The Dodge Challenger is… the Best Car you can Buy?
Cars are designed for a specific purpose. It takes millions of dollars to come out with a new design, and it’s rare that a car manufacturer just builds a car for nothing more than to build a car. Even most concept cars are built, at the very least, to show off a future design direction or idea. The Dodge Challenger is no different than any other car in this respect.
I’m not personally a huge fan of the Dodge Challenger, but I can’t deny that the designers of the car knew what they were doing and knew the consumers who would buy the car. So much unlike any other car on the road, it stands out not only in the way that it looks, but also in the way it exists.
With the exception of the Jeep Wrangler, which has, by and large, kept its traditional styling, most cars that have been released in the past 10 years have become stagnant in their design. Efficiency is what dictates car design now. Drag coefficients have been lowered by improving aerodynamics. That is certainly valuable considering that cars are heavier today than ever before with the additional mandatory safety equipment required by regulations. It also means that, because of science, most cars on the road have been made to follow a common theme in terms of how they look.
I’m not speaking strictly about design, though. Every manufacturer offers a 2.0 liter, 4 cylinder engine in at least one of their models. It’s generally the most reliable, cost effective, and efficient choice for a flagship car. It makes sense that it would be offered in most of the large production, mainstream cars.
Most manufacturers also make sure to produce the cars that sell, not the cars that cater to a niche market. Of course, every manufacturer has to make a car that sells, but there are very few manufacturers today that make the variety of models offered in years past.
Gone are the years when Toyota produced the Celica, a fun, aftermarket-friendly, and sporty front-wheel-drive coupe that was affordable enough for a college grad to get their hands on. The Honda S2000 is no longer manufactured even though it’s widely considered one of the best cars ever produced, despite the fact that Mazda still makes the MX-5 Miata, Fiat now offers the 124, and Subaru makes the BRZ. The full line of Mitsubishi cars has been discontinued to focus on making SUVs.
Now back to the Challenger. Dodge makes cars that sell, and it helps that Chrysler and Jeep are thrown into the mix as they are all owned by the same company. There is a full menu of cars, trucks, and SUVs for the consumer to choose here, but where does the Challenger fit? It doesn’t.
The car sells well enough, along with its sibling, the Charger, but the Challenger was never meant to be sold in such great numbers as the Ford F-150s, Toyota Camrys, and Honda Odysseys of the world. It’s more specialized than that. Furthermore, it was built to be a true muscle car, something that can’t and shouldn’t be said about cars like the Mustang and Camaro. Really then, Dodge doesn’t need to make the car at all. They just do it because they can. And rather than messing up everything that muscle car buyers loved in the past, they reached into the history books and decided to make the car just like it used to be, all while adapting the car itself to fit the regulations and natural evolutions that have brought us to today.
The Challenger is bigger than it should be, more powerful than it should be, and very flamboyant in its styling. The whole car screams “over-the-top” as it passes by, flips you the bird, and growls off into the distance. It perfectly embodies the muscle car movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. And that’s exactly the point. It’s the only reason the car is even made. It’s perfect.
I’ve said before that the Volkswagen Golf GTI is the best car anybody can buy. I still do. It’s the best in the sense that it’s a perfect compromise of every vehicle that is available for purchase. That is, if nobody could have anything more than “good enough”, the GTI would be the result. That’s what makes it the best car. The Challenger is the best car for a different reason.
It is made for specific purpose for a very specific market, and it isn’t for everybody. What it is, is a car that’s unashamed to be what it is, and it makes sure to rub it in your face when you see one and hear one on the road. You can have one in yellow, purple, bright blue, and even lime green. If that’s not good enough, you can even get racing stripes or decals. When you think about the entire package, it’s easy to see that the Challenger is symbolic of America itself (and yes… I do know that Fiat-Chrysler owns Dodge. It’s still an honest-honest-to-goodness, modern-day, muscle car built for America.)
This is what makes the Challenger the best car you can buy. It exists exactly as the designers intended it too, without having to exist at all. It exists solely because it can. In 2015, Dodge released the Hellcat, an even higher-horsepower version of the already burly V-8 Challenger. In 2017, Dodge took it even a step further, unveiling the Demon, an 841 horsepower version that set multiple production car records for power and performance, officially solidifying the Challenger’s no-nonsense and “over the top” personality.
Will it go farther? We will have to wait and see what Dodge does next with the Challenger. What we do know is that the Challenger is a car that possesses character, which is more that can be said of most cars on the road today. That alone may not be reason to buy one, but if you’re the type that likes to stand out from the crowd, who doesn’t mind letting everyone know you’re coming, and who wants just a little more excitement out of life, you may want to have a look at the Challenger. It’s the car that exists simply to be a car and nothing else, making it the best car you can buy.
