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Automotive News & Views Daimler's abuse of the Dodge Charger legacy.
659 messages, Last post on Jun 21, 2006 at 2:03 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
| the only reason the Crown Vic is even the police car of choice is because Mopar and Chevy pretty much dropped out of that market. Impalas are pretty popular though, at the local and county level. I think state troopers still prefer something beefy like a Crown Vic, though. | |
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I see alot more Impala police cars these days (esp. as police "service" vehicles, like ticket writers and motorist assist cars). Though, big city police depts. still prefer the iron rwd toughness of the Crown Vics for the same reason cabbies do... Be cool to see a Mopar patrol car again...of course, I also hope highway patrols adopt the new Mustang as a pursuit car, just like in the '80s.
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Replying to: john_324 (Oct 19, 2004 11:03 am) |
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| Some of these names kinda clunk in the year 2004 don't you think? | |
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Polara does have a 1960s "space age" ring to it, but Fury would still work, although we would have to get used to a Dodge Fury. The general public, however, probably wouldn't mind. As for the Eagle Premier/Dodge Monaco - it was originally designed when Renault still owned AMC. Chrysler escapes the blame for that one. To me, it was the epitome of bland, especially when parked beside a Ford Taurus or Mercury Sable of that time. |
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There is no arguing the fact that cars of the 68-70 vintage were poor handlers compared to almost any car of today -- even lowly Civics and Corollas. However, that is not a valid argument in my opinion, any more than speculating about who would have won WWI if they'd had F15s. It's simply not germane. As for Charger's handling relative to other cars of the time, I speak from experience in assuring you that they were every bit the equal of my Road Runner, Grand Prix and Firebird, the limiting factor in all three being those gawdawful bias plies (not the fault of the car companies, by the way, and one that is easily remedied today). And, as I've mentioned previously, it is a simple matter to upgrade any of these cars with modern suspension components, brakes and tires. I'd take any one of them in a heartbeat -- they are really cool cars, and a lot of fun to drive.
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tested a 1969 Charger once. With a 375 hp (IIRC) 440, a Torqueflite 727 tranny, and a fairly tame 3.23:1 rear end. They hated it, but c'mon, it's Consumer Reports! They probably wet themselves when the got it to do 0-60 in 7 seconds! They also tore up the bias ply tires in the time that they had the car testing it, so that shows you they must've been having some fun with it, pushing it to the limit. They certainly weren't driving this Charger the way they'd drive a VW Bug or a 6-cyl Falcon or Valiant! And Badtoy's right...just making the switch from bias ply tires made a world of difference. I did just that with a '69 Dart GT, and put over 85,000 miles on my '68 Dart 270, which had 205/70/R-14's up front, and in back I'd switch between 225/70/R14's and 205/70/R14's. It handled differently from a modern car, and you had to pay attention to it, but in just about any "real world" driving you could throw at it, it didn't suffer because of being an old car. And when I delivered pizzas, let's just say that they didn't get to their destination any slower in my Dart than they did in the Civics, Mustangs, Tercels, Corollas, Skylarks, and other tiny cars the other drivers were using! I'm sure a Charger would behave similarly. In fact, it might actually handle more stably than a Dart because of the wider track. Darts had a really skinny track in back, something like 55.9", IIRC. Chrysler was usually praised for the well balanced handling and ride that the torsion bar suspensions provided. That is, at least, until they tried mounting them transversely on the '76 compacts, and the ride got mushy, and they started to crack, pull away from the sub-frame, etc! |
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Replying to: badtoy (Oct 19, 2004 8:31 pm) Hotchkis Suspension, a while back, teamed up with Car Craft or Popular Hot Rodding (I can't remember) and worked over a '69 Chevelle and a '69 Charger with their springs, shocks, sway bars, and polyurethane bushings, plus 17" wheels and tires. With just those simple mods, and less than $2,000 per car, both cars posted over .85 on the skidpad and 65+ mph slalom times... The, you just do the brakes, and you've got a new Z-28 in a cool, classic wrapper. |
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yeah but wear a boxer's mouthpiece to save your teeth over bumps.
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Replying to: andre1969 (Oct 19, 2004 6:41 am) Combining AMC and Renault to design and develop a car was a recipe for disaster. |
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