You have seen these iconic cars in movies like Fast and Furious for the past decade, to in the 80’s with the movie Christine where Arnie’s best friend Dennis Guilder drove a Charger, and nobody can forget The Dukes of Hazzard!
All these movies are what’s helped shape the definition of America as it is today, the history of the Dodge Charger is a very special one, “It’s the American Muscle car that made it the king of the Streets” (James Pumphrey -Donut Media). In August of 1964 the Ford Motor company came out with the infamous Ford Mustang, and Chrysler pooped their shorts because the Mustang was a cheap and fast car that was fun to drive. And Chrysler brands like Dodge had nothing close to the Mustang at the time.
So Dodge got to work on a sportier car to make for the American people. And they came out with the 1965 Dart GT Charger. So basically the car started out as a trim level on the 65’ Dodge Dart GT. And the car did pretty good for itself only making 150 of them. But Dodge ran into an issue, they needed a car not just a trim level on the car they already have.
So in 1965 Dodge’s sister brand Plymouth released the Barracuda which was also built to compete with the Mustang! So now Dodge was really freaking out because now they not only had to compete with Ford’s Mustang, but they also had to compete with their sister brand Plymouth’s Barracuda.
So the CEO Lin Townsley said that he could give the Dodge dealers a good car to compete with the Mustang. So this go-round they used the Dodge Coronet’s platform. They changed the Roof, Decklid, Quarter Panels, and the Grill. With this they had the NEW car called the Charger! Which could come with a 426 Hemi and some sick rolling out headlights.
The 1966 Charger which came with its 425 Horsepower engine made it one of the baddest cars to be produced at the time. The Chargers aerodynamic shape helped it win a lot of races on the Nascar Ovals. But this wasn’t enough to compete with the Mustang completely.
From 1966 to 1967 Dodge only sold only about 37,000 Chargers. In 
comparison to Ford’s Mustang which sold over One Million Mustangs in that time. Clearly something needed to be done or to be changed.
In 1968 the Dodge Design Studio had something in store for the CEO’s of Dodge! Richard Sias had a new design for the Charger with a new Coke-Bottle design with a wider Grill. This version of the Charger had a optional motor option of 7.2 Liter 440 Cubic Inch Magnum with 375 to 400 Horsepower. Dodge ended up building more than double of the 65’ year with 100,000 cars made!
The 1969 model year came out with basically the same car but with a bigger and wider grill. As well as a special edition Charger called the Dodge Daytona. Famously driven by Richard Petty. But back to the original Charger, the 1970 Charger came out and had basically nothing different because people loved the Charger so much that they figured if people loved it so much why change it.
In 1971 the Chargers body was now called a ‘Fuselage’ and looked kind of boring and a little softer and didn’t look as hard or mean as it once did in 1968-1970. Along came a lot more strict emission standards which meant less horsepower
But even though the styling was a little out of whack and emissions were cracking down on things they still sold 133,000 in the 1973 model year. But that all came to an end when the gas crisis hit in 1973 which made big cars, with big motors, use large amounts of gas. So the Charger was discontinued due to this.
So, fast forward past the 80’s with the smaller econo-boxes like the Dodge Omni Charger and the Dodge Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell) and through the 90’s where it died yet again. Then in the early 2000’s they brought back the Charger but this time with 4 doors. This Generation of the Charger kept going uphill like it did when it came out in 1965 and 1966.
The last generation of the Charger that we know today is the generation that came out in the 2015 model year and had a 707 Horsepower engine in it. And claimed it had a top speed of 204 MPH and they called it the Hellcat! And in 2020 they made the Widebody Charger Hellcat with the 707 Horsepower engine.
Butttttt… due to Dodge’s “Commitment
to the electric vehicle market” they have decided to discontinue the Charger and its big brother the Challenger.
Now do you think, with a backstory that I just told you, it’s fair to just cut off the cars name and legacy just like that. Even if you’re not a car nut or a car person in general, just think about the story in general. Dodge made a car to compete with the Mustang and they damn well did a great job and they even outlasted their sister company’s car the Barracuda. They succeeded so well and then they just cut off the story of the Charger. I think that Dodge should reconsider their options rather than get rid of the two best cars they’ve ever made.
