The 1960's gets all the love from muscle car enthusiasts with their beloved horsepower wars and environment-destroying production cars. The 1970s gets overlooked in this respect, as the decade was just as good at putting our country in trouble.
We had an oil crisis, Vietnam, and Watergate all within just a few years into the decade. See, the '70s weren't so forgetful after all, and plus, the turn of the decade brought one of the most iconic muscle cars to ever touch the streets of America, the Dodge Challenger.
The Challenger's Place
As if Chrysler didn't have enough tire-shredding machines in the years prior to 1970, the Challenger and Challenger R/T put them atop the muscle car mountain in the new decade.
But if we are judging from specifically from Dodge's point of view, the Challenger was technically justified. They had 2-door muscle cars like the Charger, Coronet, Superbee, and Dart (kind of), but they all had a different body style.
The long character lines down the shoulders of the cars and the equal length hangovers on each end of the cars gave them an elegance, but the Challenger was pure aggression. This spring-loaded creature was released onto the public and the body style, along with the other bits, were an instant hit.
With the 440 "six-pack option" being available (three 2 barrel carbs sitting on the intake) and then the ever famous 426 Hemi coming along, Dodge had crafted the Charger and Challenger to be a brotherly 1-2 punch combo that would continue on and off for 50 years.
Scat Pack
The appropriately-named trim level, meaning "get lost in a hurry", is a unique combination that serves as a near-perfect balance of Dodge's brain and brawn. We feature this package because of its versatility and ability to evolve from street legal drag car to daily driver.
The Scat Pack comes standard with Dodge's 6.4L Hemi V8 and pounds out a hardy 485 horsepower along with 475 lb-ft of torque. Its 392 Hemi can be driven through your choice of a "Torqueflite" 8-speed transmission or a 6-speed manual.
The Challenger really shines in the additional options department as they offer a drag strip focused "1320 Drag Pack", exterior upgraded "Shaker Package", and the throwback "T/A Package" with a bundle of functional cosmetic goodies. The "Dynamics Package" is significant mostly due to the behemoth 6 piston Brembos hiding behind the wheels.
A Real Modern Classic
To use an automotive journalism-ism, a car is only as good as it drives. Simply, the numbers should not be what sells a car, and in the Scat Pack's case, the numbers are impressive enough to do just that, so we must leave ourselves with the experience in order to judge properly.
The term "instant classic" is thrown around with a lack of content too often. The way the Scat Pack currently sits in its 2020 outfit, there are two ways in which it has qualified as an instant classic.
Firstly, and easily recognizable, is the return of classic colors, packages, and options. It sounds like a lazy thesis, however, it is only applicable because of how it drives. The most recent generation has the Shaker hood and T/A packages coming back along with the Superbee-looking badges for the Scat Pack and 1320 option. Like music, nothing grabs attention better than nostalgia, and the Scat Pack sings the sweet sounds of 1970 better than Robert Plant.
On that note, we can begin to explain why the experience justifies the success of cool old vehicle packages. The nearly identical HP and torque figures will, at any suspicion of gas, move you down the road with an authoritative forward thrust. A bridge over troubled water is the perfect 485 hp that balances traction loss with grip and won't overpower the driver.
The MacPherson struts and multilink suspension give the big dog a sense of agility that previous generations completely missed out on, and while it isn't quite at Shelby GT350R or Camaro ZL1 levels of precision, it is a step it the right direction. It stops exceedingly well, shifts seamlessly with the ZF unit that we all know and love, and most importantly puts a stupid grin on your face.