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Introduction
Those familiar with the old Challenger know that the Dodge Challenger a belated response to Ford's wildly successful Mustang, which waslaunched some six years ago.
Size-wise, however, the brawny Challenger is closer in size and weight to a 2-ton muscle car than a lithe pony car.
Big V8s were the engines of choice, including the legendary 426 Hemi V8. Unfortunately, this model's life may be shortened by the era's gascrisis and more stringent emissions regulations. Despite arriving into an eerily similar climate, there's no need to worry about the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 merely being a poser's visual link to the past -- it sports standard "Hemi" V8 power, rear-wheel drive and the right sound burbling from its rectangular exhausts. Initially, it will only be available in ultra-high-performance SRT8 form, meaning its 6.1-liter (around 370 cubic inches for you old-school types) V8 makes425 horsepower.
The Challenger is based on Chrysler's LX platform, which is also used for the 300 and Charger sedans. Its wheelbase is 4 inchesshorter than the Charger, though with an estimated 4,140-pound curb weight, the new model is frighteningly similar to its forbear in sheer bulk.Of course, the '08 Challenger does come with features previous Mopar designers could have hardly dreamed about, such as stability control, sidecurtain airbags and an available hard-drive-based navigation system that can also store music and video files. Sadly, also unlike the old Mopar, you can't get a manual transmission. Instead of a pistol-grip Hurst to grab gears with, you get a five-speedautomatic with Chrysler's AutoStick mode.
Overall, however, the 2008 Dodge Challenger impressively combines the
visceral and visual excitement ofthe past with modern engineering, safety and convenience features. Shoppers not willing to deal with all that could simply pick up a Ford MustangGT or GT500.
Body Styles, Trim Levels, and Options
The 2008 Dodge Challenger is a large five-passenger sport coupe available in a singular, high-performance SRT8 trim level. Standard featuresinclude 20-inch alloy wheels wearing 245/45 high-performance tires, a sport suspension, a rear spoiler, xenon headlights, leather and heatedfront sport seats, air-conditioning, full power accessories, cruise control, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, heated side mirrors and a60/40-split-folding rear seat. Also standard is a 13-speaker premium audio system with six-CD changer, satellite radio, an auxiliary audio jackand steering-wheel-mounted audio controls. Options include a sunroof, the MyGIG combination navigation and mu sic server system, andultra-performance summer tires.
Powertrains & Performance
The Challenger SRT8 is powered by a 6.1-liter V8 that sends its prodigious 425 hp and 420 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels through afive-speed automatic transmission. The latter features Chrysler's "AutoStick" manual shift capability.Dodge claims that the V8 vaults the Chal
lenger to 60 mph in the low 5-second range and through the quarter-mile in around 13.5 seconds. Fuel economy, should a potential buyer care about such things, is an expectedly dismal 13 mpg city and 18 mpg highway.
Safety
Antilock disc brakes (with brake assist), stability control and front-seat side airbags and side curtain airbags are all standard.
Interior
While the exterior is enthusiastically nostalgic, the Challenger's interior is rather narcoleptic. There's a faint echo of the original Challenger present in the 2008 version, but in total, the cabin is somber and dull with only a few metallic trim pieces and orange seat accentsto spruce up what is otherwise a sea of gray. There was certainly no effort to answer the Mustang or upcoming Camaro's retro interiors, but theChallenger at least provides good-quality materials.
The well-bolstered sport seats covered in leather and faux suede are also better than thosefound in the cheaper Ford. The rear seat features a fold-down armrest and a split/folding back that opens up to the 16.2-cubic-foot trunk, makingfor impressive cargo capacity.
Driving Impressions
Provided there's sufficient grip, the 2008 Dodge Challenger lunges off the corners and swallows the straights, its sustained thrust complementedby long riffs of resonant mechanical music. However, we'd appreciate a rev-matching feature for the transmission to make downshifts smoother whenrunning along a curvy road.
