Many folks will lament the (potentially untimely) departure of the big, brawny, V8-powered Mopars – Dodge's Challenger muscle car and the Charger muscle sedan. But there's an easy alternative if you are willing to sacrifice a couple of seats.
Both of these Mopar representatives indeed have a massive cult following. After all, the Dodge Charger first appeared in 1966 and has seven generations under its belt, while the Dodge Challenger may only have three iterations on its spec sheet. Still, it's almost as old as its corporate cousin since it was officially introduced in 1970.
These days, though, all we can talk about is their retirement, as the models will soon end production, and fans will have to accept a potential switch to six-cylinder engines (though nothing is official yet) and the confirmed arrival of the series production EV model based on the Dodge Charger Daytona SRT concept. However, we said there was an alternative, right?
No, we are not talking either about the Chevy Camaro, which is biting the dust after the 2024 model year nor do we want to discuss the blasphemy of going to a Blue Oval dealership to acquire an S650 seventh-gen 2024 Ford Mustang. Instead, let's gauge the potential switch to a genuine sports car – the mid-engine C8 Chevy Corvette.
True, it's more expensive and only has room for two people inside instead of four or maybe five. But it also has the chops to hold its own when brawling with the mighty Hellcats. And there is no need to take our word for granted, as we have a quartet of eloquent examples to support our claim. So, the videographer behind the Wheels Plus channel on YouTube is a big fan of MRP in Canada and The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Mission Raceway Park in Mission, British Columbia, Canada, is known in the NHRA as 'Thunder by the River' and that's where a dark green Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody (presumably a Redeye) met a crimson-and-black C8 Chevy Corvette Stingray for a quick skirmish. Do note the differences – the C8 has at most 495 hp when sporting the Z51 package, and the Redeye rocks 797 hp out of the box.
And, yet, the Stingray almost kept level with the Charger, and they wrapped the race with minute differences – 12.43s for the Dodge and 12.77s for the C8. Not the absolute destruction that Mopar fans were waiting for, right? Next, we move to The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the meeting between a gray Challenger and a black Corvette, where the latter shames the former without the shadow of doubt: 12.55s (Corvette) versus 14.41s (Challenger).
Next, a crimson C8 meets a red-and-black Challenger SRT Hellcat, and the race is equally unbalanced as the Corvette driver manages a slightly better launch – the victory remains his even as the Dodge foe tries to recoup the difference: 12.23s versus 12.65s. Last but not least, we go back to MRP for the final skirmish, where a feisty-looking Charger with massive drag radials in the back aims for quarter-mile dragstrip glory against a black C8.
And you know what happened? Well, the aggressive-looking widebody Mopar ate the dust off the black 'Vette's exhaust as the driver completely botched the launch and turned into an unwilling spectator to the C8 Corvette's 12.34s pass! So, you see, the C8 is a great alternative, right?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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