Car and Driver Magazine XV Challenger

[73Chally]

I was just curious if anyone else out there has seen the most recent (Nov 07) Car and Driver issue in which they do a short comparison of the XV Motorsports 1970 Challenger with an all original 70 TA (apparently they consider the 340-6 comparable to a hopped up 5.7).  The review is hugely slanted towards the XV. I guess they must have paid big advertising bucks, but for $180K I would expect it to be a better ride.  Anyways, they more or less call the TA junk for driving entertainment.  They must have gotten spoiled from all the Bimmers and Benzes and Lexuses (Lexi?) that they get to drive.

I've checked the CD website but they don't have the story posted, yet.  I will keep checking back and when it is up I will post a link, unless someone else can find it first.

[dwbiggs]

You don't think advertising $ influences tests and articles?  Remember what they say about beleiving everything you read.

With that being said...I would expect the XV car to vastly outperform a stock T/A.

[Super Blue 72]

With that being said...I would expect the XV car to vastly outperform a stock T/A.

   It's like comparing apples to oranges.  For it's day, the stock Challenger T/A I would imaginge would fare well compared to other cars back then in it's class. 

Thanks for posting this info.  I'll have to check out C+D! 

[DAYTONA]

they said it performed as well as a Mustang GT....for $146K, I would certainly hope so.....


$146k would also buy...
* 3 nice used Vipers (all faster)
* a pair of VERY nice original Challenger T/As
* a new Viper and an original T/A

...and on and on and on

.......................Kool car, but not how I want to spend my $

ps...it also picked up about 250 pounds of weight

[DAYTONA]

  It's like comparing apples to oranges.  For it's day, the stock Challenger T/A I would imaginge would fare well compared to other cars back then in it's class. 

Thanks for posting this info.  I'll have to check out C+D! 

...maybe I'm the only "OLD GUY" that posts here ......but yes, the T/A was a VERY worthy street car in its day ....in the "old days", ALL MOPAR Muscle was FEARED on cruise nights....

[73Chally]

It's like comparing apples to oranges. 

 

Obviously the XV car will far outperform the original but the feature car they drove was quoted for $176,000  , and that is with their "base" 436 HP 5.7.  They have an available 6.1 upgrade (any guesses on price?).  Anyways, it just irked me a bit the way they trashed the original.  I'll admit I'm a bit biased towards stock or at least only slightly modified, but the bashing seemed a bit unjustified.  Just call me mister sensitivity. 

[dwbiggs]

I wonder if these cars will hold their value.

[70challrtse]

I wonder if these cars will hold their value.

If you mean the XV, then no.

[HP2]

If I remember correctly, the T/A is the baseline car that XV used for all its testing. It is almost all original down to its polyglass tires, so they were driving a time capsule. While very good in the day, certainly nothing to compare against even a Honda Civic these days. Change the wheels, tires and alignment, and the T/A will take on an entirely different personality and be much more like what most of our cars are now.

Don't forget that a fully decked out XV version car is more than just suspension, wheels and tires, and a new Hemi. While the suspension system and wheels/tire is easily $20k, they also add a/c, cruise, power this and that, tilt column, premium sound, custom seating, so on and so forth. Their target audience for complete cars is not the do-it yourself crowd, as you could build a duplicate for less, but rather the people out there who want a new car wrapped up in an old skin who only want to jump in and turn the key. 

As far as value, that depends. Their obviously is an audience for these or other specialized builders like Saleen, Lingenfelter, Hennesy and others or else we wouldn't see cars like this. The only difference is that XV has decided to play with classic mopars instead of Mustnags, Vettes and Camaros. All the others have been in business for quite some time and their cars still command high prices, so while prices may fluxuate some, I'd say they will hold value as a specialty vehicle quite easily.

[73Chally]

The article said that they have sold 8 of them to date.  Whether that is a good or bad number of sales, I could not even guess.

Speaking of specialty cars, what ever happened to the Unique Performance Challenger that Chip Foose was commissioning, like the Year One Camaro that Rides did a feature on?  The last I had heard was that they could not come up with enough shells to meet anything close to their production needs (profit margin?), unlike the camaros and mustangs that are still a dime a dozen in relation.  I live in Dallas about 30 minutes from the Unique Performance shop, and in fact they are hosting their annual show in a couple weeks.  Foose has been there the past couple years, and last year they had his Challenger on display.  I'm not positive but I think it was in the $150K range, also.  I'll have to see if they have any new info out.

[bb71challenger]

A full blown XV turn key car is going to be desireable to only a small list of people imo. I would have to have a huge amount of expendable income to even consider spending that kind of money for a car. Like most I am a world away from that neighborhood.

[DQHemi]

We don't advertise in Car and Driver - way too expensive to even consider (for us).
Unlikely we will ever advertise there - realistically.

They did not like driving the stock T/A - really at all.  Car was bone stock and everything setup/working as it should.  I'd go as far as saying they were quite nervous driving it at speed through corners and on backroads.  When we got to the road race course they really didn't want to drive the stock one at all. 