Braking is up to the task as well. Large (about 14 inches front and rear) Brembos fitted with four-piston calipers provide powerful stoppingpower. It's no wonder the 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt gets respect. I
t's the best version yet of the 2005 Ford Mustang, the car that set Detroit onfire again with enthusiasm for good old American muscle.
Maybe the fuel-guzzling muscle car won't save Detroit from the challenge to build carsthat people need, but it's surely restored the domestic car industry's confidence in its ability to do so. And it's shown that Americans canbuild cars that are utterly unlike anything you'll find in Stuttgart, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur or any of those other places that economists think they're so clever to know about.
Now that the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is here, Chrysler is cracking the seal on its own Mopar-branded can of muscle-car whoop-ass to showthat it understands what's at stake in the muscle-car sweepstakes. The Bullitt and the Challenger are the two coolest cars in America, and it'sonly natural to bring them together. Mustang Mania The Mustang, with more than 9 million examples sold since its introduction in mid-1964, is as synonymous with American culture as Marlboro Reds, the White Stripes from Detroit and blue jeans from Levi. It's no wonder Ford has been doing little else but building specialty models of the Mustang over the last two years.
The latest addition to the Mustang lineup owes its existence to the role a Mustang GT 390 played opposite Steve McQueen in the 1968 cultclassic Bullitt. Minor changes to the inherent goodness of the Mustang GT Premium model ($28,215) have netted a noticeable improvement. Stripping off the pony badges and gimmicky rear wing help, as do the repro Euro-style wheels and the paint in Dark Highland Green. (Black is alsoavailable.) Of course, enthusiasts appreciate the Bullitt's new cold-air intake system, free-flowing exhaust with an H-pipe and recalibrated engineelectronics.
A new, more sophisticated ignition system allows the Bullitt to run on either regular or premium fuel (we used 91 octane exclusivelyduring this test), and the V8's redline has been extended to 6,500 rpm. Top speed is 151 mph. The 3,517-pound Bullitt's engine setup nets 315 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 325 pound-feet of torque at 4,250 rpm, so each horsepower has 11.2 pounds to carry around. It shows, as the Bullitt's throttle response is quicker than that of a stock GT, while the sound of the Bullitt's dual exhaust, tuned toreplicate the movie car's unfettered glass-pack rumble, is appropriately lustworthy. The Tremec five-speed manual transmission is matched with asnappier 3.73:1 final-drive ratio.
New springs and shocks, along with a front strut tower brace, are tuned to deliver crisper handling, workingthrough BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDWS tires. Finally the Bullitt's front brake pads are more aggressive, adding feel and reducing fade. You could transform your stock Mustang GT into a Bullitt with a parts list, a spray booth, a clever ECU code cracker and a few weeks of downtime, but for the Bullitt's $3,130 option cost, why not buy one with a Ford factory warranty and call it a day?
Comparing the Dodge Challenger & Ford Mustang Bullitt
Though the Mustang Bullitt is 637 pounds lighter than the Challenger and has shorter overall gearing, the mighty Challenger ruled on the dragstrip. The Hemi simply pulled its weight, even in this 4,154-pound wrapper. The Bullitt sprinted to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds (5.1 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip), while the Challenger made the trip in 5.1 seconds (4.8 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip).
The quarter-mile arrived in 13.2 seconds at 107.5 mph. The Challenger is substantially quicker to 60 mph than the almost identical Charger SRT8, and we think the Challenger's optional Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tiresmake the difference.
It only takes a couple of runs to get the most from the Mustang. Once you coordinate the clutch and throttle to get just the right amount ofwheelspin, the Bullitt delivers times that are so easily repeatable that we'd recommend it as an ideal bracket racer. Five consecutivequarter-mile times were separated by just 0.09 second, and we ultimately recorded 13.7 seconds at 103.0 mph. Easier still, however, was getting the best run out of the Challenger.
