Dodge Charger SRT

You may recall that a few months back we ran the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat as a cover feature and waxed lyrical about how the SRT team had pulled off one of the best feats of driver oriented engineering ever. We did go on a bit but it was with good reason because not only does it fly in the face of the general penchant by manufacturers to downsize and sip fuel, it does so with all the grace of a charging rhino strapped to the business end of a stagecoach. Overkill? Absolutely, but in this age of finely crafted walnut crackers, sometimes it’s just nice to haul out a sledgehammer and obliterate the thing for the hell of it.

It didn't take much crystal ball gazing to predict the Hellcat engine would appear in another suit. Chrysler had filed papers with the Society of Automotive Engineers indicating it was looking at introducing the engine to the Charger. Then the spy shots arrived. And then, around the time we ran that Challenger cover (September 2014), Dodge confirmed that the 2015 Charger SRT Hellcat would become a living and fire breathing reality.

And so it is. We’re assembled, Top Gun briefing style, in an enormous aircraft hangar in the bowels of Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan airport to take part in the simultaneous launch of nine versions of the Charger, including the weapons grade Hellcat. There are six of the nine spread out in front of us, but it’s the scary looking red one with the angry feline emblem on the side that seems to be hogging the attention.

In the interests of balance, the Charger also comes with a choice of four engines (3.6-litre V-6; 5.7-, 6.2- and 6.4-litre V-8), rear or all-wheel drive, and no shortage of trim and package options to add to each. The only thing you don’t get a choice in is what sort of transmission you get. All models are fitted with the TorqueFlite 8HP90 eight-speed automatic transmission, and while it’s technically feasible to fit the same six-speed manual Dodge mates to the Challenger SRT Hellcat, company technical chief Steve Williams says the business case just isn’t there for a manual Charger.

“It’s unfortunate because it would be a great addition, and the Challenger with the manual is a great car. The floor pan is different enough between the Challenger and this for it to be a problem. It’s physically doable but the business model just isn't there. In the Challenger, that's around 40 percent - but the Charger is even less. It’s too bad. It would be quite something,” he said.

The 2015 Charger’s sheet metal is almost entirely new too; the only panels untouched by the designer’s pen are the rear doors and roof. Much was done, says Dodge, to reduce the visual hugeness of all Charger models, starting with trimming the corners of the bumpers, dropping the height of the nose, and elongating the C-pillars. Both Hellcat and 392 models wear an SRT-specific snout that looks menacing and clean, as well as a wide rear bumper with outboard air extractors, a diffuser, and dual four-inch exhaust tips. The interior, likewise, is graced with upgrades that take it further upscale, and SRT models include a meaty, flat-bottom steering wheel and thick, supportive front thrones.

Surprisingly, given the major changes to the sheet metal, the car’s chassis was largely untouched.

“The 2011 car was changed a lot, so we’ve kept that and concentrated on NVH (noise, vibration and harshness). Base geometry is the same, but the driveline is where we made the real changes. It’s a similar set up to the Challenger which helps to get weight out of it, but also addresses the NVH ,” Williams told us.

A large hangar is, as it turns out, a fairly decent place to start up and parp the throttle on the SRT 392 V-8. We could have plumped for a Hellcat first, but there will be time for that when we get to Summit Point Raceway in Virginia and, if the launch of the Challenger was anything to go by, more than a chance to two to stretch the big kitty’s legs. The 392’s exhaust barks and cackles with the sort of noise that makes the hairs on your forearms stand to attention. Anything that sounds this good can’t really be considered a poor relation now, can it?

Fiddling with the SRT Performance Pages functions on the centre-stack screen allowed us to add weight to the steering, which was good for self-centring and muscle-building but not much else. We also dialed up the firmness of the Bilstein shocks; the Sport mode provides a little better connection to the road but the Track mode is rather too stiff for the street.

Powertrain behavior is also adjustable. It ranges from perfectly benign in Street mode to revvy, snappy, and tail-happy in Track mode. The latter ups throttle sensitivity, delivers near-instantaneous upshifts and rev-matched downshifts from the eight-speed automatic (it replaces last year’s five-speed auto), and activates very liberal stability-control parameters. Oh yeah, and it unleashes the exhaust note from hell. Or Hellcat, more accurately: The Charger SRT 392 and Hellcat share a straight-through exhaust system with electronically variable valves and an exclusive mid-muffler to give a slightly more refined sound inside the cabin than their Challenger counterparts. Dodge says there’s no impact to performance, since the back pressure is the same. And we can say the Charger is still wonderfully loud at full tilt. The SRT 392 quiets down sufficiently when cruising, but that rimshot ricochet is merely a light squeeze of the throttle away.

Also shared with the Hellcat are the SRT 392’s eyeball ejecting brakes, which include new six piston front Brembo calipers pinching 15.4-inch discs, up from four piston calipers on 14.2-inch rotors on the ’14 model. The rears remain four piston Brembo calipers with 13.8-inch discs.

With traction fully off , the car will lay a set of lines as soon as you bury the throttle at the lights, but you need to keep your right foot committed because any slight hesitation will bring the traction back into play. But the big surprise is that the Charger remains a civil and obedient road machine. Yes, it’s fast, and yes, it’ll give those who think they like to drift a little play time, but it’s really a machine that will get you from point to point with a lot of attitude. The Hellcat may cast a long shadow, but the SRT 392 is, in many ways, all the muscle you could ever want.

