Hotchkis' '70 Challenger T/A Battles '10 SRT8 Challenger

[NewsBot]

The new, retro-styled Dodge Challenger is a great muscle car offering from Chrysler that affords car buyers all of the modern amenities and creature comforts, with great handling and performance that represents decades of refinements in all aspects of vehicle design. With that said, if you’re a hardcore car nut, all of those things still don’t place it above the original, iconic, 40-year old Challenger.

Last fall, Hotchkis Performance unveiled at the SEMA show a 1970 Challenger T/A showcasing an array of performance modifications. Codenamed E-MAX, the Challenger began fully stock and was converted to a 340 Six-Pack trim, backed by a Hurst shifted four-speed.. Hotchkis outfitted it with fabricated steel upper a-arms with bolt-in relocations suspension pickup point brackets, fabricated strut rods with Heim joints, bump steer corrected aluminum steering rods with adjustable Heim joint ends, a balanced front and rear sway bar package, performance springs, and fabricated steel subframe connectors.



Hotchkis and Edmunds recently matched the T/A up alongside a new 2010 Challenger SRT8 to tackle several different challenges to form a comparison of the two cars. Or rather, to see how the low tech car featuring modernized suspension geometry and handling stacked up to the ultra modern SRT8.

The T/A went toe-to-toe with the SRT8 in both the slalom and the speed stop, and handily bested it on the skid pad. On the quarter mile, the SRT8 held just a two-tenths advantage over the stock 340 Six-Pack. The new Challenger sums up all the great things about modern muscle, but even with 40 years of advancement, its still hard to beat the look, feel, and the sound of the early Challenger.




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