Simply disabling traction control and dropping a size-43 Piloti on the go pedal put the Bullitt in the Challenger's rearview mirror. As far as drag races go, a half-second and 4.5-mph margin of victory is prettydecisive. As far as automatic transmissions go, the W5A580 five-speed in the Challenger SRT8 is a pretty good one. Intelligent and aggressively programmed, it usually goes about its business unobtrusively, but it'll pop off an upshift crisply with a momentary pause between gears thatsounds something like Satan belching fire through a stainless-steel esophagus. Torque converter lockup is so aggressive that it's almostnecessary to lean your melon against the headrest when you upshift at full throttle. Nudging the leather-wrapped shifter into manual mode actually prevents the engine from running into its rev limiter at 6,400 rpm, the transmission shifts up a gear on its own. We even caught it short-shifting from 1st to 2nd gear to quell wheelspin in certain conditions. (SRTsays its customers requested this feature, but we're skeptical.) After the Challenger is driven hard for awhile, the transmission program learnsyour behavior and even the downshifts get pretty aggressive.
Braking Test
Even after five stops from 60 mph, the Brembo-equipped Challenger improves its braking performance, with the best stop at 115 feet. Feel remained excellent, fade was never an issue and each stop was straight and shudder-free. Conversely, the Bullitt's first stop was its best at 126 feet, and then the distance grew another 6 feet or so thereafter. Though the feel of the brake pedal is improved from a stock Mustang GT and the fade resistance is good, we'd like more bite from the brake pads.
The size of the Challenger proved to be a challenge in the slalom, but finally the immense grip afforded by the Challenger's optional Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires and the quick steering transitions afforded by the short-travel suspension helped produce a 66.2-mph pass. A remarkable feat, really, from a 2-ton automobile. The Dodge's skid-pad performance was similarly incongruous, with a 0.86g effort. The only real complaint from the Challenger's driver seat came from the slalom, where the combination of the slow (16.1:1) steering ratio, alarge steering wheel, and so much size and weight felt like tacking a small boat upwind. The 3,519-pound Mustang felt alert and nimble in comparison to the Challenger. Quick turn-in characteristics makes the car seem far betterbalanced than you might guess from its weight distribution of 54 percent front/46 percent rear (which it shares with the Challenger).
Slalom Test
In the end, however, the Bullitt's old-school solid rear axle limited its slalom speed because slight pavement irregularities upset the rear of the car longbefore the front goes off line, ultimately making the Bullitt more of a handful than the Challenger. Yet by timing the slide from the rear just right, the Mustang's limited-slip differential hooked up the car through the last slalom gate andwe shot across the finish line at 66.1 mph. Around the skid pad, the Bullitt's upgraded suspension paid off with good balance up to the point ofmild understeer on the way to an impressive 0.87g orbit.
Open Road Test
While the Challenger held the upper hand in our track testing, technically outscoring the Bullitt in five of the six instrumented categories, it was on the open road and in average daily use where the Dodge really proved to be the more capable, more modern car. On the highway, the Challenger's ride is characterized by a sense of big, heavy wheels, but we've got to admit that as skeptical as we were of 20-inch forged-aluminum wheels wrapped by 45-series tires, the Challenger's ride quality is fantastic. There's some tire thump over sharp seamsin the pavement, but the impacts are enveloped quickly by the sophisticated suspension: double wishbones in front and a multilink arrangement in the rear. There's no secondary or sympathetic shudder or vibration transmitted to the chassis or passengers.
On the other end of the evolutionary suspension timeline, the Bullitt's highway manners remind one why live-axle rear suspensions are relics found in pickup trucks. If the Mustang isn't required to tow anything, why does it need a live axle? So omnipresent were the motions of the rearsuspension on anything but freshly steamrolled asphalt that it was damn near impossible to read the already inscrutable speedometer. One wouldhate to guess what would happen if the Bullitt's 18-inch wheels were replaced with the Challenger's 20s. Interior Comparison The old-versus-new question tips the comparison of interiors in the Challenger's favor as well. Unlike the Bullitt's 2+2 setup, there are four truly inhabitable seats in the Challenger.
