We have been hearing about Dodge's Last Call for the past few years. The carmaker has been working on the retirement of the HEMI and with it, of the Challenger and Charger. But the two of them are going down with a bang.
The Dodge Challenger and Charger have always had the reputation of troublemakers. They always had that overdose of attitude. Bad boy's looks and behavior, too. Dodge wants everyone to know that this really is the last chance.
The Hemi came to life back in the early 1950s. It roared to life under the hood of a Chrysler, promoted as the Chrysler FirePower. It was though marketed as the Hemi (not in capital letters back then!) because it featured a hemispherical combustion chamber.
Dodge's Hemi, however, was known as the Red Ram and came to life under the hood of the C Series in 1953. Then, the engine was upgraded for heavy-duty truck service and, called the PowerDome, it also found room in the Power Giant V8 between 1957 and 1959.
The Dodge Charger hit the market in 1966 with a street-legal 2G Hemi. Three years later, the then-all-new Challenger proved to be worthy of the almighty V8 as well.
The HEMI, now capitalized, has come a long way. In the third generation of the engine, the heads are flatter and more sophisticated than back in the Hemi V8's chamber.
Photo: Dodge | YouTube
Furthermore, the combustion chambers are not really hemispherical anymore. But the name lives on. Not for long, though, because Dodge is retiring the HEMI-powered Charger, the HEMI-powered Challenger, and… the HEMI-powered HEMI.
It is the last call for you to feel the one-of-a-kind power rumbling through your veins, Dodge says in the caption of an advertising video, which shows the Charger and the Challenger doing what they do best: burnouts, power slides, wheel screeching, and looking good while at it. The video goes online just hours after the Coffee and Cars organizers announced that the Ford Mustangs, Chevrolet Camaros, Dodge Chargers, and Challengers are permanently banned from the gatherings.
The Last Call models get the aluminum plaque that indicates their exclusivity, also showing the silhouette of the vehicle, the place where it was built, and a stamp that pays tribute to the final year of the muscle car production. The insane Scat Pack goes all the way to 670 horsepower for a run from 0 to 60 mph in 3.1. That means that even the Tesla Model 3 Performance can smoke it. Well, that’s a metaphor since we’re dealing with EVs here.
While the HEMI enthusiasts are still begging the carmaker not to ditch their beloved V8, complaining that no muscle car can be electric, Dodge has already unveiled the Charger Daytona zero-emission sports car with 496 horsepower.
Meanwhile, the versions powered by Stellantis’ Hurricane inline-six will have to do with 420 and 550 horsepower, respectively. If you’re not satisfied with how much oomph the new-generation not-HEMI-powered Chargers run, then listen to that Last Call.
Google News