The Charger and Challenger may have had their Last Calls in 2023, but something is up over at Dodge. The muscle cars may be getting a successor (hopefully!) if we are to take the post on the official social media channels for granted. A few spy-shot-style photos show us a dark knight rising, and it looks promising enough to rub shoulders with the legends.
“No cameras or recording devices permitted. Pre-production model shown. Available late 2024.” The equivoque in the post is too strong not to raise some questions, and the photos are too vague to provide the answers. Nonetheless, there are enough hints to leave the imagination roaming free – chief of which is the Fratzog emblem on the grille. If Dodge is bringing back the heritage coat of arms, they might as well put it on a worthy name.
The internet erupted with speculations over this two-door variant being the next Charger; if that were true, then hats off to Mother Mopar for putting the name back where it belongs – on a proper muscle car body. Yes, the styling cues are there: coke bottle, sloping roof, short deck, and all, but we’ve seen it before – a promise that either never made it into metal or came in a form so different from what was anticipated, it was hardly worth the wait.
From the almost dystopian photos shared by Dodge, we can’t tell whether this ‘preproduction model’ without any camo is an all-electric version or carries a bone-chilling ICE – but it seems that the former has the right of precedence. This is not what the devotees of the nameplate(s) are waiting for. How in the Hellcat would a silent Charger/Challenger sound?
Photo: Instagram/@dodgeofficial (edited)
Be that as it may, the sinister demeanor of the car in the photos is a serious pledge of allegiance to the Charger Daytona SRT EV concept car revealed in 2022. And that, in turn, was about as close as Dodge got to the fabled second-generation Charger design and spirit. After 18 years of the four-door muscle sedan, the nameplate may return to its roots. That is, if this car hinted at today will be a Charger at all.
Yes, there is a power bulge on the hood, but that’s not all cut and dry – maybe it’s just a design trick to cure nostalgia (and the inherent ‘electric vehicle’ blandness). Also, the message is almost cryptic: ‘No cameras or recording devices permitted.’
I can let my imagination run wild as a second-gen HEMI and translate the message in V8 verbiage. After all, with all the video cameras installed in today’s battery-only vehicles, could this riddle mean there won’t be any in this yet-unnamed car simply because it’s a hardcore, old-hearted take on an iconic genre?
The back photo of this grayed-out message barely reads ‘Daytona’ inscribed on the rear bumper – hence the Charger speculations – and word of mouth has it that there will be a combustion variant for a future Charger. Dodge refrained from clearly stating the nameplate’s fate, dropping the possibilities onto either face of the coin it hasn’t flipped yet.
After nearly two decades in news television, Răzvan turned to a different medium. He’s been a field journalist, a TV producer, and a seafarer but found that he feels right at home among petrolheads. Full profile
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