Charger Lite
Full-sized family sedan with AWD and a sporty vibe
Three things that came to mind whenever someone mentioned the Dodge Charger: 1. A misspent youth cruising in my buddy John’s B-body 1968 version; 2. Charger Pursuit police cars; and 3. The 707-horsepower Charger Hellcat, touted by Chrysler as the world’s quickest, fastest and most powerful rear-wheel-drive sedan.
In other words, my impression of the Ontario-built Charger was as a traditional, old-school Detroit badass; this despite the fact that the current (and revamped for 2015) model lineup comes in no fewer than eight versions for Canada, ranging from mild-mannered, full-sized family sedan to escalating road warriors — SE, SXT, SXT Plus, R/T, R/T Road & Track, R/T Scat Pack, SRT 392 and SRT Hellcat.
Here’s the weird thing, though: Thanks to some odd twist of timing and availability, I have never driven the most modern iterations of the Charger, which was resurrected in 2006 after a 19-year absence. In fact, it’s been about four decades. A re-acquaintance with the iconic Mopar name was long overdue. Yet it wasn’t to be in one of the musclecar bad boys, but one of the more proletariat models, an SXT AWD — which, with its all-wheel drivetrain, makes it a particularly suitable fourdoor sedan for our winter-ravaged country.
The 2015 versions benefit from a full makeover, including a thorough tweaking of the exterior panels, which, if you are to believe Chrysler, is “spiritually inspired by the iconic second-generation Charger from the late 1960s, specifically drawing on cues from the historic 1969 model, which include the unmistakable Coke-bottle design and scalloped body sides.”
Personally, I can’t drink enough Kool-Aid to buy in. What I see, though, is a clean, strong design with front and rear LED lighting, and interior design elements that now include a thick-rim threespoke steering wheel, customizable colour driver information display cluster and decent cabin materials.
Chrysler also cites upgraded rearwheel-drive architecture, electric power steering, new cast-aluminum axles and housing, plus more comprehensive Sport Mode II, which enables sport-tuned steering, pedal, engine and transmission calibration. In addition, AWD models have rear-biased torque for livelier handling.
This is all good stuff. Considering the SXT AWD’s huskiness — tipping the scales at a sport ute-like 1,900 kilograms — it has more than passable handling dynamics. So much so that an almost heretical thought began to form in my deeply warped mind. It first started percolating as I sat behind a late-model Mercedes E 350 4Matic at a stoplight. Could the Charger, in this model iteration, hold its own on the street against the established Eurosedan all-wheeldrive heavyweights — Audi A6, Mercedes E 400 4Matic and BMW 535i xDrive?
The crashing sound you just heard is from a bunch of well-off baby boomers dropping their snifters of Courvoisier on the floor at such audacity. But I’m not talking about cachet, just the performance aspects.