Passenger Accommodations
The Bullitt's rear accommodations don't offer hostages an armrest, cupholders, a power point or even an air vent. The Challenger does, and gives passengers 2 inches more legroom and 3 inchesmore headroom. The Challenger's front seats (exclusive to the SRT8) are like racing seats compared to the Bullitt's retro-to-a-fault frontbuckets. All the switches, dials, buttons and stalks in the Challenger feel substantial and operate so cleanly it's as if they have been oiled. Thereare audio, trip computer, vehicle status and performance-related telemetry buttons on the Challenger's steering wheel, while the Bullitt has onlycruise control. This Bullitt has an optional DVD-based touchscreen navigation and audio system, but it's so poorly laid out and encumbered withsafety lock-outs that we'd rather keep its $2 grand cost.
Other Stuff & Summary
Finally, the Challenger offers as standard convenience equipment like an MP3 adapter, Sirius Satellite Radio and HID headlamps. All are optional on the Mustang. Summary So is the $40,145 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 really some $5,440 better than the $34,705 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt. The consensus of many automotive experts is Yes. If all the numbers are crunched all the numbers into a formula, factoring performance, features, price, evaluation scores and personal/recommended choices, the Challenger wins by three points. This might not be a win decisive enough for some budget conscious muscle-car buyers, especially if we're accurately predicting at least a$5,000 dealer markup for the first year's allotment of Challenger SRT8s. After all, if you have $45,000-$50,000, you could consider the 500-hpShelby GT500, which is quicker than the Bullitt or the Challenger SRT8. Then again, even the Shelby has a live axle and the same interior as acommon Mustang. Here's the bottom line. Be patient. Let the guys who gotta have 'em go ahead and snap up every 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with its automatictransmission, brake-lock differential and dealer markups. If you're smart, you'll wait for the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8. Just make sure tocheck off the option box that says, "Track Pak." You'll get a louder exhaust system, more aggressive steering alignment with more caster, firmersprings and dampers, and a stiffer rear antiroll bar.
Those familiar with the old Challenger know that the Dodge Challenger a belated response to Ford's wildly successful Mustang, which waslaunched some six years ago.
Size-wise, however, the brawny Challenger is closer in size and weight to a 2-ton muscle car than a lithe pony car.
Big V8s were the engines of choice, including the legendary 426 Hemi V8. Unfortunately, this model's life may be shortened by the era's gascrisis and more stringent emissions regulations. Despite arriving into an eerily similar climate, there's no need to worry about the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 merely being a poser's visual link to the past -- it sports standard "Hemi" V8 power, rear-wheel drive and the right sound burbling from its rectangular exhausts. Initially, it will only be available in ultra-high-performance SRT8 form, meaning its 6.1-liter (around 370 cubic inches for you old-school types) V8 makes425 horsepower.
The Challenger is based on Chrysler's LX platform, which is also used for the 300 and Charger sedans. Its wheelbase is 4 inchesshorter than the Charger, though with an estimated 4,140-pound curb weight, the new model is frighteningly similar to its forbear in sheer bulk.Of course, the '08 Challenger does come with features previous Mopar designers could have hardly dreamed about, such as stability control, sidecurtain airbags and an available hard-drive-based navigation system that can also store music and video files. Sadly, also unlike the old Mopar, you can't get a manual transmission. Instead of a pistol-grip Hurst to grab gears with, you get a five-speedautomatic with Chrysler's AutoStick mode.
Overall, however, the 2008 Dodge Challenger impressively combines the
visceral and visual excitement ofthe past with modern engineering, safety and convenience features. Shoppers not willing to deal with all that could simply pick up a Ford MustangGT or GT500. Body Styles, Trim Levels, and Options
The 2008 Dodge Challenger is a large five-passenger sport coupe available in a singular, high-performance SRT8 trim level. Standard featuresinclude 20-inch alloy wheels wearing 245/45 high-performance tires, a sport suspension, a rear spoiler, xenon headlights, leather and heatedfront sport seats, air-conditioning, full power accessories, cruise control, an auto-dimming rearview mirror, heated side mirrors and a60/40-split-folding rear seat. Also standard is a 13-speaker premium audio system with six-CD changer, satellite radio, an auxiliary audio jackand steering-wheel-mounted audio controls. Options include a sunroof, the MyGIG combination navigation and mu sic server system, andultra-performance summer tires.
