Car Club Blog

We don’t think that we go too far in stating that the Audi R8 is a near-perfect supercar. It looks great, with the inimitable proportions of a mid-engine sports car topped off with Audi’s trademark styling language and attention to detail. Fit and finish are top-notch—and it’s comfortable enough to gobble hundreds of miles without ever wearing out the driver. Moreover, given the mid-mounted engine placement, it behaves in a forgiving and benign way. In fact, it feels so planted to the road that it could easily handle more than the 420 horsepower it serves up.

More Power? Yes, Please

This leads directly to the sole complaint we have about the R8—its relative lack of power in the exalted world of supercars. Even so, its acceleration is good, right up there with the Porsche 911 Carrera S, and it will cut through the lofty 300-km/h (186 mph) barrier, if barely. But other mid-engine cars like the R8’s Lamborghini Gallardo sibling or the Ferrari F430, are significantly faster. Even high-powered sedans and station wagons, such as the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG wagon, can out-accelerate the R8.

If there’s a power issue with an Audi, German enthusiasts have long known where to find the cure: at Roland Mayer’s MTM tuning house in Wettstetten, Bavaria, just a few kilometers down the road from Audi’s headquarters in Ingolstadt. Mayer is a former Audi engineer who took part in the development of the legendary first-generation Quattro. He founded MTM (Motoren Technik Mayer) in 1990 and has gained a reputation for offering a wide range of tuning options, from reprogramming turbo-diesels to extreme vehicles like the Bimoto, a first-generation Audi TT with two engines rated at over 500 horsepower each. That car has broken 244 mph at the Papenburg test track in northern Germany, and Mayer aims to go even beyond that.

Give It a Little More Air

Mayer’s cure for the R8: supercharge it. The MTM R8 Supercharged uses an intercooled, twin-screw Lysholm unit bolted onto Audi’s high-revving 4.2-liter FSI V-8. Operating with a maximum boost of 8 psi, it pushes horsepower from 420 horsepower at 7800 rpm to a claimed 560 at 7750. Maximum torque is improved from 317 lb-ft at 4500 rpm to 413 lb-ft at 5500 rpm.

The chassis and Quattro four-wheel-drive system, which favors sending power to the rear wheels, remain unchanged. But MTM offers 20-inch wheels, a high-performance braking system, and some aerodynamic enhancements, such as a front lip and a diffuser. It all looks quite sophisticated and could have been done by Audi itself. The interior is transformed with two carbon seats, padded with separate cushions. They look futuristic and are far more comfortable than we expected.

We drove the car on its home turf in Germany, and it will be available to U.S. customers via Hoppen Motorsport of Sarasota, Florida—although it must be said that Roland Mayer doesn’t expect a lot of U.S. takers.

The Chevrolet Corvette has more power than most people would ever want. For those who aren’t satisfied with the 430 horsepower found under the base Corvette’s long, shapely hood, though, the truly decadent 505-hp Corvette Z06 steps it up a big notch to become one of the most capable and quick sports cars on the planet. Still want more? In 2009, the Corvette ZR1 returns as the new so-called King of the Hill, with 638 horsepower and a $100,000 price tag.

Then there are those for whom even that won’t do. And for them, Pratt & Miller builds the C6RS.

“The C6RS is what a Corvette can become when not restricted by the requirements of assembly-line-based manufacturing,” says spokesman Brandon Widmer of Pratt & Miller Engineering and Fabrication, the outfit GM hired to build its enigmatically successful C5.S and C6.R race cars. That’s right, the same cars that have been pummeling the field in American Le Mans Series races for years, and the same cars that have clinched five class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. If anyone knows how to make a Corvette more exciting, it’s these guys.

The C6RS was born when Chevrolet approached Pratt & Miller to develop some Corvette accessories in February 2006. Soon, however, it became clear that a full upgrade package would require a complete reengineering. “With the C6RS, we analyzed every major component of the production Corvette, looking for opportunities to optimize design for performance, durability, quality, and aesthetics,” says Widmer.

