There are few things more fun than driving a muscle car on an open freeway. You let the engine really open up, pushing the transmission into overdrive, and see what this car can truly do for you. The only question is whether you can afford a sports car that can give you this kind of thrilling performance. The good news is that a
used Dodge Challenger will give you unmatched horsepower and torque at a price that won’t leave you light in the wallet. That’s because the folks at Dodge have always made sure to equip the Challenger with some of the most powerful engines available while making sure their muscle car was street legal.
The Challenger first hit the road in the fall of 1969. Since then, the Challenger has undergone three generations of development, each one featuring some of the most impressive engine highlights of any muscle car on the road. If you want to get in on this great legacy and see why you should make a used Dodge Challenger your next performance car, head on over to Dan Cummins of Georgetown. We are Kentucky’s finest dealer of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs, including the Challenger, which is so fast and powerful, you’ll be amazed that it is so affordable and legal.
1970: Beatles, Black Sabbath, and the Dodge Challenger
In 1970, moviegoers were making Love Story and Airport huge hits while television viewers were tuning into new shows like All My Children, the Odd Couple, Night Gallery, and Svengoolie. If you were into music, chances were you were listening to the Beatles Let it Be, Black Sabbath getting Paranoid, and Neil Young After the Gold Rush. For those of us into cars, the big talk was the debut of the all-new 1970 Dodge Challenger, which was released to dealerships in the fall of ’69.
Those first Challengers were given some sharp looks that made the car look like it was going fast even if it was stopped at a traffic light. Those looks were not deceiving as this was one car built for speed. The standard model Challenger offered a number of incredible engine options, but the most powerful was a 383 cu.in. Magnum V-8. This was the pre-metric '70s so that 383 cubic inches translates into a 6.3-liter V-8 engine. This utilized a 4-barrel carburetor with a dual exhaust system to produce 330 horsepower.
If you had a need for speed, then you had to look to the Challenger R/T edition. The R/T stands for road and track, showing that this was one sports car built for racing but perfectly capable and legal for regular road driving. This model came with three great engines: a standard 383 cu.in. Magnum V-8, an optional 440 cu.in. Magnum or Six Pack V-8, or an optional 426 cu.in. HEMI V-8. The 383 Magnum also had a 4-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust system as the optional engine on the standard Challenger, but with a boost to 335 horsepower.
The 440 engine translates to a 7.2-liter engine in today’s parlance. The Magnum featured a 4-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust to produce 375 horsepower, while the Six Pack went with three 2-barrel carburetors also with dual exhaust, producing 390 horsepower. But the most powerful engine on those first-generation Challenger R/Ts was a 426 HEMI V-8 that would be 7.0-liters today. It utilized two 4-barrel carburetors with dual exhausts, providing a staggering 425 horsepower and generating a prodigious 490 lb-ft of torque.
Those first models of the Dodge Challenger came with a 3-speed manual transmission with an automatic transmission available on standard models. However, if you wanted to get the most performance out of your Challenger, you went with an optional 4-speed manual transmission with a pistol-grip shift. If you’d like to see one of these first-generation Challengers in action, buckle up and see the classic movie Vanishing Point from 1971, with Barry Newman, who has to drive a 1970 Challenger R/T from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. Chrysler continued to manufacture the Dodge Challenger until it was discontinued after the 1974 model year, a casualty of increasing gas prices.
1978: Disco, the New York Yankees, and the Second Generation Challenger
In 1978, folks were Disco dancing all over the place to the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever. If you were following baseball, you watched as George Steinbrenner shockingly fired Billy Martin as manager of the New York Yankees. And if you were following cars, you saw the re-introduction of the Dodge Challenger. However, this was a big departure from those first-generation Challengers, with a choice of two four-cylinder engines, neither of which could compare to the powerful V-8 engines on those first models. In other words, if Barry Newman had to drive this from Denver to San Francisco, he’d need a lot more time than 15 hours.
In fact, the second generation Challenger was just a rebadged Mitsubishi Galant Lambda coupe. The only thing that Dodge retained from the original Challenger were recessed headlights, racing stripe paint jobs, and the frameless hardtop. Much like the fashions of the Disco age, people quickly got embarrassed by the garish looks of the second generation Challenger, hoping to hide memories of this unfortunate sports car in name only like high school pictures from those years in the bottom of a sock drawer. With declining sales brought on by a disappointed public, Dodge decided to discontinue the Challenger in 1983. It looked like the end for this once-promising muscle car.
