What a lovely mistake. When the Charger first made its reappearance back in 2006, people scoffed at Dodge for applying the legendary name to a 4-door, full-size sedan. Hoping to save face, the men at Mopar scrambled to the excuses bin, claiming they never intended it to be called a Charger. They blamed it on the marketing department mostly - some backroom bean counter’s failed strategy.
And yet, what they came up with wasn’t bad at all. Charger or no, it was a damned fine car and it’s only gotten better here in its second generation. In its initial iteration, the Charger was plagued by a weak base engine, cheap interior materials and handling that was too reminiscent of its 1960s namesake. All of this has been addressed for the 2011 Charger, making it even harder to hold those four doors against it. Sadly, there’s still one gleaming error to be corrected however, and it’s not two extra doors.
Before we start pointing out all the shortcomings, let’s concentrate on what Dodge has done right.
First the body panels are all new, and while a cursory glance might allow you to miss the small changes, they really are everywhere. The interior got the most attention – or perhaps just needed the most – and thankfully the hard plastics and shoddy finish are all gone in lieu of soft surfaces, actual aluminum trim and nary a gap to be found. Some changes are less subtle than others – door scallops harken back to the ’68-’70 Charger, but looked a tacked-on afterthought here – but the result is a freshened look at a neo-retro. Sadly, neo-retro obviates freshness in the first place. You can add new bits to it, but it’s still going to be a bit stale. Take the rear end of the 2011 Charger for an example, with its 164 LEDs stuffed into a body-width tail lamp arrangement. A bit of the old with a bit of the new.
But the guts can be fresh as a daisy. Here, they aren’t. The Charger is still being built on the Mercedes-sourced E-segment platform, although they’ve changed enough of the bits to start calling it second-gen. So with a nod to “freshness,” here we go - For 2011, the Charger is being built on Chrysler’s new 2nd-gen E-segment chassis, along with the accompanying suspension. That means changes at all four corners. Front and rear camber has been set at 1 and 1.75 degrees, and new shock absorbers handle the increased spring rates. Everything drops 4mm and is connected by some new hydrobushings that were part of Chrysler's big push to quiet things down. They’re even taking testers out on special noise test drives to show off how silent things can be in a supposed muscle car.
And we all know silence is not a muscle car’s strength, pardon the cheese. With complaints piling up regarding both the V6 options for the Charger, there’s a new 6-pot lump for 2011 – a 292-hp, 3.6-liter V6. With 260 lb-ft of torque to back that up, this all-aluminum V6 matches the performance of most V8 offerings up until the latest horsepower wars and can definitely stand tall with most of the iron-block V8s of yesteryear. You’ll see this Pentastar V6 in a lot of Dodge vehicles this year, in varying power outputs.
But what good is a Charger without a Hemi? The 5.7-liter V8 is back again, and standing on top of the pile for this year at least, as the 6.4-liter Hemi V8 won’t be making an appearance again until the return of the SRT-8 trim in 2012. The 5.7 makes 370 hp show up at 5,250 rpm and gets the celebrations under way with 395 lb-ft of torque ready at 4,200. While they’re both strong and fast, the 3.6 actually stands out this year, as it’s such an improvement from the outgoing V6s. Still, this brings us to the one stinking mistake still marring this misunderstood muscle car.
A 5-speed automatic transmission? Still? In 2011? Even the first Charger came with Multi-Displacement in the 5.7-liter V8, so you can’t argue efficiency isn’t a concern, and fun is obviously a factor here, too. Why are we stuck with a 5-speed automatic? Manual shift-gate aside, where’s a real sport transmission? Manual please? Dual-clutch, por favor?
The Charger handles and stops much better than a 4,000-pound car should, offers four usable doors, is powered by a V8 Hemi and is available for thirty-five grand – but it has a boring, slow 5-speed automatic. Chrysler says it’ll get an 8-speed soon, perhaps as early as next year. Until then it stands as the one big mistake in Chrysler’s big mistake.
