Yes. The 'other' one. Not the B-body muscle car that everyone knows about, the one that raced on the NASCAR circuit, the one that starred in Bullitt, The Dukes of Hazzard and many other films and TV series. And not the new one, with it's 5.7 V8 Hemi that isn't actually a Hemi but they call it a Hemi anyway. I'm talking about the L-body car. From a time when American cars lost the one thing that made them great - real muscle.
Where to begin? Well, rather than being a V8 RWD beast the '83-'87 Chargers were FWD hatchbacks. Starting out in it's design life as the Dodge Omni 024, the Charger was effectively a $399 option package on the Omni from '81 to '83 before the Omni name was dropped in favour of the cars being called Chargers. Oh boy. Great start.
Engine options were hugely dire to begin with. The choice was a 1.7l Chrysler/Peugeot inline 4, or a 2.2l Chrysler 'K' inline 4. Fabulous. Compared with the cars that used to carry the name, with their V8s rumbling away, these engines really paled in comparison. The 2.2 did have one thing going for it though - Carroll Shelby (he of Cobra fame).
Shelby took the 2.2 motor and rasied the compression ratio a touch. a bit of tweaking on the suspenion side of things, plus some styling alterations coupled with this 'high-output' motor (all of 107 ponies) produced the Dodge Shelby Charger. Things get slightly odd here - in '85 a turbo'd version of the 2.2 was built with 146hp, this engine being used in the Dodge Charger Shelby, not to be confused with the previously mentioned Dodge Shelby Charger (told you it got odd). The HO engine became an option on non-Shelby badged cars in '85, with '87 being the last year for the Omni-based Chargers. But before production ended, we had a series of '87 Chargers that were badged as the Shelby Charger Turbo (as opposed to a Dodge Shelby Charger or a Dodge Charger Shelby....I swear I'm not making this up!). These had a newer iteration of the turbo 2.2 engine with a (comparitively) massive 175hp. But that's not quite it for the odd-ness.....
Shelby purchased the final 1000 L-body Chargers, and sold them as the Charger GLHS. These had the old 146hp turbo engine fitted with the intercooler and plumbing from the 175hp engine, but didn't have the forged crank, full-floating pin pistons and a few other bits from the 175hp engine. But with the bits they did use, they got the power output to......175hp. It gives me a headache trying to follow it.....
Here's what they look like - this one is slightly modded on the outside, and has had some engine work as well.
Unlike my last history thread, I don't have a big point to make. I do have a little one though, which is as follows:
I used to hate these cars.
I always saw them as cruddy little things, not worthy of carrying the Charger name. I carried this thought right up until last summer, at the Mopar Nats at Santa Pod. A friend brought his turbo'd Charger with him, and I rode with him on the Friday evening cruise to the pub. And.....I loved it. It was completely broken at the time, it kept switching into 'limp' mode, it was battered and grubby and in need of some serious attention. But when it ran right, the engine was such a lovely little unit and the turbo really did propel it along with some vigour. Even the engine note wasn't so bad for an American 4 cylinder. It was still ugly, but I could quite happily get past that fact now knowing that a sorted example would be a great car to drive. I'd almost put it up with the '68-'70 B-body Chargers in my list of favourite cars.
Strange that, me liking a 4 cylinder hatchback with a turbo strapped to it almost as much as a dirty great V8 muscle car. Must be getting a little odd as I get older. Next thing you know I'll be liking E90 BMWs.....
Where to begin? Well, rather than being a V8 RWD beast the '83-'87 Chargers were FWD hatchbacks. Starting out in it's design life as the Dodge Omni 024, the Charger was effectively a $399 option package on the Omni from '81 to '83 before the Omni name was dropped in favour of the cars being called Chargers. Oh boy. Great start.
Engine options were hugely dire to begin with. The choice was a 1.7l Chrysler/Peugeot inline 4, or a 2.2l Chrysler 'K' inline 4. Fabulous. Compared with the cars that used to carry the name, with their V8s rumbling away, these engines really paled in comparison. The 2.2 did have one thing going for it though - Carroll Shelby (he of Cobra fame).
Shelby took the 2.2 motor and rasied the compression ratio a touch. a bit of tweaking on the suspenion side of things, plus some styling alterations coupled with this 'high-output' motor (all of 107 ponies) produced the Dodge Shelby Charger. Things get slightly odd here - in '85 a turbo'd version of the 2.2 was built with 146hp, this engine being used in the Dodge Charger Shelby, not to be confused with the previously mentioned Dodge Shelby Charger (told you it got odd). The HO engine became an option on non-Shelby badged cars in '85, with '87 being the last year for the Omni-based Chargers. But before production ended, we had a series of '87 Chargers that were badged as the Shelby Charger Turbo (as opposed to a Dodge Shelby Charger or a Dodge Charger Shelby....I swear I'm not making this up!). These had a newer iteration of the turbo 2.2 engine with a (comparitively) massive 175hp. But that's not quite it for the odd-ness.....
Shelby purchased the final 1000 L-body Chargers, and sold them as the Charger GLHS. These had the old 146hp turbo engine fitted with the intercooler and plumbing from the 175hp engine, but didn't have the forged crank, full-floating pin pistons and a few other bits from the 175hp engine. But with the bits they did use, they got the power output to......175hp. It gives me a headache trying to follow it.....
Here's what they look like - this one is slightly modded on the outside, and has had some engine work as well.
Unlike my last history thread, I don't have a big point to make. I do have a little one though, which is as follows:
I used to hate these cars.
I always saw them as cruddy little things, not worthy of carrying the Charger name. I carried this thought right up until last summer, at the Mopar Nats at Santa Pod. A friend brought his turbo'd Charger with him, and I rode with him on the Friday evening cruise to the pub. And.....I loved it. It was completely broken at the time, it kept switching into 'limp' mode, it was battered and grubby and in need of some serious attention. But when it ran right, the engine was such a lovely little unit and the turbo really did propel it along with some vigour. Even the engine note wasn't so bad for an American 4 cylinder. It was still ugly, but I could quite happily get past that fact now knowing that a sorted example would be a great car to drive. I'd almost put it up with the '68-'70 B-body Chargers in my list of favourite cars.
Strange that, me liking a 4 cylinder hatchback with a turbo strapped to it almost as much as a dirty great V8 muscle car. Must be getting a little odd as I get older. Next thing you know I'll be liking E90 BMWs.....
But it makes up for it by being a hoot on the road. The car pictured, with the mods it's had, does 12sec 1/4mile times which isn't all that bad for a front-drive POS from the darkest days of the American car industry!
