New car news

17 October 2008 - 17:00

A bigger Challenger

The new Dodge Challenger is, arguably, the American muscle car of the year. The SEMA show is, unquestionably, the American muscle tuning event of the year.

Put them together, and you’re guaranteed fireworks. Big smoky fireworks.

This is the Challenger SRT10, an official concept from Dodge which’ll be shown off in Las Vegas at the end of this month.

That’s SRT10 as in 10 cylinders, two more than yer run-of-the-mill, suitable-for-octogenarians SRT8. Yes, the Challenger concept has a whacking great V10 under the bonnet, an 8.4-litre monster transplated from the Dodge Viper SRT10.

Hot-diggity-damn, as they apparently say Stateside.

So you’re looking at a muscle car putting 600bhp and 560lb ft of torque through the rear wheels. Burnouts aren’t so much possible as compulsory.

Wisely, Dodge has modified the Challenger to deal with the ten cylinders of noise and fury. There’s a new carbon fibre bonnet – sorry, ‘hood’ – a carbon fibre bodykit, bigger wheels, bigger brakes and a massive quad exhaust system.

The carbon fibre isn’t limited to the outside, either – there’s a bunch of the stuff stuck all around the Challenger’s cabin, alongside a big red engine starter button. Which, we feel, would be somehow more appropriate if it had, ‘Really pissed with the environment, huh?’ written on it.

No word on whether Dodge will actually build the Challenger SRT10, but hell, now we know it fits, we can’t see any reason why not.

What’s that? Credit crunch and eco-concerns? Shush.