Gadgetory

a few years ago all the retro pony cars seemed to have come back and everybody was in love with the 70s again let's see if that decade lives as well as it reads as we drive the 2013 challenger srt8 392 Hemi the big boy and check the tech now to my eye the Challenger is perhaps the nicest looking of the retro Pony cars from almost every angle until you swing around the rear then it gets about as big and tall and thick as a building in the middle of the plains I don't know what happened back there now an SRT 8 means several specific things most importantly a 6.4 Hemi not a 5.7 as if that's not enough adaptive suspension on all four corners limited-slip in the rear launch control 20s underneath those big wide tires a unique interior and of course a little different body treatment now inside I find the Challenger to be one of the less attractive of the cars in its class this is a lot of cheap plastic and acres of it with not a lot of distinguishing detail srt8 s have this special kind of velour interior with this kind of leather bolstering the red is not necessary you can change up the color scheme and the gauges to me are pretty damn ugly with that silver and red and blue and all these busy little patterns it's a race car let's get to the tech though we have the upgraded head unit this is called the 7:30 a.m. it's the largest and most well-equipped of your options six and a half inch touchscreen and I want to point out the touch response is outstanding it is one of the quickest this side of a Hyundai Kia which is my normal favorite for fast touch response now for sources as you can see you've got a hard drive here I'm not normally big on that for what it's worth you have 20 gigabytes available to you the other twenty are for the nav system optical disk lives up here peekaboo style behind the screen we have satellite radio of course which powers our satellite traffic on the navigation system here's the main menu for an average you can see this is the older system this is not the big you connect that they're putting in the more recently revised chrysler products that's been getting awards for the most easy to use navigation it's Garmin stuff the menuing is very clear it's not a sexy interface by any stretch but you know what it works now you can also use voice command if you can figure it out here's a voice button and here's a voice button after a day with the car I can't recall which one owns which functions between them though you can use voice to run the Bluetooth hands-free system obviously the navigation system and call out certain functions of the entertainment system just keep pushing them both to get the right one now along with the 7:30 M top head unit you also have to go with a Harman Kardon audio upgrade to subs and the doors to subs in the back 18 speakers 900 watts that is not all that unusual what is is that the audio amplification the output side is 32 volt remember cars are 12-volt they have been since cavemen were driving them so what's happening here is they're moving toward a higher voltage that can allow you to achieve higher current levels which is really important for low-end in particular and do so with the same wiring or even thinner wiring that weighs less and takes up less space this is the only piece of technology in a car I've yet encountered with 32 volt it's interesting another key part of the interface on this car are the hidden buttons is a big Chrysler thing back here you've got a button and then a rocker above and below it mostly for operating your media controls like over here is my volume as well as three inches away my volume not necessarily the most useful thing no paddles here of course we have a manual this is the 6-speed manual that is based on these cars you can option up to an automatic when you would have paddles on the wheel you okay the heart of big dummy is this engine the 6.4 liter Hemi not the 5.7 this one makes that one look smallish no blower no turbo no direct injection it's just a big ol high displacement v8 with atmospherical combustion chambers and Hemi by the way is a Chrysler trademark though other cars have hemispherical combustion chambers the numbers 470 horsepower 470 foot-pounds of torque zere the 64 this 42 hundred pound car 4.8 or so while getting you 14 23 mpg that's bad enough to earn you $1000 gas guzzler tax the power always goes out on our srt8 through that 16 manual the pistol grip out to a limited slip rear end you can't get an automatic in a Hemi v8 challenger but you've got to drop this guy out of srt class to the 5.7 Hemi and then you can get your automatic and it's only a 5-speed the thing that impresses me first and not in a good way is the ride qualities for rendus it's bouncy its kind of unrefined it's not a pleasant car to drive and I don't feel like it's a very good performance suspension because of all those unmanaged to sort of dynamics that I'm getting the exhaust note is nice the clutch and transmission interaction are pretty good you do not have any option for rear view camera and I don't know if you can see but there's some big ol buttresses back there one of those c-pillars and they're pretty massive I can't see a hell of a lot out of this vehicle so I could use a backup camera this performance features menu here is one that again if I was on a track I could do something with but it lets me set up trap times for quarter mile eighth mile zero to sixty so lots of track tools in this car that again if you have access to a track and you do that kind of thing you've got a real tool kit here to work with okay let's price this top of the stack challenger srt8 with the manual it's the only way you can get the six four is gonna run you about forty four seven or so with destination add into that 794 that head unit which given the price I would do the $2000 option is the Harman Kardon audio if you like thump it's got a ton of it and the only other charge not an option it's standard is the gas guzzler tax at a thousand bucks all in we're somewhere around forty eight and a half thousand dollars now the Challenger has a role in the world it's a somewhat unique pony car in this revival area of elephant motors take it as a dragster you can take to work and it may fit the bill