The result is the stunning coupe seen here. After our first drive of the thrilling coupe at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch, we’d say that Pratt & Miller’s holistic efforts have paid off. The C6RS is a very refined, comprehensively modified, and extremely fast Corvette-based super-sports car. It clearly has the soul of a race car but is actually a fully finished, fully refined road car that would be impossible to replicate piece by piece. And at a price of about $260,000, it’s not one you’ll see every day.

C6.R-Inspired Styling

The C6RS is a stunning piece of sculpture. Every body panel except the roof, targa bar, decklid/backlight, and door skins have been replaced by unique, aerodynamically optimized carbon-fiber panels. “Many design cues come from the C6.R race car,” Widmer tells us, referencing the ‘“waterfall style” hood, the center-lock wheels, and the car’s most distinctive element, some four feet of front-fender louvers.

More carbon fiber can be found underlining every lower edge, jutting out from the chin spoiler, underneath the flared door sills, and across the whole rear end in the form of a wide air diffuser. The C6RS rides on a suspension lowered by 1.5 inches, so Pratt & Miller saw fit to incorporate a lift system to raise the car for steep driveway approaches, as well as drop the car an inch for a little bad-boy slam when parked at the local show-and-shine.

Certain aesthetics, such as the lights, are unchanged—a missed opportunity to impart some additional exotica, perhaps? But still others are altered, if only in subtle ways: The door pulls, for example, are filled in by a fraction of an inch; the fender ducts and the hood nostril are enlarged; the tacked-on Corvette flag icons front and rear are shaved to about half their thickness. A full-width rear lip spoiler spans the tail, looking better than the tacky black mini-lip on the Z06.

Look closely, and you’ll see a bit of C5 in the rear end. The reason is that the haunches stretch out farther laterally before dropping over the wheels, creating more of a slab-sided look, whereas the Z06 goes more for the flared-lip look. From behind, this makes for one massively wide derrière. A cool detail: The reverse lights are integrated into a thin LED strip just above the tailpipes.

Even without add-ons, base rates at most car rental companies are going up according to one expert’s data. “Rates are up substantially year over year,” car rental consultant Neil Abrams told The Detroit News.

Abrams Consulting Group, Inc. has created a travel rate index for rental cars based upon data collected weekly from eight rental car companies. Abrams concludes, “There is some variation depending on whether you’re renting on- or off-airport, and whether you’re looking for daily or weekly rentals, but in general prices are going up.”

Abrams notes that car rental fleets have shrunk from more than 2 million to 1.7 million cars over the last three years and that is part of the explanation for increased rental car prices.

“Car rental—exotic or otherwise—is an extremely competitive business with clients that are well informed about prices and alternatives,” says Ron Sturgeon, owner of a Dallas exotic car rental company.

“Smart operators should be looking for ways to set themselves apart from the competition by assuring a noticeably better rental experience. Southwest Airlines has thrived in an arena where profits are tough to achieve by devoting themselves to delivering a better travel experience. That is the path to staying profitable and earning customer loyalty and repeat business,” says Sturgeon.

Kate Miller-Wilson is a freelance writer living in the Twin Cities. Visit her website or email her for information about her freelance writing services.

Should you get on Jeopardy! here’s the likely question to the answer, “A very popular video game about racing”: What is Gran Turismo? Well, that’s one answer.

Gran turismo (or grand touring) is a term cooked up by car-crazy Italians ages ago to describe an automobile that could do it all. A GT combined the handling and high performance of a sports car with the ability to transport two grown-ups and their luggage in comfort across great distances. In the process, GTs also became synonymous with power and beauty, all the way back to the Alfa Romeo 8C-2900B coupes of the 1930s. Generally, GTs are front-engine because that way they have a usable trunk and good visibility. GTs are special, too, often the most glamorous cars their makers produce and among the most expensive.

Which brings us to the two cars you see here, the Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano and the ­Aston Martin DBS, both of which embody the modern meaning of GT.

The Aston Martin is the newer of these two vehicles. It was introduced at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance in August 2007 but didn’t go on sale in the U.S. until earlier this summer. The name pays homage to the crisply styled coupe from 1967, and it is, essentially, a more muscular, faster, and more expensive version of the DB9 that has been on sale since 2005.