Thankfully, our sojourn through the staggering Virginia countryside remains free from the intervention of the law, and we arrive at Summit Point with licenses still intact.

ON THE TRACK
From the outset, we knew that the SRT had zero chance of out-thrilling the ungodly Hellcat, but that didn't stop it from being a hoot. Flat out on the front straight, the speedometer registered 213 km/h not quite the 234 km/h or so we saw in the Hellcat but still spectacularly fast for a car of this size. More remarkable was how little daylight exists between the SRT 392 and the Hellcat in terms of ultimate grip and steering feel. This latter point is notable, given that the 392’s steering is electrically boosted versus the Hellcat’s hydraulic setup. Some credit must be given to the aggressive Track mode and the grippy three-season 275/40R-20 Pirelli P Zeros worn by our test car.


The Hellcat’s strength, unsurprisingly, comes from that bonkers engine which is able to punch the Charger’s over two tonnes towards the next corner with consummate ease. Where the SRT 392 rewards an aggressive throttle foot, the Hellcat needs a bit more finesse as you roll on the power. The rear will spin up if you’re not careful, though there are nanny-state electronics ticking away in the background, even in Track mode, to help you should you not read the signs.

The Hellcat’s potency is clear from the off. We’re told to take it easy out of the pits, then to mash the throttle once we’re out on track which simply lights up the rears in almost every gear. It simply builds and carries more speed along the straights and into corners that the SRT 392. Without a requisite bump in traction, you need to be harder on the brakes to shed speed into slower bends, and on tighter circuits, the Hellcat would have trouble shaking a SRT 392. But it is insane. The supercharger whine and roar from the exhaust under full load is relentless, and the pop and burble under braking sounds like a thousand bicycles riding over bubble wrap.

Three laps with only one flying lap isn’t enough to bed yourself in or assess a car’s performance longevity, and our instructors have been overly cautious with braking distances into Summit Park Raceway’s first corner. They’ve insisted we stand on the brakes at the 500 metre board into turn one, but it’s too soon, and we’re far too slow into the bend to log anything near half decent as a lap time. Even at the 400 m board, the Hellcat has enough space to calmly bring itself down to speed for the opening hairpin.

Third time through, it’s clear why. The brakes lose their initial bite, and it takes all of the 500 m to bring the car from 234 km/h to 65 km/h for turn in. If you’re going to spend any time on a track, even the brakes on the mighty Hellcat will need to be looked at. It’s little signs like this that help remind you that despite the car’s performance and on-road prowess, it’s still a two tonne full-size sedan limited by physics and governed by grip. It’s marginally heavier than the car it replaces which itself was no dainty petunia. The front-to-rear weight distribution is a more neutral 54/46 versus 56/44 for the Hellcat, though, yielding slightly better balance.

The lack of a manual is a real issue for performance car nuts. We may be part of a dying breed but it’s an important consideration for many drivers who need a pair of rear doors and who still know what that third pedal does. The six-speed fitted to the Challenger SRT Hellcat is smooth, evenly spaced and easy to engage and so too is its SRT 392 equivalent. The only way you’re going to get your manual kicks in a Hellcat is by sacrificing that need for rear seat access. That will help drive some customers towards the Challenger, but it’s not a huge number.

Though it pains us to say it, the SRT 392 is the smarter choice of the two. The 707 horsepower Hellcat is incredible and, faced with both in the showroom, it’d be difficult to settle on the one with only 485 horsepower but it’s an easier car to live with on a daily basis, and a better proposition for families who need a fast four-door sedan.

On paper, there’s an enormous gap between the two in terms of performance but this, in the main, is simply bragging rights. In reality, you’ll only ever use a fraction of the car’s ultimate performance on a daily basis, and only ever tickle the upper reaches of that on very rare occasions while on track. The Charger simply needs too much room to safely do that on the road.

If you absolutely need to smash that automotive performance walnut, then the Hellcat is your hammer. We’d take more precise, slightly smaller one to do the same job, but either will do. Though prices for the region have yet to be announced, we’d wager there’s not much else in this category that comes close to the performance and value for money the Charger SRT 392, or even the bonkers Hellcat represents.

SPECIFICATIONS
VEHICLE TYPE:front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
BASE PRICE : $TBA
ENGINE TYPE:supercharged pushrod 16-valve V-8, iron block and aluminium heads, port fuel injection.
DISPLACEMENT : 6166 cc
POWER : 707 hp @ 6000 rpm
TORQUE  : 881 Nm @ 4800 rpm
TRANSMISSION:8-speed automatic with manual shift control
DIMENSIONS
WHEELBASE : 3058 mm
LENGTH : 5100 mm
WIDTH :  1905 mm
HEIGHT : 1480 mm
CURB WEIGHT : 2075 kg

PERFORMANCE
ZERO TO 100km/h : 4.3 sec
STANDING 1/4-MILE:  9.8 sec
TOP SPEED :  160 km/h
FUEL ECONOMY
COMBINED CYCLE:  not stated