Dodge Challenger Concept: First Look

Motoring Channel Staff - 9/Jan/2006

Long time American car maker Dodge (part of the Chrysler group) revealed its modern interpretation of the much loved Charger muscle car in 2005, at an opportune time in the motoring marketplace when vintage nameplates were back in vogue.

The response to the new Charger was one of surprise as muscle car fans pointed to the vehicle's 4-door layout; clearly at odds with the traditional Charger's 2-door bodystyle.

The 4-doors were a concession that Dodge apparently had to make to increase the vehicle's practicality and mainstream appeal.

In the face of being disparaged by the faithful, Dodge has sought to appease its long time customer base, and fans of the 1970s Charger/Challenger muscle car now have something more satisfying to chew on.

With smooth retro lines, a Hemi V8 and just 2-doors and no B-pillar, the Challenger Concept will please many disenfranchised Dodge lovers, and will find favour with a new generation of younger drivers.

The Chrysler group stole the scene on the opening day of the 2006 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit when it revealed the Dodge Challenger Concept car.

The new era of American muscle cars that includes the Pontiac GTO and Ford Mustang will have even more competition in the form of the Dodge Challenger Concept, as the vehicle designers at Chrysler Group's West Coast Pacifica Studio had a rich heritage to draw upon.

They also knew they had an obligation to get it right first time, and not follow in the footsteps of the Pontiac GTO, which omitted many traditional design cues in its first new era generation, much to the annoyance of the reborn muscle car's faithful followers.

Tasked with the enviable assignment of developing a hot-looking performance coupe using Chrysler's advanced rear-wheel drive LX platform and its fabled Hemi engine, the designers explored a variety of options, eventually gravitating to the idea of reinventing the highly-collectible Challenger.

Eager to begin, the designers drew up a 'short list' of the essential attributes of a muscle car. They included the following criterions:

Distinctly American
Mega horsepower
Pure, minimal, signature lines
Aggressive air-grabbing grille
Bold colours and graphics

In relation to the first two criteria, a gas-guzzling 6.1-litre Hemi V8 provides the power, outputting 425 horsepower, or about 312kW. Torque, meanwhile, is equally as impressive, boasting 420 lb-ft of twist, which if multiplied by 1.3558 results in 570Nm of torque.

The inside word is that new Dodge concept car will accelerate from standstill to 60mph (96km/h) in 4.5 seconds and should be able to reach about 174mph or 280km/h.

The interior of the Challenger homage is a no-nonsense, "let's-get-in-and-go" black relieved by satin silver accents and narrow orange bands on the seat backs.

"Though the 1970 model was looked to for inspiration, we wanted to capture the memory of that car, but expressed in more contemporary surfaces, materials and textures," said Alan Barrington, the man in charge of interior design for the concept.

As with the original car, the instrumental panel pad sits high, intersected on the driver's side by a sculpted trapezoidal cluster containing three circular in-line analogue gauge openings.

"We designed the in-your-face gauge holes to appear as if you are looking down into the engine cylinders with the head off," relates Barrington. These are flanked outboard by a larger circular gauge that is actually a digital screen, allowing the driver to determine top overall speed, quarter-mile time and speed, and top speed for each of the gears.

With its thick, easy-grip rim, circular hub and pierced silver spokes, the leather-wrapped steering wheel evokes the original car’s "tuff" wheel, as does the steering column ribbing. The floor console, its center surface tipped toward the driver, is fitted with a proper 'pistol grip' shifter shaped just right to master the quick, crisp shifts possible with the six-speed manual transmission.

In as much as the original Challenger was the first car to have injection-moulded door trim panels (now common practice), the doors received special attention. "We imagined that the door panel was a billet of aluminum covered with a dark rubberised material," Barrington said. "Then we cut into it to create a silver trapezoidal cove for the armrest."

Although the flat-section bucket seats of the original Challenger didn't offer much support for aggressive driving, the front seats in the Challenger Concept boast hefty bolsters much like those found on Dodge's famed SRT series cars. The trim covers' horizontal pleats or 'fales' provide just a hint of that '70s look.