2008: You Can Comeback, Baby, Challenger Fans Never Forget
Remembering the mistakes made in 1978, the folks at Dodge decided to bring the Challenger back, but this time with a vengeance. Leveraging Mercedes-Benz technology from the then-merger of Chrysler, engineers at Dodge came up with a Challenger that would have impressed even Barry Newman in Vanishing Point. That first year in 2008, the Challenger was only offered in the SRT8 trim with a 6.1-liter HEMI V-8 paired with a 5-speed AutoStick automatic transmission. Like the top engines of the first generation, this one produces an impressive 425 horsepower and generates 420 lb-ft of torque. This is a seriously fast car, able to go 0 to 60 miles per hour in only 4.7 seconds. By the way, if you’re curious, that SRT stands for Street and Racing Technology.
For 2009, Dodge added a number of trims, including a new Challenger R/T that paid homage to the old top-of-the-line model from the early '70s. The R/T is equipped with a 5.7-liter HEMI V-8 that produces 372 horsepower and generates 401 lb-ft of torque when equipped with a 5-speed automatic transmission. There is also an optional Tremec 6-speed manual transmission that boosts performance on the R/T to 376 horsepower and 410 lb-ft of torque. In addition, the Challenger SRT8 was offered with two transmissions for 2009, the same 5-speed AutoStick automatic as the 2008 model of the SRT8, and a Tremec 6-speed manual transmission.
Unlike in prior years, Dodge was not content to rest on its laurels with the Challenger, challenging drivers with continuous innovation on the third generation of its classic muscle car. For example, in 2012, the top model SRT8 was now equipped with a 6.4-liter V-8 that provides 470 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque. The SRT8 saw an improved performance with a 0 to 60 miles per hour time of 4.5 seconds with a top speed of 170 miles per hour, making it one of the fastest cars in the segment.
In 2015, while fans were singing Hello along to Adele, Challenger fans said hello to a retooling of their favorite car. The SRT8 trim was replaced by the SRT 392 and the SRT Hellcat. The SRT 392 features a 6.4-liter HEMI V-8 that produces an increased 485 horsepower and 475 lb-ft of torque. Now the SRT Hellcat truly earns its name, giving its competitors a serious dose of performance with a 6.2-liter HEMI Supercharged V-8 that produces a truly scary 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque. The top speed on this beast is 199 miles per hour, while you can propel the Challenger SRT Hellcat from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 3.6 seconds. Still, the engineers at Dodge were not finished.
While Post Malone was making fans go Psycho, Dodge decided to drive Challenger fans insane with a limited-edition 2018 Challenger SRT Demon. This model features a 6.2-liter supercharged HEMI V-8 engine with a 2.7-liter supercharger that makes it capable of 840 horsepower and 770 lb-ft of torque. This Demon is actually lighter than the SRT Hellcat. As a result, it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in only 2.3 seconds with a top speed of 168 miles per hour.
One year later, Dodge introduced the SRT Hellcat Widebody and Redeye editions of the Challenger. The SRT Hellcat Widebody utilizes the same 6.2-liter HEMI Supercharged V-8 engine as the SRT Hellcat, boosted for 2019 to 717 horsepower and 656 lb-ft of torque. The SRT Hellcat Redeye replaced the Demon, featuring a 6.2-liter Supercharged HEMI V-8 that produces 797 horsepower and 707 lb-ft of torque, capable of propelling the Challenger from 0 to 60 miles per hour in just 3.4 seconds with a top speed of 203 miles per hour.
For those who still want more speed, Dodge introduced the Challenger SRT Super Stock in time for the 2021 model year. This model uses a 6.2-liter Supercharged High Output HEMI V-8, with 807 horsepower and 707 lb-ft of torque. It can go 0 to 60 miles per hour in only 3.25 seconds and completes the quarter-mile in a breathtaking 10.5 seconds at 131 miles per hour. While you can't find it used quite yet, it is definitely a model to look for in the future.
The Challenger, Generations of Power
If you are looking for a car that not only looks fast but can provide the performance promised by its appearance, then you need to buy a used Dodge Challenger. The bad news is that you might not find a 1970 Challenger R/T, but the good news is that there are plenty of third-generation Challengers available with some of the amazing powertrains profiled above. Hurry on over to Dan Cummins of Georgetown today, get yourself behind the wheel of a Challenger, and find your own Vanishing Point, even if you aren’t trying to go from Denver to San Francisco in under 15 hours. Just take comfort in the knowledge that you could meet this challenge if you wanted to in a used third generation Dodge Challenger.
