I used to think that when the day came, I’d be standing on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean watching one last sunset. In my pocket would be a note, along with my last will and testament perhaps. I’d be lamenting the fact that the world had changed to the point that it was time for me to see what came next.
Behind me traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway would be silently gliding past in cars powered by their electric engines. This would all come on the day not long after the final gas-powered car rolled off into extinction, to a museum or more likely the Smithsonian Institution.
I’d curse the very Mother Earth we are tying to save as I leapt into oblivion muttering “goodbye cruel world.” Soon I’d meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, and he would no doubt let me in understanding exactly why I’d jumped.
That’s what I used to think. When the first hybrid followed by fully electric cars first arrived on the consumer market, I figured that the days of throwing around a big muscle car powered by an equally big V8 engine like those from my youth, were numbered. Nothing could ever match that.
Or so I thought.
The reality is that hybrid and electric cars have developed to the point that you can indeed match what we used to get w the big V8s once gave us. I had accepted that fact and was fine with it.
Damn you Dodge.
Recently Dodge sent me a coupe for a week. Not just any coupe. No, this one was special, very special.
This was a Dodge Challenger. One with an R/T Scat Pack. You see the Challenger is being phased out, sent to the automotive Smithsonian Institution. They may bring back an electric version, but there will never again be one powered by gas.
Dodge brought back the Challenger in 2008 as a retro muscle car giving a nod to the once glorious motoring past when gas prices were measured by pennies on the gallon.
And the 2023 generation marks the last one for this iconic coupe.
Oh boy what a way to go.
The R/T (Road and Track) Scat Pack version bumps up the Challenger with a 6.4-liter V8 engine pumping out 485 horsepower and 475 feet of torque under the hood. And the Widebody variant adds wider wheels and tires, fender flares upgraded suspension (with adaptive damping on R/T Scat Pack) and larger six-piston Brembo brakes. Dodge also added “Last Call” special-edition models including the Swinger of which only a 1000 were made. And I had one for an entire week.
The Swinger name is a throwback to the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sure it might sound like something from a 1970s porno movie, but it helped birth the glory days of the muscle car. It started with a Dodge Dart Swinger, a compact car with a huge horsepower engine stuffed under the hood and funky color combinations. The Charger and the Coronet were added and soon a fearsome pack of snarling machines prowled the roads exploding from stoplights leaving others in a trail of tire smoke and broken dreams.
Fast forward to today and the final version of this iconic motoring masterpiece complete with a Super Bee badge and clad in a loud florescent green sat in my driveway.
There’s a shaker hood, a myriad of what Dodge cleverly calls “Gold School” retro design features like grille badges, and fender graphics, 20-by-11-inch wheels on the outside, and mod grain wood-like aluminum interior bezel textures and a green Swinger interior instrument panel badge on the inside.
I stood looking at this marvelous thing and admit I might have got a bit of dust in my eye. This is indeed the last great American muscle car, as subtle as a sledgehammer and as refined as a wrecking ball. It’s the American dream wrapped it in red, white, and blue, and set it on fire just for kicks.
But it only gets better from there.
Firing up the HEMI is organismic; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 played by a V8 orchestra led by Mick Jagger. Loud enough to wake the dead and scare the neighborhood, the next neighborhood, and probably the one after that.
On the road of course the acceleration is mind blowing. Combined with the growl from the hood and the rumble through your butt you almost enter another world. In perhaps a final act of defiance, Dodge equips the Swinger with a 6-speed manual transmission. While modern automatics will always improve the driving experience, I didn’t care. The manual meant I had to work for it. And I was damn glad to do so.
I didn’t get a 0-60 time though I could have using the built in track timer. But by engaging the launch control system it was like I was being shot out of a cannon. I swear I felt the G-forces rearranging my internal organs. This thing goes from ‘oh, there it is’ to ‘where did it go’ in the blink of an eye.
While straight lines are never an issue in a muscle car, I was pleasantly surprised at how the high-performance suspension helped the Swinger grip the road, like a toddler clutching their favorite toy. Even more surprising given that this is a machine with the aerodynamics of a brick wall.
Sure, the gas mileage is awful. But who cares when you have a car that can make the ground shake? The only problem is when stopping to fill up you must make time for muscle car worshippers who will invariably get drawn to the green machine like it was Jesus preparing to give a sermon.
If someday, perhaps in the near future, the last gas-powered vehicle rolls off into extinction I know I will be okay. There will be fast cars capable of smoky burnouts and internal organ rearranging G-forces.
But there will never be another roaring machine exploding from a stoplight waking the dead and scaring the neighborhood.
And that makes me a little sad.
The Dodge Challenger Swinger is a defiant salute to the glory days of American muscle. It’s loud, proud, and unapologetically brash. This is the final roar of the muscle car era; the last hurrah, the final chapter, the dying breath of the American muscle car.
What a way to go.
Greg has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.