2006 Dodge Charger: The Name Comes Back With Four Doors and a HEMI

The Charger that came before this one ended in someone else's hands. In 1987 the front-wheel-drive hatchback Charger reached its last year, and Carroll Shelby took the final 1,000 cars and turned them into Dodge Shelby Charger GLHS models, rated by Dodge at 175 hp and 175 lb-ft. Then the name went quiet. When it surfaced again at the Detroit auto show, twelve years later, it was on the 1999 Charger R/T concept, a rear-drive car with exaggerated Coke-bottle sides and a 4.7-liter V-8 that ran on compressed natural gas for a claimed 300-mile range. The shape pointed backward; the fuel pointed somewhere else entirely.¹

The production car that finally revived the name was neither a coupe nor a gas-saving experiment. DaimlerChrysler's specification sheet introduces the Charger in May 2005 as a 2006 model: a four-door, rear-drive sedan built at Brampton, Ontario. MotorWeek's review caught the argument in two sentences. The Charger, it said, was a long way from the stripped-down muscle car of the mid-1960s, "a muscle car for today," and though it had four doors, its near-fastback roofline, high rear fenders and squeezed side glass hinted at the first Chargers' coupe styling. Whether a sedan could carry the Charger name was a question only buyers could settle.^2,3

The launch ladder was simple and the prices were sharp. MotorWeek listed the SE at $22,995, the SXT at $25,995, the R/T at $29,995 and the limited-edition Daytona R/T at $32,495, without saying whether destination was included. The SE and SXT used a 3.5-liter High Output V-6 rated at 250 hp. The R/T carried the 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 at 340 hp, or 350 hp with the Road/Track Performance Group, and MotorWeek gave the HEMI's torque as 390 lb-ft. For $7,000 over an SE, then, a buyer got a HEMI V-8 in a family sedan, which was the whole proposition in one line of a price sheet.^3,2,1

The HEMI of 2006 had a trick the HEMI of 1969 never needed. DaimlerChrysler's VIN guide calls the R/T engine the 5.7-liter HEMI Multiple Displacement, code EZB, and MotorWeek explained what that meant: cylinder deactivation that shut down four of the eight cylinders while cruising, for what it reported as an 8 to 10 percent economy gain. The EPA rated the R/T at 17 mpg city and 25 highway. In the VIN, an R/T shows 5 in position six and H in position eight, the SRT8 7 and W, and every 2006 Charger an H in position eleven for Brampton.^4,3

Dodge dressed the heritage argument in color. The Daytona R/T revived a 1969 name as an appearance-and-performance package on the R/T: an exclusive fascia with chin spoiler, a black honeycomb grille, black Daytona and HEMI decals, a heritage R/T badge, a black rear spoiler, seats with suede inserts and embroidered Daytona logos, and the 350-hp HEMI with 390 lb-ft. Each car carried a sequentially numbered badge on the instrument panel. It came first in Go ManGo! and Top Banana, and on January 16, 2006, Dodge added TorRed as a third heritage color, with production in spring 2006 at Brampton.⁵

A numbered badge is only half a number. Dodge's releases say each Daytona R/T was numbered but do not say how many were built, how the numbers were issued, or how the run divided among Go ManGo!, Top Banana and TorRed. DaimlerChrysler published no 2006 model-year production total for the Charger, no count of R/Ts and no count of SRT8s. The same January 2006 release that added TorRed announced the 2007 Charger SRT8 Super Bee, in Detonator Yellow with a black hood and deck lid, a name last used on a Charger in 1971. George Murphy, senior vice president of global brand marketing, called it "only natural to give a nod to that heritage."⁵

The heaviest artillery arrived on August 31, 2005, when DaimlerChrysler revealed the Charger SRT8. Its 6.1-liter SRT HEMI was rated at 425 hp at 6,000 rpm and 420 lb-ft, with an orange-painted block and black valve covers that Dodge said were reminiscent of the HEMIs of the 1960s and 1970s. It drove through a five-speed AutoStick automatic and a heavy-duty four-flange propeller shaft, stopped with Brembo four-piston calipers on 360 by 32 mm front and 350 by 26 mm rear vented rotors, and rode on forged 20-inch wheels with Goodyear Supercar F1 tires, 245/45R20 in front and 255/45R20 behind. Paint came in Bright Silver, Brilliant Black or Inferno Red Crystal Pearl Coat.⁶

Dodge marketing vice president Darryl Jackson sold the SRT8 as "a tremendous performance-per-dollar value story," and the company's claims were specific: 0-60 mph in the low five-second range, a quarter mile in the mid-13s, about 110 feet from 60 mph to a stop, and SRT's own 0-100-0 mph test in the mid-16s. MotorWeek later put numbers on the car it tested: 0-60 in 5.0 seconds, the quarter mile in 13.4 seconds at 104 mph, and an average of 128 feet from 60 mph, longer than Dodge's figure. It quoted a base price of $38,095 including a $2,100 gas-guzzler tax, $43,505 for its loaded test car, a 4,160-pound weight and EPA ratings of 14 city and 20 highway.^6,7

MotorWeek's drivers found what a big sedan with 425 hp could and could not do. At Roebling Road Raceway the brakes held up, with fade and brake integrity remaining solid after repeated laps, and the suspension tuning made what they called a 4,160-pound family four-door into a real sporting sedan. They also complained of a lack of feel from the steering and suspension and noted plenty of body roll when pushed. Those are the observations of one test crew on one car, and they sit comfortably beside the stopwatch: the SRT8 was a fast, heavy sedan that stopped well, not a coupe in disguise.⁷

The buyers' verdict is written in sales, not production. Chrysler's figures show 114,201 Chargers sold in the United States in calendar 2006, rising to 119,289 in 2007. The 2006 figure covers every trim and includes 2007 models sold late in the year, so it cannot be split into SEs, R/Ts, Daytonas or SRT8s. Its Brampton siblings give it scale: the Dodge Magnum sold 40,095 and the Chrysler 300 143,647 that calendar year. A four-door Charger had found more than a hundred thousand American buyers a year, and the Daytona colors and the coming Super Bee showed Dodge using the old names to sell the new body.^8,5