Underpinning the DBS’s sleek lines is Aston’s so-called VH aluminum architecture that also provides the bare bones for the DB9 and the V-8 Vantage. A new cross-dashboard supporting beam, a front strut crossbrace, and solid mounting of the rear subframe are among the modifications to the structure. To reduce weight, the trunk enclosure and lid, the door-opening surrounds, the hood, and the front fenders are made from carbon fiber.

Compared with the DB9, the DBS’s track is 0.7 inch wider at the front and 0.8 inch at the rear, and the car sits 0.4 inch higher. Thanks to the use of the carbon-fiber panels and carbon-ceramic brakes, the DBS, at 3820 pounds, is 220 pounds lighter than the last DB9 we tested.

It’s somewhat more powerful, with 510 horsepower (versus 470 in the DB9). Aston has found 40 additional ponies from its 5.9-liter V-12 by fitting revised cylinder heads and a new intake manifold. Torque of 420 pound-feet is down by 23, peaking slightly higher, at 5750 rpm, although no fewer than 369 lb-ft are on hand from 2000 rpm. The power is transmitted via a rear-mounted six-speed Graziano manual transaxle, one of the options on the DB9.

The DBS has a control-arm suspension all around, but an adaptive damping system is unique to this car. It uses two separate valves that allow the shocks to have five different damping levels, determined by an electronic control unit reacting to throttle and brake-pedal position, steering-wheel angle, and vehicle speed. A special track mode locks the shocks in their firmest setting. The stability control also has been upgraded, with a competitive driving mode that allows some sideways action before the electronics intervene. The system also can be switched off completely. The carbon-ceramic brakes are a first for Aston Martin and are 15.7 inches in diameter up front, 14.2 inches out back (the same as the Ferrari’s).

The changes are costly, with the base price rising from $168,950 for a DB9 to a whopping $266,350 for a DBS. With Infa Red paint (specific to our test car) and an alarm upgrade, our tester stickered at $270,430.

The Ferrari 599GTB went on sale in the U.S. last spring as a replacement for the 550/575 series that had been in production since 1996. Ferrari has since sold about 500 599s. The base price is $318,045, although we suspect that most of them sticker for a lot more on the evidence of this optioned-out $385,419 tester. Items such as the $26,000 paint job, the $1776 Ferrari fender badges, and $12,547 of interior carbon-fiber trim must make the beancounters happy.

Like the DBS, the 599 has aluminum underpinnings and body panels and also features a hi-po, large-capacity V-12. In this case, the detuned Enzo unit displaces 6.0 liters, makes a solid 612 horsepower, and drives through Ferrari’s F1 SuperFast ­automated manual transmission.

Ferrari also resorts to electronics to balance the tricky equation between sports-car handling and the kind of ride comfort that will allow owners to use their cars as grand tourers. In this case, the 599 uses electromagnetic shocks, their calibration partly controlled by the manettino, a five-position rotary switch on the steering wheel that also governs shift speed and traction- and stability-control settings.

Over roads as diverse as L.A.’s clogged freeways to the nearly empty two-lanes that spear through the Anza-Borrego Desert, we wrung out both of these gorgeous machines. Here’s what we discovered.

The title says it all – the Supercar Club.

For those of us who don’t find the idea of owning and experiencing the depreciation of a supercar, there is hope at hand.

The team at the Supercar Club offer members a variety of cars to drive throughout the year, ranging from city runabouts like the HUMMER H2, right through to earth shaking supercars like the Ford GT. After paying a once off joining fee and an annual fee, members are entitled to a certain number of days behind the wheel of the exotics of their choice – the number of days varying with each membership level.

Sitting on the Supercar Club’s fleet at any given point are cars such as the Audi R8, Ferrari F430 and F430 Spider, one of only two right-hand drive Ford GTs in the world, Aston Martin V8 Vantage and DB9, Porsche 911 Turbo and GT2, Lotus Exige S and even an Aerial Atom - amongst others.

This unique program runs out of Melbourne, Sydney and the Gold Coast. The Supercar Club has plans to expand to Perth by years end and Adelaide early next year (2009).

