{"id":3728,"date":"2026-01-06T03:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/max2voyages.com\/?p=3728"},"modified":"2026-01-06T03:57:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T11:57:00","slug":"first-drive-the-new-dodge-charger-has-been-fixed-mostly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/max2voyages.com\/?p=3728","title":{"rendered":"First Drive: The New Dodge Charger Has Been Fixed! Mostly!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The new Dodge Charger<\/u> is a deeply confounding car. There is no denying the laundry list of faults we found in the Daytona EV<\/u>, yet despite them, its innate charm worked magic on many of our editors. You sense there\u2019s a fundamentally good car in there somewhere, and you want to root for it rather than savage it. The 2026 Dodge Charger Scat Pack with the Sixpack twin-turbo inline-six is a better car in some ways and simply a different car in others. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fixing Faults, Righting Wrongs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At a base level, the gas-powered Sixpack resolves the EV\u2019s biggest weaknesses. It\u2019s significantly lighter, it goes much farther on a tank of gas than the EV does on a full battery, and it gases up in minutes. More than that, it makes real noises and does big, smoky burnouts. The Daytona EV may be a good car deep down, but it wasn\u2019t the car the Charger (and Challenger) faithful wanted. The Sixpack is, almost. <\/p>\n

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Beyond tailpipes and a slightly different front end, the gas-powered Charger Sixpack and EV Charger Daytona are nearly indistinguishable from the outside. From the inside, they\u2019re virtually identical. How they drive and the emotional responses they elicit, though, are markedly different. <\/p>\n

The EV is inescapably quicker in a straight line<\/u>, especially from a roll, and its motors are more responsive in all situations. Its weight and lower center of gravity also make it feel more planted on the road. Losing roughly 1,100 pounds, though, makes the Charger Sixpack noticeably nimbler. (Yes, there\u2019s a big, empty cavity under the car where the EV battery pack would go.) The EV was the best-handling Charger or Challenger Dodge has ever built, and it cedes that crown to the Sixpack. With so much less mass needing to change direction, it feels more like a sport sedan than a straight muscle car. A really, really big sport sedan. Like, \u201clonger and wider than a Toyota Sienna minivan\u201d big. It\u2019s sporty in the way an AMG S63 is sporty. <\/p>\n

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Highly Combustible Situation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The focus of course is the twin-turbo Hurricane inline-six under the hood, rebranded as the Sixpack<\/u> here. In this Scat Pack model, it\u2019s good for 550 hp and 531 lb-ft of torque. An R\/T model coming next year will offer 420 hp and 468 lb-ft. In the Scat Pack, the engine mates to an eight-speed automatic and a wet-clutch transfer case sending power to all four wheels. Rear traction is aided by a standard mechanical limited-slip differential. The redline is unusually low for an engine like this at just 6,000 rpm, but Dodge says it got everything it wanted out of this engine with that redline, so there was no need to raise it. Not to say they couldn\u2019t for a future model, though, and make even more power. <\/p>\n

Dodge also says it\u2019s all good for a 0\u201360-mph sprint of 3.9 seconds and a 12.2-second quarter-mile elapsed time. We\u2019ll see what times we get once we test it, but a trio of passes down an eighth-mile dragstrip revealed the car is remarkably consistent, with each run varying by only a few hundredths of a second. It\u2019s mildly annoying that the launch control is buried several menus deep, but once you have that screen displayed it\u2019s easy to use at the tree. <\/p>\n

The line lock feature is far more convoluted, requiring you to stand on the brake, then press and hold the OK button on the steering wheel, release the brake but not the button, then floor the gas while still holding the button. Release the button, and you can roll out of it, but release it before the wheels are spinning, and it\u2019ll cancel the whole thing. Pat your head and rub your belly enough, and it works as advertised, but it\u2019s a lot of steps to do a burnout. <\/p>\n

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All warmed up and launch-controlled, the Sixpack feels strong off the line. From a roll, it\u2019s less impressive as the weight of the car, around 4,800 pounds, makes itself known. Rather than squeeze the throttle, step on it and make the transmission drop a gear. Below 2,300 rpm it\u2019s lag city, but once the turbos hit (or are spiked by the downshift) and all 30 psi are unleashed on the pistons, it surges ahead with authority. <\/p>\n

The transmission generally gets it right, but you can catch it out of sync coming out of tight corners, even in Sport mode. The paddle shifters fix this, even if they are way too tiny, and it\u2019s a true manual mode that won\u2019t auto upshift at redline. We like that, but it does keep you on your toes because 6,000 rpm shows up quick in the lower gears. <\/p>\n

How much power is sent forward, meanwhile, varies depending on all these modes. Left to its own devices, the car sends 50 percent of the power forward. Clutches on the front axle can disconnect it in the interest of fuel economy, but in general, it\u2019s an all-wheel-drive car. Select Sport mode, and the torque split changes to 40 percent forward and 60 percent rear. Other ratios could come in the future with software updates. Once you\u2019re in Sport, you can select rear-wheel-drive mode and send all the power to the back, but think carefully before you do that. <\/p>\n

