HOW THE DODGE CHARGER BECAME THE FASTEST SEDAN IN THE WORLD

This is how the mighty and legendary Dodge Charger became the fastest sedan in the world.

The Dodge Charger, one of the most badass American muscle cars to date. It has been featured in films such as Bullet (The bad guy's car) the Fast and the Furious, The Dukes Of Hazzard and even in a bunch of TV series.

The year was 1964, a time when the price of petrol was dirt cheap, and the number of cylinders under your hood was a big deal. Dodge made a name for themselves on the racetrack, specifically at Daytona and quickly gained the nickname: "Kind of the drag strip" and for good reason, the release of the first-generation Dodge Charger.

All was perfect in the eyes of Dodge in the mid-1960s, up until General Motors released a car called the GTO which was faster. This did nothing but motivate Dodge to work even harder on a new generation Charger. Not only did the second-generation Dodge Charger feature even more horsepower, better suspension, but also, for the first time, had specialised aerodynamic engineering go into its production. Finally, the second-generation Dodge Charger was released in 1968 and this would later become the most iconic Dodge Charger of all time.

However, even though the new Charger was absolutely incredible, they did not sell half as well as expected, this was largely due to the fuel crisis that would follow in the early 1970s. Other car companies such as Ford and Chevrolet would go on to build far smaller and more streamlined looking cars which fall under the "pony car" category. Dodge took a far different approach and focussed more on marketing the Charger as a "man's" car which actually worked, but didn't exactly dominate.

Shortly thereafter, Dodge gave in and redesigned the Charger once more and brought out the 3rd generation Charger. The 3rd generation Dodge Charger featured pretty much the same drivetrain as the second generation, but to be honest, the looks were a bit of a letdown, and the customers felt the same way. This was the first time the iconic Charger name fell against its competitors and even though the car still sold, it was nothing like it was in the good old days for Dodge.

Dodge went through some major company changes and the entire American car industry started producing, well, quite unexciting cars to say the least! The fourth-generation Dodge Charger was nothing like it was just a decade ago from this point. The car resembled something like a family cruiser rather than a badass muscle car. What were they thinking?

But it doesn't end there, in fact, it gets even worse with the fifth-generation Dodge Charger of the 1980s. Yes, Dodge released a Charger at this point that was not only cheaply built, had a 4 cylinder turbocharged engine, but was front-wheel drive! This was nothing shy of embarrassing and Dodge knew it so they pulled the plug on the Charger project completely.

It wouldn't be for another 20 years until something sparked up the mighty Dodge Charger name once more. In 2005 a rather weird trend started. That of bringing back old school car models in a retro-styled theme such as the new VW Beetle, the Fiat 500 and even American Muscle cars such as the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro.

These new retro-styled models didn't do particularly well, even in the case of the 6th generation Dodge Charger, but it showed the world that these car companies can still build cool cars and they did get a lot of attention. However, after releasing the 6th generation Charger, Dodge had a brilliant opportunity to perfect this new Charger project and they gave it absolutely everything they had.

This was the 7th Generation Charger that not only looked and handled incredibly well, but was also available in a few different powertrains such as the Dodge Hellcat, the Dodge Deamon and even a very rare version called the Dodge Juiced that had the 8.3-litre V10 engine straight out of a Dodge Viper!

Dodge is back in the game, with 2021's fastest sedan in the world record going to the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye.

Take a look at the video below by the YouTube channel: Ideal Cars on How This Became The World's Fastest Sedan!

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