Michael Castiglione was the principal exterior designer of the new concept car, and his job in creating a recognisable 'look' for the modern day Challenger would have been daunting, but the results speak for themselves in this case.

"During the development of the concept car," said Castiglione, "we brought an actual 1970 Challenger into the studio. For me, that car symbolises the most passionate era of automotive design."

The signature side view accent line – designers call it the 'thrust' line – is higher up on the body, running horizontal through the front wheel guards and doors and kicking up just forward of the rear wheel. It is clearly visible in the photos as the light reflects above the thrust line, leaving shadow below.

In section the upper and lower body surfaces intersect and fall away along this line, which has just a whisper of the original car's coved surfacing, while adhering to the old school muscle car profile.

"We wanted to stay pure," continued Castiglione, "with simple, minimal line work, but with everything just right."

The five-spoke chrome wheels -- 20-inch fronts; 21-inch rears -- are set flush with the bodyside, giving the car the powerful muscular stance of a prizefighter eager to challenge the world. Wheel openings are drawn tightly against the tyres, with the rearward edges trailing off.

One of the key characteristics of the original car the designers wanted to retain was the exceptionally wide look of both the front and back ends. To accomplish this the dodge Challenger Concept's designers increased both the front and rear tracks to wider than the LX platform its built upon, and even wider than the 1970 model.

The front end features the signature Dodge crossbar grille and four headlamps deeply recessed into the iconic car-wide horizontal cavity. Diagonally staggered in plan view, the outboard lamps are set forward, the 'six-shooter' inboard lamps slightly rearward - design touches that only purists would take note of, but are important to the car's overall aesthetic sense never the less.

At the rear, the car-wide cavity motif is repeated, encompassing full-width neon-lit brake lights. Both the grille and the front and rear lamps are set into carbon fibre surrounds and like the original, slim rectangular side marker lamps define the ends of the car.

The front and rear fascias are clean (no bumpers/guards), color matched and flush with the body. "This is something we would have loved to do on the original Challenger," said Jeff Godshall, who was a young designer in the Dodge Exterior studio when the first Challenger was created, "but the technology just wasn't there. With the Challenger concept, however, the Pacifica Studio designers are able to realise what we wanted in our perfect world."

The hood reprises the original Challenger "performance hood" and its twin diagonal scoops, now with functional butterfly-valve intakes. Designed to showcase the modern techniques used in fabricating the car, what look like painted racing stripes are actually the exposed carbon fibre of the hood material.

The Challenger concept is a genuine four-passenger car: "You can sit up in the back seat," said Castiglione. Compared to the original, the greenhouse is longer, the windshield and backlite faster, and the side glass narrower. All glass is set flush with the body without moldings, another touch the original designers could only wish for.

The car is a genuine two-door hardtop as well — there is no B-pillar — with the belt line ramping up assertively at the quarter window just forward of the wide C-pillar.

Exterior details one might expect, like a racing-type gas cap, hood tie-down pins, louvered backlite and bold bodyside striping, didn't make the cut; the designers feeling such assorted bits would detract from the purity of the monochromatic body form. But tucked reassuringly under the rear bumper are the must-have twin-rectangle pipes of the dual exhausts, looking very modern despite their classic heritage.

Rethought, reworked, reproportioned and redesigned, the Challenger concept car offers iconic a Hemi-powered performance coupe derived from a classic American muscle car.

"Challenger draws upon the initial 1970 model as the icon of the series," said Tom Tremont, the vice president of advanced vehicle design. "The 1970 model is the most sought after by collectors. But instead of merely recreating that car, the designers endeavoured to build a Challenger most people see in their mind's eye — a vehicle without the imperfections like the old car's tucked-under wheels, long front overhang and imperfect fits. As with all pleasurable memories, you remember the good and screen out the bad.

"We wanted the concept car to evoke all those sweet memories…everything you thought the Challenger was, and more," explained Tremont.