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AWD for a Reason<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dodge engineers are very clear about why the Sixpack comes with standard all-wheel drive, and it\u2019s for performance as much as it is winter driving. Simply put, the car can\u2019t put all the power down at the rear wheels. When the turbos hit, it\u2019ll blow the rear tires off. Making it all-wheel drive spreads the power across twice as much rubber, paying the same dividends on the dragstrip and the twisty road. To be clear, it never drives like an all-wheel-drive car; the nose doesn\u2019t pull you out of corners. Sending power forward just tames the rear so you can safely be aggressive with the throttle. <\/p>\n

Putting the car in rear-drive mode is a great way to do burnouts and drifts, but it won\u2019t get you down the road. With stability control on, anything more than moderate throttle input while turning invites computer intervention. With stability off, doing so gets you sideways, maybe backward. If you actually want to go fast in the Charger Sixpack, leave it in all-wheel drive so it can hook up. Otherwise, prepare to show those Mustangs at cars and coffee what a real <\/em>preventable wreck looks like. <\/p>\n

Rear-wheel drive also, annoyingly, can only be activated at a full stop even though you can switch it back to all-wheel drive while moving, although Dodge says that could change with a future software update. <\/p>\n

Leaving it in all-wheel drive solves this issue at the cost of a small amount of steering feel. To be clear, the steering is numb regardless, but it transmits a dash of feedback when there\u2019s no power going to the front. Having to drive around the stability control, though, negates the advantage. The steering is also a little on the slow side, requiring more lock in tight corners than we\u2019d like and fast hands when you\u2019re trying to control a drift. <\/p>\n

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This Damn Screen Again<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Changing these settings means digging into the infotainment screen, which is laggy and too deeply layered with menus. Rear drive can only be selected in Sport mode, and other settings like steering weight can only be adjusted in Custom mode. The two-mode exhaust is tied to the engine calibration, so it\u2019s either calm and quiet or aggressive and loud. As a result, you can\u2019t fully customize the driving experience as much as we\u2019d like. Dodge engineers are aware, and, yes, this may be corrected in a future over-the-air software update. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re happy to report the car wasn\u2019t buggy like the last one we reviewed. Nearly every software glitch seems to have been fixed, although this one did decide entirely on its own to adjust the driver\u2019s seat lumbar support to maximum while we were driving. Dodge knows about that bug and has already fixed it on more recently built cars. <\/p>\n

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Loudish and Proud<\/strong><\/h2>\n

That dual-mode exhaust system we mentioned isn\u2019t likely to win over V-8 enthusiasts, but folks who just want to put gas in their Charger will be satisfied. The start-up rumble is solid and reminds of a BMW M3 or M4, although once you\u2019re moving it loses a lot of that edge and sounds like any other inline-six. Dodge has managed to suffuse it with a bit of chainsaw snarl in loud mode, but it\u2019s more impressive from inside the car (where active noise cancelling enhances the tone) than out. Some dudes in a V-8 Mustang asked us to rev it at a stop sign and were not particularly impressed. <\/p>\n

Compared to the old SRT and Hellcat models, the new Scat Pack Sixpack is almost quiet. We\u2019re told a Mopar Direct Connection cat-back exhaust will be offered in the future, but it\u2019s not out yet and is slated to cost nearly $4,000 when it arrives. Dodge would do well to take a page from Ram\u2019s Hemi playbook and make it standard on the Scat Pack. Hopefully it doesn\u2019t drone like the stock exhaust in loud mode on the highway. <\/p>\n

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How We Got Here and Where It Ends<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Rather than just stuff some batteries under the hood of a combustion-powered car, Dodge designed the Charger to accommodate a battery pack as easily as it does a gas engine. Ideally, this allows the company to sell what is mostly the same vehicle to completely different customers. Normally, this kind of engineering compromise would warrant serious skepticism, but Dodge has done a remarkable job of serving two masters at once. <\/p>\n

$56,990 to start is a lot of money, but that\u2019s unfortunately what muscle cars cost these days. A Mustang GT with the Performance package and automatic transmission costs the same and is four-tenths of second slower to 60 and through the quarter (and even slower with the manual). Shoot, you can add on that $4,000 exhaust system, and it\u2019ll still cost $5,000 less than a Mustang Dark Horse while having more power.<\/u> And honestly, you might as well just pay it, because the coming R\/T model is only $5,000 cheaper and gives up 130 hp and 63 lb-ft, bumping the weight-to-power ratio from 8.7 pounds per horsepower to 11.4. We haven\u2019t driven it yet, but with numbers like that, we won\u2019t be surprised if the Sixpack R\/T ends up getting dropped from the lineup, same as the EV Daytona R\/T. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re ready for a new gas-powered Charger and don\u2019t feel the need to wait around and see if Dodge brings back the V-8 like we\u2019re all convinced it will, there’s a car finally ready for you. <\/p>\n

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