Members book their desired vehicles through an online portion of the Supercar Club’s website which gives priority to early birds. Members have the ability to book 30-days in advance and have the ability to use a limited number of wildcards to book cars up to 12-months in advance for special occasions.

Although you may have heard of many exotic car rental companies operating throughout Australia, but the Supercar Club is unique as it owns every car on its fleet. Those exotic car rental companies generally rent out privately owned cars and can’t guarantee availability as the actual owner of the vehicle has the final say.

The Supercar Club recently launched an initiative allowing Australian members to own a share of a truly exclusive hypercar – the Bugatti Veyron. This exclusive experience is still in the development stage and will finally depend on a minimum number of acceptances.

The idea behind the Bugatti deal is to allow Australian members time behind the wheel of the Veyron. Although the car can’t be driven on Australian roads, members will be given the opportunity to access about one month in total behind the wheel overseas. After driving the Bugatti Veyron myself earlier this year, there is simply nothing that compares in terms of the driving experience and pleasure.

Once the car is sold at the end of its use, members receive a return on their investment – certainly not too bad for a person with around $200,000 in expendable income.

After joining the Supercar Club, members are put through a driving course to help them cope with the size and driveability of a supercar. One of the club’s major repair costs comes from scratched wheels – no wrecked cars to speak of yet, touch wood!

Also on the cards are track days at major racing circuits with the club’s cars. These days will give members a unique opportunity to throw some exotic machinery around the race track in an environment where they can exploit the cars full potential. Instead of owning just the one vehicle and taking it to track days, members will be able to drive a whole range of supercars under controlled conditions.

Some manufacturers were initially threatened by the Supercar Club’s presence in Australia, but soon realised it was a benefit rather than a detriment. Members are able to sample a wide variety of cars and will likely purchase the car that really polarises them. After driving machinery like the Audi S5 and several Lamborghinis, it takes a proper drive to cement the decision to purchase such a car.

A cap of five members to one car means that new cars are added frequently to meet member demands. Prospective members will be happy to hear that it’s a democracy at the Supercar Club. Members are given the chance to vote at frequent meetings and share the decision about the next vehicles entering the fleet.

Members are the ones who ultimately choose the car they’re after, opposed to the big wigs and bean counters of the operation.

According to the Supercar Club, New South Wales members are around 39-years old, on average,  and evenly split between business owners and employees. Victoria is somewhat different though with the average age lingering around 47-years old, while about 97 per cent run their own business, indicating entrepreneurial skills are directly related to hot cars … sort of!

Although the general income of members is in the vicinity of $300,000 a year, there is a high school teacher who has recently joined the exclusive club. It’s certainly not a bad way to con students into school work!

Boys, if you have access to your Dad’s black Amex, pop it back in his wallet. The minimum joining age is 30 – although the Supercar Club is willing to make exceptions after prior approval from their insurers.

The most popular cars on the fleet are the Ferrari F430, Ferrari 360, Audi R8 and Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. Victoria is also hung on Aston Martins, with the V8 Vantage and DB9 Volante striking a chord with southern state members. With the recent addition of a Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera, this could soon change!

The general feel of the place is that members are key and are treated with the utmost respect. In the Supercar Club it doesn’t matter how much you earn or who you are, or even whether you are part of a chess club. Everyone is on the same level and shares the one passion – fast cars.

Automobile enthusiasts…gather round. How does this sound?

Monday: Drive a Corvette ZO6 to work.
Tuesday: Hop in a Viper SRT and go shopping at Town Square.
Wednesday: Cruise out to Lake Mead in a Lamborghini Gallardo and tour Valley of Fire.
Thursday: Chill out in a Ferrari 360 Spyder.
Friday: Big night planned out on the town? Enjoy it in a Rolls Royce Phantom.
Saturday: For a fun day touring the Strip, hop in the Ford GT.
Sunday: How about brunching with 12 friends in a Mercedes Benz Party Van?

http://www.lvrj.com/luxury/22783319.html

This scenario can happen now that Fantasy Car Share has opened its doors. The brainchild of Bill Paul and Dan Wehr, Fantasy Car Share offers a stable of exotic and ultra cars available to its members. Paul is an entrepreneur and past owner of Aero Flight Services in Ventura, Calif., and the Academy of Healing Arts here in Las Vegas. He met Wehr at the gym, where Wehr worked. At the time, Wehr was vice president of sales and marketing of 24-Hour Fitness. He saw the enterprise grow to 360 stores nationwide until he retired in 2006.

