Dodge Challenger SRT8 stick-shift on the road

We’ve had a 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT-8 for a few days, and while we’ll be writing it up more thoroughly soon, a few high points quickly come to mind.

First, everyone stops and stares at this car - partly because it’s bright red with a big stripe down the hood. People want to know what it is. The general public still hasn’t discovered the Challenger, despite all the magazine covers, newspaper photos, and excitement. What’s funny is the range of spectators… young and old, men and women, import and domestic drivers. We’ve had numerous problems with other drivers hitting their brakes suddenly when they see us coming, wanting to get a better look, and drivers hanging out in the (huge) blind spots to keep us in vision. And, of course, we’ve gotten lots of thumbs ups.

The clutch is heavy, but not as heavy as in the old days; it’s not that far off 2.4 turbo clutches, with a small but predictable area of engagement. The shifter goes in easily, but takes a lot of getting used to, partly due to the six speeds (which makes 1st, 3rd, 5th, and Reverse, all of which are on the same plane, a little crowded). It’s also a bear of a car, with the 425 horsepower Hemi V8, a heavy feel familiar to other LX car drivers, and instant response if you’re in the right gear, which isn’t necessarily the case. To get surprisingly good highway mileage (at 65 mph, you can easily exceed 25 mpg), Dodge put in a serious overdrive sixth gear, which is a good thing, though you have to drop down a gear to get any serious acceleration at normal highway speeds. If you’re zooming along at 95, we assume it works out just fine.

The first gear is fairly low, so there’s a good spread, though most of that spread seems to be in the upper gears; first, second, and third shoot by quickly and often it makes more sense to skip a gear or two when acceleration hard. You can maximize your thrust by going through each and every gear, but for those times when you want to launch hard but then don’t need every last pony, skipping is a lot smoother and easier.

The engine is surprisingly loud and growly, so that even as you’re loafing at 1,500 rpm at 75 mph in sixth gear, you hear the engine at all times. To get into first smoothly requires a decent push on the gas pedal which vrooms the engine rather noticeably. This is not a subtle exhaust tuning. It’s sweet music when you can let it all out, which isn’t often and doesn’t last very long, not with 425 horses hooked up directly to the rear wheels. You can, however, drive very gently and smoothly if needed.

We have a lot more on this unique car (including numerous photos) in our full test report, which is close to its final form (and will be complete by the end of the week). If you want to comment on the article, feel free to do it here (oh, and please Digg this post or share the bookmark using the light gray icons below and to the left).

Allpar’s meeting in New Jersey again

October 5, 2008, 10 am to 4 pm; rain date, October 12. Open to all Chrysler Corporation and AMC vehicles. See our 2007 show coverage!

This is a nice small show. There are some nice trophies and raffle prizes; last year, Eastwood and Applebees both provided vouchers, and just about everyone got some Meguiars stuff. (Meguiars Car Care Products generously donated over 3 dozen bottles of product for us to distribute to our Meet participants). There are ten registration categories, and new categories can be created for vehicles that don’t fit into any of them.

The meet has traditionally been held by the New Jersey/New York Slant Six club, but starting in 2007 it has been cosponsored by Allpar. In 2007, we had 33 cars, which was double the number for 2006; we’ll be trying to get at least 40 for 2008.

Food is not available on-site, but we’ll try to have enough beef hot dogs for everyone, and you can bring food and a small (table-top) gas grill if you like. The price to show your car is $8 per carload of people, waived for those who have Donor Level IIII status on the Allpar forums (just contact me in advance!). Half of the club’s net is donated to charity. There is a 50/50 raffle which in 2007 ran to over $70, and numerous prizes are raffled as “second chances.”

There are over ten registration categories; we may create another for you if you don’t fit into the existing categories (award in that case would be a certificate). Judging is by popular vote. All AMC and Chrysler products are eligible.

This is a nice, comfortable, low-pressure meet - ideal for first-timers.