Powertrains & Performance
The Challenger SRT8 is powered by a 6.1-liter V8 that sends its prodigious 425 hp and 420 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels through afive-speed automatic transmission. The latter features Chrysler's "AutoStick" manual shift capability.Dodge claims that the V8 vaults the Chal
lenger to 60 mph in the low 5-second range and through the quarter-mile in around 13.5 seconds. Fuel economy, should a potential buyer care about such things, is an expectedly dismal 13 mpg city and 18 mpg highway. Safety
Antilock disc brakes (with brake assist), stability control and front-seat side airbags and side curtain airbags are all standard.
Interior
While the exterior is enthusiastically nostalgic, the Challenger's interior is rather narcoleptic. There's a faint echo of the original Challenger present in the 2008 version, but in total, the cabin is somber and dull with only a few metallic trim pieces and orange seat accentsto spruce up what is otherwise a sea of gray. There was certainly no effort to answer the Mustang or upcoming Camaro's retro interiors, but theChallenger at least provides good-quality materials.
The well-bolstered sport seats covered in leather and faux suede are also better than thosefound in the cheaper Ford. The rear seat features a fold-down armrest and a split/folding back that opens up to the 16.2-cubic-foot trunk, makingfor impressive cargo capacity.
Driving Impressions
Provided there's sufficient grip, the 2008 Dodge Challenger lunges off the corners and swallows the straights, its sustained thrust complementedby long riffs of resonant mechanical music. However, we'd appreciate a rev-matching feature for the transmission to make downshifts smoother whenrunning along a curvy road.
Braking is up to the task as well. Large (about 14 inches front and rear) Brembos fitted with four-piston calipers provide powerful stoppingpower. It's no wonder the 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt gets respect. I
t's the best version yet of the 2005 Ford Mustang, the car that set Detroit onfire again with enthusiasm for good old American muscle. Maybe the fuel-guzzling muscle car won't save Detroit from the challenge to build carsthat people need, but it's surely restored the domestic car industry's confidence in its ability to do so. And it's shown that Americans canbuild cars that are utterly unlike anything you'll find in Stuttgart, Shanghai, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur or any of those other places that economists think they're so clever to know about.
Now that the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is here, Chrysler is cracking the seal on its own Mopar-branded can of muscle-car whoop-ass to showthat it understands what's at stake in the muscle-car sweepstakes. The Bullitt and the Challenger are the two coolest cars in America, and it'sonly natural to bring them together. Mustang Mania The Mustang, with more than 9 million examples sold since its introduction in mid-1964, is as synonymous with American culture as Marlboro Reds, the White Stripes from Detroit and blue jeans from Levi. It's no wonder Ford has been doing little else but building specialty models of the Mustang over the last two years.
The latest addition to the Mustang lineup owes its existence to the role a Mustang GT 390 played opposite Steve McQueen in the 1968 cultclassic Bullitt. Minor changes to the inherent goodness of the Mustang GT Premium model ($28,215) have netted a noticeable improvement. Stripping off the pony badges and gimmicky rear wing help, as do the repro Euro-style wheels and the paint in Dark Highland Green. (Black is alsoavailable.) Of course, enthusiasts appreciate the Bullitt's new cold-air intake system, free-flowing exhaust with an H-pipe and recalibrated engineelectronics.
A new, more sophisticated ignition system allows the Bullitt to run on either regular or premium fuel (we used 91 octane exclusivelyduring this test), and the V8's redline has been extended to 6,500 rpm. Top speed is 151 mph. The 3,517-pound Bullitt's engine setup nets 315 horsepower at 6,000 rpm and 325 pound-feet of torque at 4,250 rpm, so each horsepower has 11.2 pounds to carry around. It shows, as the Bullitt's throttle response is quicker than that of a stock GT, while the sound of the Bullitt's dual exhaust, tuned toreplicate the movie car's unfettered glass-pack rumble, is appropriately lustworthy. The Tremec five-speed manual transmission is matched with asnappier 3.73:1 final-drive ratio.