An article in Fortune magazine touting the growth of luxury rentals, such as homes and vacations sparked the idea for Fantasy Car Share. After finding a location near the airport, gathering the inventory of automobiles and acquiring all the necessary permits, the business opened in March. “We wanted this to be much more than just a rental business,” said Paul. “What we’ve developed is a country club lifestyle for auto lovers.”

The concept is a private membership for enthusiasts of luxury cars. But it’s really much more than that. After a modest enrollment fee, an annual membership fee and monthly dues, the investment for the entry-level position is approximately $12,000. Members can then choose to upgrade to one of three higher levels of participation with different groups of cars offered at each level.

The entry level or SportsLux membership features Corvettes, Lotuses, Mercedes Benzes and Porsches. Next is the Exotic membership. This portion features all of the SportLux autos, plus choices that include an Aston Martin, a Bentley Continental GT, a Lamborghini Gallardo, or a Maserati Quattroporte. The Ultra category has a Rolls Royce Phantom, a Bentley Azure, an Aston Martin Vanquish and the wild Ford GT to choose from. Finally, the Corporate Membership has privileges for four drivers in the Ultra category.

In addition to a world-class fleet of cars, members have access to The Club, located on Dean Martin Drive close to the airport. The Club emphasizes the social aspect of a country club. The clubhouse features a state-of-the-art HDTV bank of televisions with a premier surround sound system to enjoy sporting events and specials. Pool tables, poker tables and themed special events are in the mix, as well. Beverages are available, as many members bring their clients to the facility to tour the automobiles and enjoy the facilities. Off campus events are also included, such as outings to the Spring Mountain Raceway in Pahrump. And don’t forget about the Five Star World Class Concierge Service available at Fantasy Car Share.

www.dfwelitecarclub.com has been in busness for over a year now in  Dallas/ Fort Worth Texas, with one of the largest fleets of luxury and exotic vehicles around.

New York (Reuters Life!) - Legal speed limits on the roadways in the northeastern United States top out at about 65 mph (105 km/h). The top speed of a Lamborghini is about 200 mph (332 km/h).

Lamborghini owners, and those who own Ferraris, Porsches and Bugattis, will have a place to let the throttle out starting on Sunday when the Monticello Motor Club opens.

The private motoring club is north of New York City, about 90 minutes away under the state’s legal speed limit, and is aimed at those with a passion for driving exotic automobiles.

“This is built for the drivers. It is not meant for the spectators,” said Ari Straus, chief operating officer of the club. Straus prefers to drive a Lotus.

Members, who on average own at least five exotic cars according to Straus, will be able to store their vehicles at the club. The club will also have a fleet of exotics for rent in case members want to try on something different.

And after a grueling day whipping around the 22 turns on the 4.1 mile track, they can relax at a spa and dine at the club’s restaurant before heading back home via car or helicopter. The club, built on the grounds of an old airport, has a helipad.

Demand has been so great, Straus said, that the club has been able to raise its initiation fee to $125,000 from $100,000

5. 2008 Audi A5

Saab and Porsche popularized the twisted-spoke aesthetic, and Audi makes it its own with the opposing push/pull propeller look. Cast in aluminum, these wheels provide the illusion of fairly thin spokes, visually lightening the stylish, solid-looking A5. Movement implied in the spokes is an echo of the A5’s fluid, dynamic lines. Each pair of fan blades actually comprises one solid, beefy spoke, allowing these none-too-light wheels to carry their share of the nearly two-ton A5.

