Auto Car | Dodge Charger R/T 2006 | The long-awaited Dodge Charger has arrived amid heated debate on whether the car “is a real Charger.” With four doors rather than two, and not much styling continuity from the most memorable Chargers (1968-71), the current version - essentially a retuned, restyled 300C/Magnum - is different at first glance. But, like the original, while based on existing vehicles, it is noticeably different; and like the original, it combines rear wheel drive with both mild and wild powerplants. The current Hemi isn’t a modified-for-the-street racing engine, but its 345 horsepower drive the Charger from zero to sixty in a bare six seconds, and the cornering is excellent.The Charger Daytona package, which costs $2,500 on top of the price of a standard Charger Hemi, also caused some consternation among the faithful, still smarting after the four-cylinder Dodge Challengers, Daimler takeover, end of Plymouth, and hundreds of other insults; rather than being a 200 mph supercar, as the original was (plain stock versions were capable of more like 180 mph), the Daytona is clearly a stripe-and-small-spoiler package in appearance. However, additional engine and suspension tuning make the Charger Daytona a true improvement over the standard Charger, and one of the most fun, exciting mass-produced cars on the market today. Indeed, if you need four seats, the Charger Daytona is very hard to beat indeed - and Dodge's SRT-4 comes closest to the fun-for-the-buck prize.Getting from the 300C to the Charger required some work, as the Charger is less expensive yet has better performance.
Most of the cost-cutting appears to have gone into the interior; the Charger essentially uses the Spartan-looking interior of the Magnum, and looks plain inside. The instrument panel is functional and attractive, with even, greenish-white backlighting (of the Indiglo style, but set up to be much less green) that is highly visible during the day and even more so at dusk and at night. The pointers are a deeper red than in the past, and thinner, for a cleaner look. In our Charger Daytona test car, the interior was remarkably improved due to the simple addition of a body-colored center stack and gearshift bezel (they are silver-metallic in the standard Chargers); since the test car was Top Banana yellow, (a bright and cheerful yellow which would probably be called Sunshine Yellow at a house paint store), those simple changes brightened the inside and provided a good contrast to the same-old-same-old mix of black and gray plastics. A small sticker on the right side of the dashboard informed us that this was Top Banana Daytona #8 of 4,000.
The Charger's exterior is a clear departure from the Magnum and 300C, though it is made on the same platform and has the same underpinnings. An effort was made to differentiate it further, and it has more rounded styling, with a unique but clearly-Dodge grille - incorporating dark-looking headlight covers a la Impala - and a Charger-like rise near the back. The windows look larger, the back and side curvier. The Daytona package again greatly improves the look of the Charger; the tail blackout and side stripes strongly accentuate the body contours, making the Daytona look much more like the classic Chargers most of us hold in our memories (ignoring the very early Charger and the later "formal style" models that could be mistaken for Cordobas). This package is not for the shy, especially with the huge HEMI labels on the hood. The effects seem to be accomplished with a glued-on thick black vinyl.The Charger really is not a replacement for the Dodge Intrepid, a swoopy sedan that combined sporty looks and a nimble ride with fast-for-the-day powerplants and exceptional interior space. The Intrepid had a rich interior and was far larger inside; trunk space was quite large as well, and all passengers, front and back, were equally comfortable. Though the Hemi Charger’s power is considerably higher (the 3.5 V6 stays at the same power level but has more weight to push around), and sound insulation, cornering, and ride are better, rear passengers have a somewhat rougher time.
In the back, the normally confident feel of the Charger R/T becomes edgy, as though the driver isn't in control; and the base R/T stereo becomes more of a mono, with all the sound seeming to come from the speaker just behind the passenger's head (no speakers are in the rear doors). The Charger is lots of fun for the driver, but may be less so for the rear passengers, even if they do get plenty of head, leg, and shoulder room (and a better view than they would in a 300C).Acceleration is, as one would expect, extremely good. What one would not really expect is that it would be faster than the essentially identical 300C and Magnum; but we suspect part of that was computer and transmission tuning, since shifts felt considerably firmer, and sometimes downright hard, in the Charger.
Most of the cost-cutting appears to have gone into the interior; the Charger essentially uses the Spartan-looking interior of the Magnum, and looks plain inside. The instrument panel is functional and attractive, with even, greenish-white backlighting (of the Indiglo style, but set up to be much less green) that is highly visible during the day and even more so at dusk and at night. The pointers are a deeper red than in the past, and thinner, for a cleaner look. In our Charger Daytona test car, the interior was remarkably improved due to the simple addition of a body-colored center stack and gearshift bezel (they are silver-metallic in the standard Chargers); since the test car was Top Banana yellow, (a bright and cheerful yellow which would probably be called Sunshine Yellow at a house paint store), those simple changes brightened the inside and provided a good contrast to the same-old-same-old mix of black and gray plastics. A small sticker on the right side of the dashboard informed us that this was Top Banana Daytona #8 of 4,000.
The Charger's exterior is a clear departure from the Magnum and 300C, though it is made on the same platform and has the same underpinnings. An effort was made to differentiate it further, and it has more rounded styling, with a unique but clearly-Dodge grille - incorporating dark-looking headlight covers a la Impala - and a Charger-like rise near the back. The windows look larger, the back and side curvier. The Daytona package again greatly improves the look of the Charger; the tail blackout and side stripes strongly accentuate the body contours, making the Daytona look much more like the classic Chargers most of us hold in our memories (ignoring the very early Charger and the later "formal style" models that could be mistaken for Cordobas). This package is not for the shy, especially with the huge HEMI labels on the hood. The effects seem to be accomplished with a glued-on thick black vinyl.The Charger really is not a replacement for the Dodge Intrepid, a swoopy sedan that combined sporty looks and a nimble ride with fast-for-the-day powerplants and exceptional interior space. The Intrepid had a rich interior and was far larger inside; trunk space was quite large as well, and all passengers, front and back, were equally comfortable. Though the Hemi Charger’s power is considerably higher (the 3.5 V6 stays at the same power level but has more weight to push around), and sound insulation, cornering, and ride are better, rear passengers have a somewhat rougher time.
In the back, the normally confident feel of the Charger R/T becomes edgy, as though the driver isn't in control; and the base R/T stereo becomes more of a mono, with all the sound seeming to come from the speaker just behind the passenger's head (no speakers are in the rear doors). The Charger is lots of fun for the driver, but may be less so for the rear passengers, even if they do get plenty of head, leg, and shoulder room (and a better view than they would in a 300C).Acceleration is, as one would expect, extremely good. What one would not really expect is that it would be faster than the essentially identical 300C and Magnum; but we suspect part of that was computer and transmission tuning, since shifts felt considerably firmer, and sometimes downright hard, in the Charger.
In fact, expect a lot of bump-and-grind from the automatic, which seems to have to noticeably kick in on any moderate acceleration. This effect, by the way, was absent in our Charger Daytona, and may have disappeared with normal production changes from the normal Chargers as well. What did remain was a tendency to downshift slowly, so that after a burst of acceleration the car stays in low gear for a moment, shifts up, waits moment, and shifts again - presumably part of an anti-hunting routine but something to get used to. It does help if you need to accelerate, level off for a second, and immediately accelerate again.
Source : www.allpar.com
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