New springs and shocks, along with a front strut tower brace, are tuned to deliver crisper handling, workingthrough BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDWS tires. Finally the Bullitt's front brake pads are more aggressive, adding feel and reducing fade. You could transform your stock Mustang GT into a Bullitt with a parts list, a spray booth, a clever ECU code cracker and a few weeks of downtime, but for the Bullitt's $3,130 option cost, why not buy one with a Ford factory warranty and call it a day?
Comparing the Dodge Challenger & Ford Mustang Bullitt
Though the Mustang Bullitt is 637 pounds lighter than the Challenger and has shorter overall gearing, the mighty Challenger ruled on the dragstrip. The Hemi simply pulled its weight, even in this 4,154-pound wrapper. The Bullitt sprinted to 60 mph in 5.4 seconds (5.1 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip), while the Challenger made the trip in 5.1 seconds (4.8 seconds with 1 foot of rollout like on a drag strip).
The quarter-mile arrived in 13.2 seconds at 107.5 mph. The Challenger is substantially quicker to 60 mph than the almost identical Charger SRT8, and we think the Challenger's optional Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tiresmake the difference. It only takes a couple of runs to get the most from the Mustang. Once you coordinate the clutch and throttle to get just the right amount ofwheelspin, the Bullitt delivers times that are so easily repeatable that we'd recommend it as an ideal bracket racer. Five consecutivequarter-mile times were separated by just 0.09 second, and we ultimately recorded 13.7 seconds at 103.0 mph. Easier still, however, was getting the best run out of the Challenger.
Simply disabling traction control and dropping a size-43 Piloti on the go pedal put the Bullitt in the Challenger's rearview mirror. As far as drag races go, a half-second and 4.5-mph margin of victory is prettydecisive. As far as automatic transmissions go, the W5A580 five-speed in the Challenger SRT8 is a pretty good one. Intelligent and aggressively programmed, it usually goes about its business unobtrusively, but it'll pop off an upshift crisply with a momentary pause between gears thatsounds something like Satan belching fire through a stainless-steel esophagus. Torque converter lockup is so aggressive that it's almostnecessary to lean your melon against the headrest when you upshift at full throttle. Nudging the leather-wrapped shifter into manual mode actually prevents the engine from running into its rev limiter at 6,400 rpm, the transmission shifts up a gear on its own. We even caught it short-shifting from 1st to 2nd gear to quell wheelspin in certain conditions. (SRTsays its customers requested this feature, but we're skeptical.) After the Challenger is driven hard for awhile, the transmission program learnsyour behavior and even the downshifts get pretty aggressive.
Braking Test
Even after five stops from 60 mph, the Brembo-equipped Challenger improves its braking performance, with the best stop at 115 feet. Feel remained excellent, fade was never an issue and each stop was straight and shudder-free. Conversely, the Bullitt's first stop was its best at 126 feet, and then the distance grew another 6 feet or so thereafter. Though the feel of the brake pedal is improved from a stock Mustang GT and the fade resistance is good, we'd like more bite from the brake pads.
The size of the Challenger proved to be a challenge in the slalom, but finally the immense grip afforded by the Challenger's optional Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires and the quick steering transitions afforded by the short-travel suspension helped produce a 66.2-mph pass. A remarkable feat, really, from a 2-ton automobile. The Dodge's skid-pad performance was similarly incongruous, with a 0.86g effort. The only real complaint from the Challenger's driver seat came from the slalom, where the combination of the slow (16.1:1) steering ratio, alarge steering wheel, and so much size and weight felt like tacking a small boat upwind. The 3,519-pound Mustang felt alert and nimble in comparison to the Challenger. Quick turn-in characteristics makes the car seem far betterbalanced than you might guess from its weight distribution of 54 percent front/46 percent rear (which it shares with the Challenger).Slalom Test
In the end, however, the Bullitt's old-school solid rear axle limited its slalom speed because slight pavement irregularities upset the rear of the car longbefore the front goes off line, ultimately making the Bullitt more of a handful than the Challenger. Yet by timing the slide from the rear just right, the Mustang's limited-slip differential hooked up the car through the last slalom gate andwe shot across the finish line at 66.1 mph. Around the skid pad, the Bullitt's upgraded suspension paid off with good balance up to the point ofmild understeer on the way to an impressive 0.87g orbit.