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4. 2008 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1

The most exotic factory Corvette ever to scorch pavement rides on equally exotic wheels. The ZR1 wears aluminum rollers, 19 inches in diameter in the front and 20 inches in the rear; the latter are also a foot wide. Such giant wheels are necessary to house platter-sized carbon-ceramic rotors 15.5 inches in diameter in the front, very similar to those on the Bugatti Veyron; the rears were plucked from the front of a Ferrari Enzo. One of the few available options on the ZR1 is chrome plating for the wheels, a $2000 flag to be flown by weenies proving they’re undeserving of such a vehicle, as chrome plating adds weight.

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3. 2008 Audi R8

The R8’s nontraditional form took the design world by storm, and what fuels its popularity is honesty, not obfuscation and “flame sculpting” rubbish. Functional simplicity defines the R8’s split-spoke aluminum wheels. Generous airspace between spokes highlights the R8’s huge, eight-piston calipers and cross-drilled rotors in the front and four-piston calipers in the rear. The bow of the spokes adds strength and accentuates width, the measurement associated with fat tires, supercars, and other stuff that makes hearts of the automotively inclined go pitter-patter.

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2. 2008 Alfa Romeo 8C

The 20-inch rotelle on Alfa Romeo’s jaw-dropping 8C are like bespoke cufflinks on a tailored shirt—they bring a little bling and serve to highlight what they’re attached to. Although the wheels might be heavy-looking, they are made from forged aluminum and so are decently light for their size. In a design age of hard lines and crisp transitions, the 8C is a sexy, curvy delight, and its wheels—essentially five “Cs” radiating out from the hub—expand on this philosophy.

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1. 2008 Ferrari 430 Scuderia

To make the F430 (currently the “cheapest” sled from Maranello) capable of lapping Fiorano as fast as an Enzo, Ferrari transformed it into the 430 Scuderia. The power-to-weight ratio was shifted around by adding 20 ponies and pulling out pounds, about 220 of them. Unsprung weight was attacked by installing carbon-ceramic brake rotors and lightweight 19-inch wheels. There’s no fat to trim off this wheel style, similar to that of the wheels on the Porsche GT3, and the gold color helps paint a realistic picture of the car’s quarter-million-dollar price

So here it is, the third and final entry in the 21st-century pony-car-revival derby. Get your bets down early because we don’t expect to see any more resurrections of famous makes from the galloping go-go Sixties—Barracuda, Firebird, Javelin, et al.—and even gloomier, we think it likely that, given fuel prices and other concerns, this revival is likely to lack the fervor and duration of the original movement.

The first production version of the new Camaro we’ve seen and touched is this yellow car displayed in our gallery. “Touched” includes sitting in, briefly, but did not include driving. And “production” means production sheetmetal but not a showroom-ready car. That happens much later. New Camaros will appear in Chevy dealerships in March, arriving as 2010 models. Convertibles (softtops, no folding hardtop) are due about a year later.

While we have not had our first Camaro driving experience, here’s what we know. Like rival offerings from Ford and, more recently, Dodge, the latest Camaro was inspired by one from the golden age, specifically the 1969 SS model owned by GM design chief Ed Welburn. However, unlike the other revivalist ponies, Chevy’s isn’t a slavish stylistic rerun of the original. Like the Camaro concept that appeared at the 2006 Detroit show—all but identical to it, in fact—Chevy’s neo-retro approach, brought to production readiness under the supervision of Tom Peters, adds plenty of fresh touches, most notably the front end and the dramatic fender creases and character lines, touches that had die-makers tearing their hair and muttering dark curses.

“Those shoulders at the rear have the deepest one-piece stamping we’ve ever done,” says Al Oppenheiser, chief vehicle engineer on the project. “It took us 10 or 12 iterations to get it right.”

This is a much bigger coupe than Welburn’s ’69 SS, and it’s bigger than the current Mustang, though the Dodge Challenger, riding a slightly abbreviated Charger sedan platform, dwarfs them both. Like the Challenger, the Camaro has some sedan in its structural résumé, too, elements of the Zeta I platform developed by Holden, in Australia, that give the Pontiac G8 its eager road responses. But there’s enough difference in the Camaro version—shorter wheelbase and stiffer overall, particularly from the A-pillar forward—to justify a Zeta II designation.