Directions

The location will - we hope! - be the New Jersey Agricultural Museum, just off Route 1 South, in North Brunswick, off College Farm Road. From the Turnpike, take Route 18 West to Route 1 South and stay in the right lane. It’s past the Sears and Ryder’s Lane exits if you’re on Route 1 South. This is a pretty central location and it’s on major highways, but the show itself is far enough from the highway to be pleasant (you can’t hear the traffic), with indoor bathrooms in the Agricultural Museum. If you bring kids, we suggest taking them for a tour of the museum while you’re there.

This is a SMALL exit. Watch for it as soon as you pass Ryder’s Lane! We will have a sign posted if you aren’t early. Quite probably it will be the SAME sign.

If you’re coming from Route 1 North, turn around at Route 18 (get onto Route 18 west). Route 1 is a divided highway (so is Route 18 and for that matter 95, 287, and the Garden State Parkway.)

This area is convenient to the Parkway, Route 287, Route 78, and other local arteries; it’s not that far from Route 80 (about 1/2 hour).

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Changes to news and, now, weblogs pages

We are working on improving our news and weblogs pages by switching to a simpler layout which lets you see all page elements on smaller screens. Please bear with us as strange things may happen. I hope you’ll like the results and the “clean look.”

Change to the news page

We have changed our news pages to run on Wordpress, as our weblogs do. In time, we will be moving our events calendar from the forums (where only registered forum users can see it) to the one integrated into the news section - well, we probably will, anyway. The location of the news feed has changed accordingly - if you use an RSS reader, please update your feed.

I hope you like the new format. Please let us know of any problems by replying to this post.

Chrysler Aspen Hemi-hybrid tested

We have a video, and are working on a written review of the Chrysler Aspen Hybrid [now posted], the first of the Hemi Hybrids along with the Durango. A 2010-model-year Dodge Ram hybrid will most likely use a nearly identical system, which is based on a transmission/electric motor pack developed by General Motors with Chrysler and BMW input.

The system makes good on its promise to greatly increase city-cycle gas mileage in the massive Aspen, a vehicle that can tow 6,000 pounds while holding six people in comfort (or eight people who don’t mind each others’ company). Highway mileage isn’t much better though the electric motors help to keep the Hemi in four-cylinder mode; but city mileage is a major improvement in terms of gallons saved. It isn’t going to get you 40 mpg, but for the guys and gals who have to drive something big (or something that can seriously tow), it’s either this or the Suburban. Whether people will choose a big hybrid over a diesel-powered SUV is an open question; but since the latter aren’t due from any of the Big Three until the 2010 model year, the Aspen and Durango have a window of opportunity.

Read the full Chrysler Aspen review.

Bug reports

It’s been a rough week or two in terms of hardware and software bugs.

I tried to upgrade an old installation of phpwebsite, and found that the developers left no documentation for upgrades, no upgrade path, and no explanation of an error message that, in the end, turned out to be from having php4. The developers have such contempt for people with “outdated” servers that they didn’t bother making an appropriate error message or even checking for the right php version when starting.

I used the latest versions of Microsoft Office. I don’t think I really need to say much more there.

I tried to make an animation on Photoshop. I gave up. The documentation is absurdly poor and the methods … strange. I had a great animations program a while back and I’ll have to run it on my kid’s computer (it’s old enough that it won’t run on my computer any more) if I want to make an animated GIF without going insane.

We finally got Verizon’s router working right - I think - though the tech could have mentioned along the way, “By the way, all your filters and settings will get wiped out by this.” I tried to switch from MSN to Yahoo with my Verizon account but the system doesn’t work quite right.

Sometimes, there was a way to register bugs. SPSS has an easy bug registry; so does OpenOffice though many bugs are dismissed with “What you want is wrong, anyway.” Good system, bad attitude (open source!!!) phpwebsite… is a mess in terms of any user relations. Lots of old, outdated documentation and nothing for the current versions. I think. They talked about release 10 and I was trying to install 1.52.

Meanwhile, every time my wife tries to use Allpar, she ends up frustrated with the navigation and orders me to change something.

So… I’m changing something.

You can now file bug reports at http://www.toolpack.com/allpar/bug-report.php — and if I get overwhelmed or overspammed, I’ll install a serious bug tracking system.

We’re here for you.