Dodge Charger

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When I travel with the World Endurance Championship I get to drive a lot of different hire cars, from small economy cars like a Fiat 500 or Peugeot 208 to small executive cars like a Mercedes C Class.  Sometimes however I receive an upgrade to something a bit more interesting and this happened when I travelled to Austin last week.  The clerk on the Hertz desk gave me a free upgrade to a Dodge Charger, a modern take on an iconic All American muscle car.

 In the UK the Dodge Charger is probably most well known for the 'General Lee', a 1969 Charger used in the cult 1980s TV show Dukes of Hazzard. The 2015 version is a modern take on this iconic car and while it is still a bit of a 'wild child' in certain conditions (more about that later) it is now a comfortable Freeway cruiser.


The version I had was fitted with the 5.7-Litre V8 HEMI engine and it certainly was still an interesting car to drive for the 8 days I spent in Texas.  It had rained overnight on Tuesday and the roads were still a bit damp when I headed to the Circuit of The Americas.  

 I made the mistake of putting the power down a little too early and the traction control system only reacted after the car started to 'fishtail'.  It certainly was a bit of a shock after driving fast European cars in similar conditions and I certainly treated the 'loud' pedal with much more respect for the rest of the week. 

 Luckily the weather for the rest of the stay in Texas was warm and sunny and it ate up the miles during the trip from Austin to San Antonio on Sunday.

 The interior of the car was functional but a bit 'plasticy' but for a car that retails at $34000 (£22000) you cant really expect Aston Martin or Porsche levels of trim.  However everything seemed to be well screwed together on the inside, which is something I couldn't say about the outside when the plastic undertray for the engine dropped off and was scrapping along the road making a horrendous noise.  The fault was easily fixed by pulling off the offending article once I reached the hotel.

 All in all the Dodge Charger is great for driving on US Highways but it isn't a car I would want to drive on narrow, bumpy UK roads.  Still it is really nice to get the keys to something a little bit more interesting from the car rental desk.  

 All of the images were taken with a Fujifilm X-T1 fitted with a XF90mm f2 lens













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