dreams, will be put off by this. It's a darn shame that nearly all of this demographic will be locked out in 2008 - unless they can find an honest dealer who will sell for MSRP. Personal relationship building with the sales manager will be a necessary skillset here.
The brochure is a mix of images of the concept and the production are. The picture on the cover below, for example, is the production grill.
This one is of the concept car. Note the very small-font statement "concept vehicle shown".
The next page has 4 pics of the production car. The wheels are different (I don't like them), there is a rear spoiler. It appears that the full-width taillights (which Challenger enthusiasts see as very important) has been retained.
And the explanation to the dealer of how this works. This is clearly a brochure for the dealer, it speaks in their terms. Not the customers.
Note the "SRT Track Experience" below. Very nice - Chrysler wants to teach it's customers how to drive their new high performance vehicle. No further details are available now of how this would work. Also, the three colors available are shown below, but again on the concept car.
And the back cover, which again shows the concept.
My opinion on what the Challenger looks like and it's technical aspects:
Chassis: this will be the most sophisticated of the 3 "pony cars" that buyers will have available in 2009. The Mustang and Camao both use strut front suspensions for reasons of cost. The Challenger suspension was originated by Mercedes, so even though it's downlevel from current Mercedes products it's still a control-arm front and multi-link independent rear suspension. And while the Camaro will have an independent rear the Mustang is still stuck with ye olde fashioned solid axle - despite having been designed for an IRS and loosing it at the last moment due to cost cutbacks ( http://www.drivingenthusiast.net/sec-my-automobilia/sec-imho/2005-03-20_irs-2007-svt-bs/index.htm ) .
V-8 engine: Dodge Chevy will offer pushrod V-8s, Ford will stick with overhead cams (the 4.6 and 5.4 now, keeping the 4.6 and adding the all-new 5.8 BOSS engine in 2010). Chevy has the advantage here because they have a wide range of V-8s to offer, from the 5.3 liter engine for the base car all the way up to the LS9 supercharged 6 liter coming to the corvette in 2009 (that is IF the vette team will let them use it). Dodge has one engine, in two flavors - base and SRT. It's unlikely the fans ideas of a larger engine will appear given the CAFE changes - in fact the larger Chevy engines may not appear either. Ford might have some interesting options, including their twin-turbo V-6 engine coming in 2009, which will uniquely offer both performance and economy.
Styling: no coincidence that all three cars strongly resemble the originals - especially the Challenger. The Mustang styling has been with us since 2005, and won't be updated until mid-year 2009 or 2010. What will it be updated to remains an open question - if the 2005 is the 64.5 model, will the 2010 be the 1970 model? Smoother, faster back, ____? Also, no secret that there will be a convertible Camaro - they have the concept to prove it and it's handsome. There has been talk of a Challenger convertible, but will the new management pony up the dollars to build it?
Size: all three cars are gigantic, the Challenger being the largest at an upper-190 inches range in length. The Challenger will probably be the heaviest, too. It's hard to believe these cars are so large and heavy - the base Shelby Mustang is 3950 pounds (morbidly obese!). Those of us who owned one of the original cars, much less the 80s and 90s Mustangs, can't imagine how these cars got so large and heavy. It's hard to image them going thru the 2010s like this. we'll undoubtedly see bandaids such as aluminum roof panels and aluminum or plastic front fenders to buy some time.
Handling: no doubt Chevy will shine here - remember that they once tied the Porsche 944 as the two best handling cars in the world (domestic and import). The early reviews of the new Holden chassis and the Pontiac G8 are very very good. The Mustang, thanks to ye olde solid axle, has a poor reputation for handling and the rear suspension is too hard as a result of suspension design (inherent). The Challenger could fall in the middle, although thanks to the styling it is limited severely in tire size (255s are the largest offered, and then only in the back) - although the front control arm suspension would prove a nice benefit with the right tuning. But then SRT isn't about suspension finesse. And all three of these cars are hard to image as handling icons thanks to their size and weight.
Brakes. The Challenger has large 4-piston Brembos at all 4 corners. The Mustang only has them in front, with tiny brakes in the rear. Furthermore, while the canceled IRS suspension also had 4-piston Brembos, the remaining solid axle has no other available options. The Camaro is an unknown at this point... since only the concept has been seen.
And what might you do with a Challenger?
*Open Track events: only the tiniest fraction of a percentage of buyers could ever think of such a thing. Here again, the Camaro buyers will probably come out on top because the Camaro will offer a lower cost alternative to the vette - which in recent years has started showing up at these types of events. The Mustangs all stink, none of them (stock) has the cooling wherewithall to survive hot and fast events. The Challenger, being the largest of the three and with the most far-away demographics for this type of thing, may well never be seen as such an event. In any case, all three cars are large and it's hard to imagine pulling up to the starting grid in one of these - dwarfing everything else present. And when you look at the weight issue, where >400 HP is necessary to get a below-5 second 0-60, the story looks even worse.
Drag Racing events: the exact opposite case. The IRS suspensions of the Challenger and Camaro are excellent, and will only show issues once the cars are past stock condition. Ye olde Mustang, meanwhile, is well positioned here - both technically and demographically.
*Open Road events: I could see doing one of the entry-level classes in the Camaro or maybe the Challenger. The Mustang has terrible aero with the gigantic grill opening and the resultant floaty high speed handling. By entry level I mean no more than ~120 MPH average. Stability, predictable handling, bias a bit less than neutral (understeer) is best in these realms. But the interest of these types of buyers in this type of event is almost nil - and the expense of this type of event is so high as to leave these types of owners right out of the equation.
*Back road drives: Out of the question given the shear size and bulk of all three of these. It's ridiculous to think of driving anything this large on narrow roads at any kind of sporting speed at all.
Car Shows: all three are made for shows. Great to show, great to be seen in - for those folks who value that.
* = My interests
I am stuck in the technical side of the hobby, focusing on handling dynamics over power, so that prevents me from simply enjoying a car for it's looks and visual personality. That precludes me from most of the above and probably precludes the use of these 3 cars for the types of events I'm interested in. Nonetheless, this is a significant new "pony car" age we're just about to enter, and it's ramifications (political, environmental, US-car maker centric, etc) will be felt for a long time. Will the pony car race, and the inevitable excessiveness of a HP race, last more than a few years this time?
