Why The Dodge Charger EV Deserves The Muscle Car Title (2024)

Jan. 27, 2024 11:16 AM ET by Gerhard Horn Opinion / 34 Comments

The next-generation fully electric Dodge Charger is currently undergoing real-world testing, and our coverage on the topic has raised an excellent question. Can an electric vehicle like the Charger Daytona SRT Concept ever be considered a muscle car? Before we jump into that, we first need to run through a basic linguistics lesson, but the reason for this will become clear soon enough.

According to the comments section on our website, roughly 90% of people believe that you shouldn't be allowed to use "electric" and "muscle car" in the same sentence, so we thought we'd take a closer look at the traditional definition of a muscle car and how said definition has evolved over the years to make room to include a wider variety of models.

According to Merriam-Webster, a muscle car is "any of a group of American-made two-door sports coupes with powerful engines designed for high-performance driving."

Why use the dictionary definition of a muscle car? Well, they're the experts when it comes to words. A dictionary doesn't just give you a definition of a word but also its pronunciation, function, syntactic and idiomatic uses, and, crucially, the etymology.

The latter is the study of the evolution of words because language is not static. It's constantly growing, and a prime example is the list of new words added to the dictionary every month.

Merriam-Webster (America's oldest and most trusted dictionary) added 690 new words in September 2023. It was the biggest update of the year, and new additions included rizz, doggo, padawan, bussin', mid, generative AI, tiny house, nerf, rage quit, 'grammable, smash, meme stock, and girlboss.

As you can tell, most of the words above were gifted to us by Gen-Z, but before you freak out, just remember that the dictionary did the same while you were growing up. You can either be grumpy about it or add these lovely words to your language garden and let them grow.

But back to the definition mentioned earlier because I'm going to use it to discredit some of the muscliest muscle cars in existence.

If ever there was a poster child for the modern muscle car, this is it. The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 is powered by a 6.2-liter V8 producing 1,205 horsepower, which is enough for a 9.39-second quarter-mile run. We'll stick to quarter-mile runs for this article because 0-60 mph times are irrelevant and meaningless.

The final Dodge Challenger recently rolled off the assembly floor, and the American brand timed it perfectly so the last model would be a pitch-black Demon 170. What a way to say goodbye to a muscle car icon that will only continue to increase in value in the coming years.

Unfortunately, the Demon 170 is not a muscle car. Sorry, folks. In order to qualify, a muscle car has to be American-made, and Stellantis produced the 300C (also considered a muscle car), Dodge Charger (definitely a muscle car in SRT Hellcat trim), and the Dodge Challenger at the Brampton Assembly Plant, located in Ontario, Canada.

Canada is widely known for not being in the USA, so by definition, it's not a muscle car.

Surely, this has to count as a muscle car? A standard SRT Hellcat's supercharged V8 produces 717 hp, increasing to 797 hp if you opt for the Redeye. Buy a Redeye Jailbreak, and you get 802 horses, which is enough to remove the treat on the rear tires in mere minutes.

Sorry, but no. The Charger SRT Hellcat is disqualified because it was built in Canada and because has more than two doors. The same goes for the final run of Chrysler 300Cs. This particular model was meant to be the final Chrysler muscle car, equipped with a naturally aspirated 6.4-liter Hemi V8 good for 485 hop and 475 lb-ft of torque.

People scrambled to get an allocation for this limited-run model because it would be Chrysler's final muscle car.

What a pity that it isn't worthy according to the definition.

Yup, this one doesn't qualify either. It was made in Canada, so it's a no-go. However, its failure to meet the criteria goes beyond its country of origin because the definition also mentions high-performance driving. The standard R/T is equipped with an archaic 5.7-liter naturally-aspirated Hemi V8 that produces 375 hp.

Having less than 400 hp on tap is already disappointing (the Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 is now available stateside in S version, with 416 hp from a turbo four-cylinder), as are the independently tested quarter-mile times, which are between 13.2 and 13.6 seconds. Let's compare that with a car with half the cylinder count that sends all of its power to the front wheels only. Independent tests have shown that the Honda Civic Type R can complete a quarter-mile in 13.5 seconds.

By now, you're probably really upset with the 800 words above. I'm right there with you, but I did it to prove a point. See how easy it is to rule out three muscle car icons by rigidly sticking to definition rules?

I don't agree that muscle cars must be American-made. European brands have made some stunning muscle cars, including the Jensen Interceptor, Ford Capri, and every naturally aspirated V8, supercharged, or twin-turbocharged V8 Mercedes-AMG ever made. The W204 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG was basically a compact luxury sedan bolted to a 6.2-liter V8. And let's not forget about the AMG Hammer, built only for straight-line speed.

My favorite European muscle car is the Aston Martin Vantage V550, made from 1993 to 2000. This two-door coupe had a twin-turbo 5.3-liter V8, producing 550 hp and 555 lb-ft of torque.

The primary source of contention appears to be noise and the lack of a V8 engine. Let's put the V8 myth to bed first. There are multiple examples of famous six-cylinder muscle cars. The best example is the Buick GNX, built to be a swansong for the Grand National. Instead of a V8, Buick opted for a turbocharged 3.8-liter V6. It produced 300 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque, which doesn't sound like much right now, but how does it stack up against other muscle cars built in 1987?

