Evolution of the Dodge Charger

The Dodge Charger was first introduced as a concept in 1946. The national public didn’t care too much for it and the concept was shelved until 20 years later.

The first-generation Dodge Charger was produced in 1966, only six years after the Challenger name appeared as a limited-edition Dodge Coronet called “Dodge Silver Challenger”. The first-generation Dodge Charger was designed to be a high-speed street racer with a fastback roof design and full-width tail lamps. Although based off of the Coronet, early Dodge Chargers could easily be mistaken for a Dodge Challenger given that early Dodge Chargers also came with a two-door setup.

Nowadays, the 2018 Dodge Charger has nine trims to its name, two of which come with an all-wheel drivetrain, two more are a blast from the past, and then we have the Dodge Charger SRT® Hellcat, the sedan version of the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat. The most powerful, of course, is the SRT Hellcat, powered by a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI® SRT Hellcat V8 engine, capable of generating 707 horsepower and 650 lb.-ft. of torque with a top speed of 204 mph.

A comeback for the 2017 model year and returning again for the 2018 model year is the Dodge Charger Daytona. Having first been produced in 1969 when Dodge was well known in NASCAR, the Dodge Charger Daytona was strictly a racing car. Since then, the model has popped up as a limited-edition vehicle several times, but in 2017, the Daytona was revived for good (so far) as the modern Dodge Charger Daytona powered by a 370-horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI V8 engine, and also as the Dodge Charger Daytona 392, powered by the second most powerful engine in the lineup, a 485-horsepower 6.4-liter HEMI SRT V8 engine.

The Dodge Charger is also the second most popular vehicle modified by Mopar®. A whole chunk of the Mopar performance parts catalog is dedicated to the Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger, able to install things like cold-air induction systems and an all-new electronically controlled active performance exhaust system. For the 2018 model year, the Dodge Charger is available in up to twelve colors, some of which are from the Dodge High-Impact Paint (HIP) vault – Go Mango, Green Go, Yellow Jacket and TorRed.

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