A WEAKER CHALLENGER
Looks are deceiving with Dodge’s GT. It’s the first muscle car version with all-wheel drive and is better suited for grand touring.
There are many reasons to desire a mighty American muscle car like the Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger, Chevrolet Corvette or Ford Mustang GT.
They look great. They sound awesome. They peel out and lay rubber.
The higher you go in the trim lines, the more true these things become. At the top of the 2017 Dodge lineup, for example, is the 840horsepower Challenger SRT Demon. It will go zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds, and peel the paint off your neighbor’s mailbox.
The cars at the bottom of the muscle car heap are a little harder to explain, and at first glance the 2017 Dodge Challenger GT makes no sense.
Dodge is advertising it as “heritage-inspired style without burning your budget.”
Translation: It’s a muscle car with no muscle.
The two-door, four-passenger sedan is powered by a 3.6-liter V-6 engine that makes 305 horsepower and 268 pound-feet of torque. Really? On a burly-looking, big-shouldered brute like this, from the family that brought you the Hellcat and the Viper?
The answer is in the transmission. This 2017 Challenger is the first one to be offered with an all-wheeldrive transmission.
That’s great news for Dodge fans who live in places that get a lot of snow and ice. In those locations, the Challenger’s traditional big motor, mated to its traditional rear-wheel-drive transmission, would mean an all winter slip-n-slide.
The new combination makes the muscular styling, paired with a slightly less muscular engine, an allweather, all-year AWD car.
It’s not as tail happy as the other Challengers, but it also gets better gas mileage than its muscle-bound
brothers. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the GT AWD gets a fuel economy rating of 27 miles per gallon on the highway and 18 mpg in the city.
That compares favorably with the stats on the Hellcat, which gets 21 mpg on the highway and 13 mpg in the city, or the Demon, which may actually have to be measured in terms of gallons per mile.
Dodge sells 15 different iterations of the Challenger. But for now it makes only one version of the Challenger AWD, and with only one powertrain. If you want allwheel drive, you get the 3.6liter V-6, connected to the eight-speed automatic transmission.
Even then, it’s not a traditional all-wheel-drive system. Power is delivered to all four wheels only under extreme acceleration in normal driving mode, or when the driver is using the paddle shifters in Sport driving mode. Standard features include ventilated and heated front seats, keyless entry, electronic stability control and traction control, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and a heated, leather steering wheel.
Also standard is a back seat that may make this grand touring car feel not so grand for passengers, limited as it is in the legroom department.
But cup holders and plug-ins for devices will ease their pain, and the ample trunk will hold golf bags and plenty of luggage for grand touring out of town.
In the city, the comparably anemic engine is plenty peppy for block-to-block acceleration. In the canyons, the standard suspension is firm without being too stiff. When pushed, the car handles better than your average family sedan, and sticks to the road well under hard steering.
The model I borrowed came with some extras, which came with some extra costs. The very nice Redline Tri-Coat paint, which made the car look like a Hot Wheels vehicle, added $595 to the bottom line.
A “Technology Group” package, priced at $1,195, included rain-sensitive wipers, forward collision warning and adaptive speed control. The $995 GT Interior Package delivered a “performance” steering wheel and pumped-up sound system. In all, the options knocked the suggested retail price from a base price of $34,490 up to $40,555 for this model.
That’s considerably less than the cost of a Hellcat, Viper or Demon, even with all the extras, for a lot less heat under the hood.
But with the money saved, you can go to the drag strip at Irwindale Speedway, or drive through the snow to see one of the “Fast & Furious” movies, and leave the street screaming to the professionals.