The 1987 Ford Mustang 5.0-liter V8 produces 225 hp at the most, while the Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z's 5.0 produced ten fewer horses.

In Europe, the most famous six-cylinder muscle car was the Mercedes-Benz C 32 AMG. It had a 3.2-liter supercharged V6 that produced 349 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque. It was sold from 2000 to 2004, and Merc replaced it with the C55, which had a 5.5-liter naturally aspirated V8 with 362 hp and 380 lb-ft. Despite the power increase, the latter was no faster than the six-cylinder model.

It is worth noting that more than two-thirds of 2024 Mustang owners opted for the Coyote V8, so there's no denying the idea of an eight-cylinder engine is still deeply ingrained in muscle car culture.

This brings us to sound. I'm willing to admit that it plays a significant role in not just muscle cars but enthusiast vehicles in general. There is no easy solution for this because an electric motor doesn't make any noise, or does it? There's a widespread misconception that the noise made by the upcoming Challenger EV will be fake noise pumped out via a speaker.

The Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust is effectively a pipe organ. It amplifies the natural sounds made by an electric motor. It's not fake but rather an exaggeration of the sounds an electric motor makes. Dodge has also revealed that it can be tuned to produce different kinds of sounds, which it proved when the updated concept made a much angrier sound at a show in February 2022.

It's a decent sound. It is not up there with the Hellcat engine, but it is better than some of the more muted turbocharged V8s that have recently come out of Europe.

Muscle cars are built to go fast in a straight line, though manufacturers have started focusing more on handling in recent years. The Shelby Mustang GT350, GT500, and Mustang Dark Horse are prime examples. The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 also deserves a special mention.

For the most part, muscle cars are still about traffic light races and quarter-mile times. That's the primary metric we love to throw around in bar discussions (Why don't we use a decibel figure since the V8 is so important?). By now, you've seen electric cars in action on a drag strip. The Tesla Model S Plaid beats everything, including the Demon 170.

From what we've learned over the past few months, the Challenger likely won't debut with 1,000+ horsepower. The highest we know of is 900 hp, but we know Stellantis already has the technology to build a 1,000-hp car.

Dodge will want to come out of the gates swinging, and its primary target will be the Demon 170. It needs to beat the ultimate ICE car for people to sit up and take notice. Even if the new Challenger beats the Demon, there will still be a large crowd of people who will continue saying that an EV can't possibly be fun. "There's no emotion involved, so driving can't be enjoyable," they say. I had to clean up the language, but you get the gist.

Emotion when driving a car comes from more than just a sound. It comes from a sense of connection. You can have the sweetest sounding engine in existence, but if you're sat too high in the cabin, the steering is early Hyundai EPAS that feels like it's not connected to front wheels at all, and the seats provide no support when you go around a corner, you're going to feel so disconnected that you hate the experience. Conversely, some cars drive phenomenally yet have an entirely uninspiring exhaust note. Does that make the rest of the package any less appealing? Of course not.

Sound is a factor, I totally agree, but it's not the only one to consider. 90% of combustion cars are dull as dishwater to drive. They're appliances, in the same way as a tumble dryer is, but at least the tumble dryer leaves something warm and fuzzy when it's done its job.

True emotion comes from a car feeling like an extension of yourself, when it responds to your inputs in the exact fashion you wanted it to. Have you ever watched Chris Harris four-wheel drifting a Rimac Nevera? Tell me the joy on his face was false emotion; I dare you.

Need another example that's closer to home? Everyone who's driven the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N has come away raving that it's the most engaging EV driving experience ever.

Without having an abundance of power to work with, Hyundai had to resort to half a dozen other tricks and tactics to formulate that engagement, creating something that ultimately relies on its flaws to create a bond with the driver.

But combustion cars do that, too. A manual gearbox is far from the most efficient way to convert combustion into forward movement - a CVT is. And exhaust systems amplify and manipulate exhaust sounds to make them pleasing to the ear. Steering systems are tuned for feel and feedback by those who care about driving, and suspension systems are engineered to provide engagement in real driver's cars.

Everything in a modern car, combustion or electric, is synthetic. Even the sound of the door closing or the smell of the 'leather' upholstery is engineered to look and feel and smell and behave a certain way. None of it is organic.

The point I'm making is that the definition of a muscle car must be adapted over time, just as the automotive industry evolves. The last 100 years have shown us that many things impact the automotive industry. America built large vehicles with massive V8 engines because it could. The USA is a relatively new country; most cities were built around the car, not the other way around. In Europe, the opposite is true. Most European cities date back 1,000 years, so cars like the OG Mini were designed to navigate the narrow cobblestone streets.

The first muscle cars were mashups of what was available at the time. Automakers took ordinary sedans and shoved a big V8 under the hood so the resulting vehicle could go fast in a straight line. Fancy suspension and brakes be damned because the primary mission was to go fast in a straight line. More than anything, the muscle car democratized power and made it available to the masses at an affordable price.

Whether you like it or not, EVs are doing the same thing. Some EVs are still expensive, but let's use the Tesla Model Y as an example. It can hit 60 mph in 3.5 seconds, which is supercar fast. And it will be eligible for a tax credit, which brings the price down to $44,990. Before you call that expensive, consider that the average new car costs $48,000 these days. The Model Y Performance is actually affordable, which means it's bringing power to the people, which makes it a muscle car.

Can an EV be called a muscle car? Hell, yes.