At 112.3 inches, the Camaro’s wheelbase is 2.5 inches shorter than that of the G8, and overall length is 6.5 inches shorter than the Pontiac from Oz. Also, the Camaro team moved the front wheels forward 3.0 inches (part of the Zeta II program), and the coupe’s 63.7-inch front track is an inch wider than the G8’s, as is its overall width—at 75.5 inches, it’s a smidge narrower than the otherwise much bigger Challenger.

Like the G8, the Camaro uses struts up front and a multilink arrangement at the rear. However, the engine rides an inch further toward the front, and the steering rack sits ahead of the front axle. Chevy will offer 18-, 19-, and 20-inch wheel choices for the Camaro, but the tires that wrap these rims will share a common rolling diameter—28.7 inches. This touch, new for a GM car, keeps the wheel wells nicely filled and also makes for simple speedometer calibration.

It’s been almost four decades since we’ve seen a new Dodge Challenger, and in the intervening years there have been a few changes. Okay, if you want to be picky, the last car to be called a Challenger disappeared from the Dodge lineup in 1983. However, that Challenger, introduced in 1978, was an anemic little four-banger made by Mitsubishi, capable of 0-to-60 mph in 13.6 seconds and the quarter-mile in 19.1 at 71 mph. That kind of performance might challenge guys on skateboards, but it looked pretty pathetic compared with real Challengers, such as the one we’d tested eight years earlier.

Like the new SRT8, the visiting 1970 Challenger had a Hemi V-8, the original bad-boy 426, rated at 425 horsepower and 490 pound-feet of torque, despite insurance-company flak. The Hemi and the less-powerful 440 Challengers were no lightweights—our test car weighed 3890 pounds, 58.9 percent of it on the front wheels—but when the driver opened all the holes in the dual-quad carbs, it could get enough traction from its Goodyear Polyglas rear tires to cover the quarter-mile in 14.1 seconds at 103.2 mph.

The Hemi option was gone by 1972, and by 1974, the last year there were real Challengers in the Chrysler catalog, the hottest engine you could get was a 245-hp, 5.9-
liter V-8. The ersatz Mitsubishi Challengers showed up in 1978.

That brings us to now, and we mentioned changes. Most are predictable because the rides we revered during the golden years of the muscle-and-pony-car show are essentially antiques by contemporary standards. Sure, there was horsepower galore, but it propelled cars with brakes that faded quicker than a one-night romance, steering as vague as campaign promises, and tires with all the grip of a hog sprinting on a hockey rink.

Like any contemporary performance car, the SRT8 Challenger is infinitely more competent in all dynamic areas than its ancient ancestor. But there’s one change versus the original Challenger that’s subliminal: Its timing versus the competition.

In November 1969, we reported that the Challenger, a response to the Mustang phenomenon, was “easily three years too late” and, further, that “Chrysler doesn’t do anything first.” Surprise: The latter-day Challenger will be in showrooms by the end of April, at least four months before the reincarnation of the Chevy Camaro, a developmental drag race that began when the two cars appeared as 2006 Detroit auto-show concepts.

“We wanted to be first,” says Erich Heuschele, SRT manager of vehicle development. “But our big surprise was coming out with the performance version first. We figured no one would expect us to do that.”

To be fair to Chevy, Chrysler didn’t have as far to go with its retro project. GM had to wait for a new platform from Holden, its Australian division. The Chrysler engineers only had to get out their heliarcs and shorten the LX platform (Dodge Charger, Chrysler 300), subtract a couple doors, and integrate the new sheetmetal. Oversimplification? Maybe, but Heuschele says development cars were rolling not long after the curtain came down on the ’06 show.

“We made some short-wheelbase mules from Chargers,” he says. “We essentially chopped ’em in half, made custom short doors, shortened the body, painted the Brembo calipers black, and we’ve been driving ’em around for almost a year and a half.

“You could tell what they were if you looked close. The rear windows were smaller, and they were Lexan. But hardly anyone noticed.”

Besides public roads, “driving ’em around” included a 24-hour durability run at the Nelson Ledges road-racing course last spring.

“We passed with flying colors,” says Heuschele. “All we had to change were tires and brakes.”