Every Dodge enthusiast I've talked to likes the Charger.

Who cares if it has four doors and why do you care?

 

I still dont get where they clinic these cars. There are only a handfull of people on this board who appear to actually like the way this car is styled, and truthfully I thought I was on dcxforums.com sometimes the way people hyped up the 300 and SRT models.

Bottom line on this car is that they seem to have settled for what they ended up with. That's the 90's GM approach to making cars, only with the right wheels driving the thing. I wonder how DCX will respond with styling changes the second year (similar to the GTO saga where we now have hood scoops and opposite side exiting exhaust).

 

Go hit up some Mopar message boards which has a larger cross section of peole than you'll meet in real life. The majority either do not like it or would have preferred something different.

Well some might have bought the car if it was styled differently and had two doors. Many have been looking forward to this car and following every rumor on it since 99(6 years) that's a long time to wait and then you get presented with something you hate almost everything about...I'd say they have a right to complain.

Imagine if GM showed a really hot Camaro concept this year in New York. Then it took them 6 years to get it to the market and it looked completely different and most folks thought it looked like a turd. I think you'd see a lot of angry people.

 

Who's to say that it isn't happenig to us right now? How many people here thought that a 2 door SS concept would be the cat's meow?

 

This car has not been in the works for 6 years. Just becuase they used a name that was used on a CONCEPT does not mean this car is the result of that CONCEPT.

 

True enough but when they until as recently as 04 were parading that concept around amid the rumors of a new Charger coming out it wouldn't be hard to think the new car would potentially have some of the same styling.

As I said if GM did the same thing even if the production car wasn't based upon the concept they would be raked over the coals. My point is it tends to be a really bad idea to parade a concept around with a certain nameplate and then do a left turn in the actual production car of the same name. It's just asking for trouble. Justified or not consumers tend to get a little put off when things like that are done. And that's simply not good business. It would have been better for them to bury that old concept, release a concept of this car instead to kind of acclimate the public to the "Nu Charger". Kind of like Nu Coke.

 

I note your ironic use of the words "real life", as in the message boards not being "real life". I would agree with that.

Right to complain? Sure. It's free speech. And people do love to complain.

Dollars to donuts, there will be plenty of complaints when the new Camaro finally does come out. The people who like it will quietly say, "it looks nice", but the people who don't will write pages on how it's bad and why it's bad. It's the nature of things.


I don't know why people would be expecting the '99 concept Charger after the SRT8 from '03 (or was it '02) and the new 300 and Magnum. There's no way to do a low slung car like the '99 concept from the same platform that produces the 300 and Magnum.

But ignore the '99 concept and the name (which don't really matter at this point, and it's a little silly to invest yourself in them), and I think the '06 Charger is a decent looking car with a great powertrain, lots of room, and a reasonable price.

 

It should not be called Charger and that's that. The lack of recognition by Chrysler's management is outrageous. It will never be accepted as a Charger today when making a "real" Charger in function and design is completely do-able/wanted, which is why the complaints about this name on that car are extremely documented and constantly heard. Would you be fine with a 4 door GTO? Any other enthusiast including myself, would not be.

 

Oh, you mean, they should make a 2-door Neon and call it a Charger, in order to be faithful to the heritage of that mid-80's icon?

Yes, I'd be fine with a 4 door GTO.

I'm not obsessed with cloning a 35 year-old car. I don't mind updating an old name to modern times.

On autospies.com, the editor suggested a four door Camaro like the Mazda RX8. I'm sure some on here would need to see their heart doctor if such a thing were made, but it would be fine with me, though I'd probably just go with the regular 2 door version if it were available.

I'm just not that invested in names or in precisely matching historical nameplates; I'd hazard that only a tiny percentage actually care about such things.


Hey, I have two Olds Cutlasses -- a '70 and a '71. If I were going to get upset, I'd start with the discontinuation of Oldsmobile. But it's not worth the energy.

 

People tend to be more vocal on the internet than in real life however they do tend to cut to the meat of the issue quickly and let their true feelings be known as annonimity allows such things to occur.

I don't doubt for a second there will be people that will say they don't like the new Camaro. However if it's styled favorablely the positive comments by sheer number will out weigh the vocal few. I hate to keep bringing it up but the Mustang is a prime example of this.
There were plenty of people that didn't like the car. However it was styled so favorablely that it wasn't long before those that did like it drowned out or evened out at least the negative comments. We saw that with the 300C as well prior to it hitting the showrooms. I just do not believe we will see that with this new Charger as for all the positive I like it comments I see two saying they don't.

It's just bad business to flaunt one vehicle in concept form and then plop out an entirely different car. Not everybody is going to understand why they CAN'T make the car look that way.

Ignoring the name and ignoring the number of doors I still think it won't sell as well because it's simply not very attractive. Compound that with the fact it won't be that far off the money of the 300C and priced equally with the Magnum which arguablely is more car...I just don't see it being the success DCx wants it to be. If it sells a little more than the Intrepid I think they would be lucky honestly.

 

Actually, I agree. I think that the Charger won't sell more than the Intrepid. They're apparently going to market it as a muscle car, which relegates it to a niche, whereas the Intrepid was more mainstream.

With the 300, people are getting a luxury car for cheap, which helps explain its sales volume, I think.

 

The intrepid no longer exists. People that buy dodge only have one choice for a sedan.

 

OK, here goes. I think this car is damned ugly and will fail miserably. This is coming from someone who likes the new GTO,the 300C,the Magnum, and the new Mustang. This is the worst example of the new and upcoming RWD cars. There was bound to be a bad apple in the batch and the new Charger wins that prize. I fell in love with the '99 concept to the point that I could ignore the fact that it had 2 more doors than it should have. The new production version has no such saving grace, it's just plain ugly no matter the number of doors or it's name. If they had called it Monaco or Intrepid it would still be an ugly undesireable car killed by the superior design of it's own stablemates. With all of that said, It's likely failure will have zero impact on the future of GM and Ford RWDs IMHO. Far greater damage was done by the unwarranted crucifiction of the excellent GTO in the press and on the web. The 300C,the Magnum, and the Mustang will carve out the RWD market as raging successes,paving the way for Zeta and others in RWD and AWD configurations. The Charger will end up as an unfortunate footnote in short order.

 

My girlfriend has banned me from watching the new Mercedes CLS commercial because I started screaming at it the the CLS isnt a coupe...

 

Yeah I've seen and read about that too, how the hell can there be a four-door coupe. It's doen't even look like a coupe, it looks like a long sedan...which is what it is.

Oh yeah, the Charger looks like sh*t.