As far as thinking they were bashing the T/A, the editor didn't have any sentimental attachment to it and just reviewed it as they would any car from a ride/handling/performance standpoint.

Comparison to the Mustang GT was on acceleration.
Hope they let us come back with another w/ much more HP (that's the easy part).
I can't remember the increase in cost to go to a 6.1, but it's not crazy more money, all the internals etc. we use are the same, largely just the difference in cost for us to start w/ a 6.1 block, heads and crank.

This was the first time they covered a car like this, so we were very excited about it.
We did alot of the testing w/ them at the Chrysler Proving Grounds - which was VERY cool.

The full tilt cars we build are definitely targeted to a small and very affluent audience.  Biggest part of the cost is doing full tilt resto and show quality paint and bodywork.  A car like that one has power windows, door locks, deck lid, A/C, power heated Recaro seats custom upholstered, real wool carpet, all leather dash pad/door panels/kick panels, ultrasuede headliner, custom gauges w/ warning lights, three piece forged wheels w/ aircraft grade hardware, functional T/A on a new Hemi, Level II susp, chassis stiffening, 14" brakes w/ 2-piece rotors, hydroboost, Alpine stereo w/ rear subs/amps and more.  You would be surprised what goes into a build like this.   

However, not everything we've done is targeted to the buyers of cars like this, with more and more of our products at different price points.  Our objective is to produce many different products (which we have done already) that address the needs/desires/budgets of many different markets (which we are also doing) - while maintaining the same level of quality across all we offer. 

The really high end stuff will never be for everyone, but there is a very real market for it.  From a brand standpoint, having real high end, high quality products is a good thing since it defines our commitment to quality, engineering, etc.  May sound silly to some, but it was definitely done very purposely and from my perspective defines a level of quality that carries through all our products.

We did an article w/ Bloomberg not too long ago and they drove both cars and had the same general type of reaction.  There will be an article in Autoweek later this month as well as one in the next issue of Forbes.

[willhaven]

Cool to see the car reviewed in such a big magazine, John. Congrats.

Do you guys still plan to release performance numbers on cornering and braking improvements anytime soon?

[DQHemi]

Cool to see the car reviewed in such a big magazine, John. Congrats.

Do you guys still plan to release performance numbers on cornering and braking improvements anytime soon?

Car and Driver is huge for us in many ways.  It's the biggest auto magazine with over a million readers.  It's also one of the toughest reviewers of cars...

I've provided cornering info before and C&D has some as well and braking.

In our testing on track using on-board telemetry we've measured 1.0 G sustained (not peak) lateral G with our Level I Suspension and the Level II measured 1.1 G.  Car and Driver measures this using a 300 ft circle and timing it.  On the car we brought tot them they measured it as .90 G vs .68 G for the stock car.  As a point of reference Car and Driver measures a C6 Z06 Vette at .99 G.  Measured on track that car pulls 1.2 G.  G's measured on a track will always be higher than those done on a 300ft circle.

Our test vehicle was lighter than the one we brought to C&D since it has: two batteries, power windows/doorlocks/decklid, two amps, two subs, speaker box, sound deadener in doors/cabin/roof/trunk, finished trunk and power seat, which the test car didn't.  Test car was several hundred pounds lighter.

We also ran the car at C&D w/ KDW's rather than KD's (or Michelin's) - the difference being a wet tire rather than a dry, which would bump the numbers. 

Handling is more subjective than just lateral G.  We've taken the platform as far as it will go within the constraints of what the car is to start with.  What the G's don't show is how the car handles overall. 
Here's what Car and Driver had to say about that: "Despite the weight the restomod handled fantastically".    

Car and Driver doesn't rave about anything.

On braking here's their results (T/A had factory power disc/drum setup). 
They measure 70 to 0 MPH:
Stock T/A: 279 ft
XV Challenger: 183 ft
C6 Z06: 149 ft (500 lbs lighter than our car)

Braking distance doesn't show how the car brakes flat and level, no fade lap after lap, etc..

Next Thursday we have our open track event at Pocono Raceway.  We rented a 1.5 mile road race course and the front straight.  Will be other restomods, musclecars and some modern exotics with professional instructors.  Come and visit us at this either as a participant or a guest and you can likely get a ride in one of our cars and see just what they do on track with a profesional driver.  One of our guys was an open wheel champion and is and is an instructor for Porsche club and does demo drives for Porsche in Canada on all their new models when they introduce them.  He pounded on the car when at Car and Driver and was blown away with how hard he could push it on track and felt it was on par with many porsches.  Think that's noise - come to Pocono and we'll put you in a car with him...

We'll also have a Level I car at Pocono with a 425 HP carb powered 5.7 HEMI and 5-speed, and I believe there is a real T/A coming with one of our Level I suspensions hung under it as well.

All in all, I'm very happy with the article and hopefully they'll let us bring out another car some time with alot more power to play with. 

[MJS73]

Did anyone else notice that the supposedly all-original Challenger T/A that they tested had a "340 Six Barrel" sticker on the air cleaner lid?

Here's a link to the full article (Caution: Large File):

www.mikes73.com/cuda-challenger/xvta.pdf

Mike