Open Road Test
While the Challenger held the upper hand in our track testing, technically outscoring the Bullitt in five of the six instrumented categories, it was on the open road and in average daily use where the Dodge really proved to be the more capable, more modern car. On the highway, the Challenger's ride is characterized by a sense of big, heavy wheels, but we've got to admit that as skeptical as we were of 20-inch forged-aluminum wheels wrapped by 45-series tires, the Challenger's ride quality is fantastic. There's some tire thump over sharp seamsin the pavement, but the impacts are enveloped quickly by the sophisticated suspension: double wishbones in front and a multilink arrangement in the rear. There's no secondary or sympathetic shudder or vibration transmitted to the chassis or passengers.
On the other end of the evolutionary suspension timeline, the Bullitt's highway manners remind one why live-axle rear suspensions are relics found in pickup trucks. If the Mustang isn't required to tow anything, why does it need a live axle? So omnipresent were the motions of the rearsuspension on anything but freshly steamrolled asphalt that it was damn near impossible to read the already inscrutable speedometer. One wouldhate to guess what would happen if the Bullitt's 18-inch wheels were replaced with the Challenger's 20s. Interior Comparison The old-versus-new question tips the comparison of interiors in the Challenger's favor as well. Unlike the Bullitt's 2+2 setup, there are four truly inhabitable seats in the Challenger. Passenger Accommodations
The Bullitt's rear accommodations don't offer hostages an armrest, cupholders, a power point or even an air vent. The Challenger does, and gives passengers 2 inches more legroom and 3 inchesmore headroom. The Challenger's front seats (exclusive to the SRT8) are like racing seats compared to the Bullitt's retro-to-a-fault frontbuckets. All the switches, dials, buttons and stalks in the Challenger feel substantial and operate so cleanly it's as if they have been oiled. Thereare audio, trip computer, vehicle status and performance-related telemetry buttons on the Challenger's steering wheel, while the Bullitt has onlycruise control. This Bullitt has an optional DVD-based touchscreen navigation and audio system, but it's so poorly laid out and encumbered withsafety lock-outs that we'd rather keep its $2 grand cost.
Other Stuff & Summary
Finally, the Challenger offers as standard convenience equipment like an MP3 adapter, Sirius Satellite Radio and HID headlamps. All are optional on the Mustang. Summary So is the $40,145 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 really some $5,440 better than the $34,705 2008 Ford Mustang Bullitt. The consensus of many automotive experts is Yes. If all the numbers are crunched all the numbers into a formula, factoring performance, features, price, evaluation scores and personal/recommended choices, the Challenger wins by three points. This might not be a win decisive enough for some budget conscious muscle-car buyers, especially if we're accurately predicting at least a$5,000 dealer markup for the first year's allotment of Challenger SRT8s. After all, if you have $45,000-$50,000, you could consider the 500-hpShelby GT500, which is quicker than the Bullitt or the Challenger SRT8. Then again, even the Shelby has a live axle and the same interior as acommon Mustang. Here's the bottom line. Be patient. Let the guys who gotta have 'em go ahead and snap up every 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8 with its automatictransmission, brake-lock differential and dealer markups. If you're smart, you'll wait for the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8. Just make sure tocheck off the option box that says, "Track Pak." You'll get a louder exhaust system, more aggressive steering alignment with more caster, firmersprings and dampers, and a stiffer rear antiroll bar.