A muscle car favourite from 1971 is this week’s standout car, the Dodge Shakedown Challenger concept from this year’s SEMA show.
 
The idea of an old car with new underpinnings is not entirely groundbreaking, nevertheless it’s always interesting to see what modern technology can do to classic cars.  In the case of the Shakedown Challenger, it comes equipped with a 392 HEMI crate engine – the same 6.4-litre HEMI V8 found in other modern Dodge SRTs – and a Viper Tremec T6060 six-speed manual transmission.  

Dodge have finally unveiled the true horsepower number of their upcoming super muscle car, the SRT Challenger Hellcat, and it's a lot.

The Hellcat’s supercharged 6.2-litre HEMI V8 engine has an official power figure of 707hp and 650 lb ft of torque.  This makes the Hellcat not only the the most powerful Dodge V8 ever, but also the most powerful muscle car in history.

The car will come with two key fobs, a red and black one.  When the black fob is in use, engine power is limited to 500hp, while the red key fob unleashes all of the available 707hp.  An eight-speed TorqueFlite automatic transmission is available for sending all that grunt to the rear wheels.

No official acceleration times have been made available yet, but a safe estimate should be in the low 12-second or high 11-second range on the quarter-mile.  We’ll be sure to post the times when track tests start rolling in.

With 2012 just days away from ending, we can only hope that 2013 will have as many exciting new cars as this year did.  Here is a gallery of 22 cars that made a good first impression.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

What do you think of when you hear the name Dodge Charger? Most of the time, I think of a black 1970 model with an enormous supercharger protruding out of the hood doing a wheelie, accompanied by a monstrous V8 roar and quick gear changes, and an orange Toyota Supra trying to keep up in a quarter-mile drag race. That’s the last race scene from The Fast and The Furious.  Sometimes I think of the 1968 version in Bullitt, being chased down by Steve McQueen in the famous dark green Mustang.  I try not to think of an orange 1969 model with a confederate flag on the roof, accompanied by the whole “yee haa!” thing.  Put simply, I think of something powerful and mean-looking, with an equally butch name to do it justice.  I think one of the best muscle cars ever built.

Fast forward to 2012, and I have the keys (key fob rather) to a brand new Charger SXT – V6.  When Dodge revived the Charger name back in 2006, I received it with mixed feelings.  I was glad that the name Charger was back, but only this time it was attached to a sedan geared more towards affordable luxury, than a modern incarnation of B-body muscle cars.  Luckily the design wasn’t all that bad, it looked really muscular in certain trim levels, and the latest version does a bit more with the whole sedan-on-steroids look – even in V6 trim.