What I love is how the front end stays true to Mopar styling of the late 60's and early 70's. The Hood has a bit of the "Power Dome" styling of the early '70's Chargers and Roadrunners while the mail slot grille of the '70 Roadrunner is still present. While I have griped more over the fact that the car doesn't have scalloped doors than the loss of the V8 powertrains. I love V8's, especially the 392ci Hemi, but that's not a deal breaker to me, especially when I have the option of a 550hp twin turbo I-6 with all-wheel-drive. When I look at the fact that aftermarket companies are already offering upgrades for the TRX that are yielding huge gains simply with a tune. I think even with just bolt on upgrades (tune, CAI, intercooler & piping, throttle bodies, injectors, and an equal length catback or turbo back exhaust system), this car will be well into the 600hp range with the High Output powertrain and probably at about 525-530hp with the Standard Output cars. For most of us, that's more than enough power for a daily driver. That's just with basic bolt ons. Don't let anyone come out with a Stage-1 Cam package for the stock turbo setup and give this thing any bit of a lope to it with stronger performance or let Garrett come out with a direct fit turbo package for a bit more boost that stays within a safe realm for the stock internals because adding that to any of the basic upgrades I mentioned puts the HO car's performance in Hellcat range. Also, I think once the aftermarket gets a hold of this car, we're going to see the styling upgrades that are going to be fitting for this car. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few hoods such as the louvered '71-'74 Charger R/T style hood, the '71 Charger Air Grabber style hood and even the '74 Road Runner style hood come from a certain high-quality aftermarket styling company known for up-fitting Mopar performance vehicles with amazing body pieces with factory fit and finish along with other things such as trunk spoilers, roof spoilers, rear diffusers, side splitters and front spoilers. While it may be just wishful thinking, My hope is that we will see a few of the high quality lighting companies make some variations of headlights and taillights (would love to see a modern version of the '71 R/T 3-section taillights but that's just me) along with different graphics and and wheel options and upgrades. Even inside, I feel like Mopar will want to offer something that gives customers the option to change the digital gauge faces with styling that includes the 66-67 gauge display and some of the hellcat displays. There will aftermarket companies doing steering wheel upgrades with illuminated horn covers and with the Pistol grip shifter returning, someone is going to offer options for that as well. With that in mind, I am truly looking forward to owning this car in Cha-Ching green with a satin black version of the graphics that they showed on that gray Daytona Charger at Spring Fest last week.
While I was writing this, the two previous comments came across about the new Charger not following the traditional "Muscle car" formula. I will agree that this car follows the giant killing formula of the Buick Grand National and GNX, a car that is a genuine legend in it's own right. It also harnesses to have the potential to bring back that element that made SRT special when Dodge came out with the SRT4 Neon, the V8 crushing turbo-4 American performance car that kicked of the SRT vehicles performance brand back in 2003. With this thing having selectable AWD along with the performance and performance potential that it has, this car moves beyond what a Muscle car is and becomes more of a smarter, better balanced, high performance daily driver vehicle that's easier to live with in everyday conditions and all types of weather.
moparinsiders.com
