2024 Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack vs Ford Mustang Dark Horse- The State of The Muscle Car

Are you going to nag me the whole time? Yeah, that's the whole idea. I'm going to make you regret you ever took this decision. Do you want to wait until later? Wait until what? You're trying to drown me out. I was going to say, do you want to wait until we're on the main road? What is a muscle car? Some think it's anything with a V8 and rear-wheel drive. Others think it's got to be an intermediate body. Aaron, what are you doing? That's my FretSonic chambered exhaust, baby. It's a speaker under your bumper. Yes, but Dodd says this is the future of the muscle car. 670 electric horsepower and all the noise and all the fury and all the glory of a classic V8 muscle car. It doesn't have a V8. No, it doesn't actually have a V8. This is true. You know what has a V8? That. Yes, this Ford Mustang Dark Horse. The iconic Mustang. Five liters, 500 horsepower. What else do you need? All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to head off into the desert and we're going to figure out which of these two is the better muscle car. Let's do it. You drive first. So we're in the Mustang. Now, this is a Dark Horse, so it's not exactly the muscle Mustang. Just Ford couldn't schedule us in a GT. This is more the track-ready Mustang. Ford's answer to BMW's M, et cetera. Yes, but what I like about it is even though it's a track-focused car, I think this still does everything I expect of a modern muscle car, right? Oh, absolutely. It's got the V8, it's got the launch mode, it's got an electronic line locker. It does that. There's a lot of people who will say, oh, it's a pony car. And we would agree. A pony car is different. Well, I would agree. You would agree. I mean, granted, some of the muscle cars I grew up with were box bodies. They were S and 95 Mustangs, New Edge Mustangs. Those were all we had. We didn't have Chargers. We didn't have GTOs. You know, the GTO is a Holden. That's because you didn't live in the golden age. I mean, granted, I was still crawling when the last Challengers were going away. But, you know, there was a time when muscle cars were just, I mean, let's be honest, big and stupid. And that's what made them so great. I mean, I grew up with stories of my dad talking about his 72 Chevelle SS 454, you know, plowing through cornfields as they go off-road and stuff. And it's just like, A, how did you survive? But B, like, that does sound pretty awesome. And having driven some of those old classics, like, there's just something so special about, like, you know, a 68 GTO, for instance. So even though this might not be a proper muscle car, I think we can agree that it plays the part of a muscle car on TV. All right, this is the perfect strip. Let's do our simulated stoplight rally. You're playing your Lou Gramm. There's a guy next to you in a GTO. Light is red. Light is red. Lights green! There's 60. If you're used to, like, a 60s muscle car, by that standard, this thing is just amazingly fast. Right. Spins the tires, makes all the noise. It's dramatic, but also we're a little hard to impress. Very hard to impress. Because we've driven stuff that goes 0 to 60 in, like, you know, two seconds and change. Actually, under two seconds for that Tesla. Yeah. And even so, this thing, listen, by 60 muscle car standards, this thing is just top of the roost. Way the hell faster than any of those old cars can go. Definitely going to put a big grin on your face. But the thing is, even though our comparison is more about the muscle car elements of it, I just, every time I drive this car on a curvy road, I'm like, damn, this thing's good. I will say, like, this is arguably the peak of the internal combustion muscle car right here. You know, maybe you can argue, and I probably would, the old Chevy GT3 with that flat-plane crank V8 was just, it got no better than that. Yes. But, like, these muscle cars now can go past straight lines, they can handle just as well, they can brake. So it's really an all-around awesome driving machine. You don't have to make any apologies for it. It does everything you want to embarrass others and just put a smile on your face. It's really the whole point of the segment. I get excited when I see, like, sanctioned racing events, you know, like the Rolex 24 or the car they ran at Le Mans. And I see a Mustang that's out there really duking it out with these serious performance cars, but knowing that the soul of the American muscle car is still there. It's a point of pride in all honesty. Just like British people, you know, start crying when you talk about roadsters. This is what we're known for. Let's give Ford credit. GM did the same thing. They did some amazing Camaros. Oh my God, yeah. Let's give the American engineers credit that they engineered a chassis where we could have a really good handling car and we didn't have to lose that giant lump of iron up front. Again, no compromises. Setting aside the CA Corvette. Setting aside the CA Corvette, yeah. Yes, really is no compromises. I mean, I would put this dark horse up against the best of any sports car. I mean, it really is. We've driven it on the track. I mean, when I drove this on the track, I did think it felt like it was going to do funky things. You have to know you can trust the car. And maybe the element of trust has to be higher and more immediately assumed than it would in a Porsche. But my goodness what this thing will do. Yeah, fantastic. Quite an accomplishment. I think we are going to agree that even though this may not be the most representative muscle car, the Charger is going to have to hit a very, very high bar for us to say it is a proper muscle car. Especially considering all the traditional muscle car aspects it does away with. Like the V8. You know, the rear wheel drive, at least in this electric version. Yeah, if the Charger can stand up to the performance this Mustang can give, then it's going to be a real credit to Stellantis. Absolutely. I think now that we're in the beautiful town of Mojave, you should pull over, we should eat lunch, and then we should get into the Charger and see what it does. What's up at McDonald's? Nothing more American. You ready? Let's do it. I know, but like, it's awesome, right? I mean, is it any less impressive than the Mustang? Yes. So, let's talk about what a muscle car has to do. Okay, first of all, sound and theory. Yes. Now, it's fake, which admittedly is a little cheesy, but it is convincing, is it not? It is. You get that sound context that you miss in other electric vehicles. Okay, well, here's the real test. First thing, we talked about noise, but really, the most important thing about a muscle car is acceleration. I'm not even going to use any of the fancy launch mode. We're sitting next to your Mustang right now. I don't know why you're here when your Mustang's out there. Ba-ba-ba, light turns green. I mean, that's sub-geek. That's, I mean, we were just fake going like that. We were shoved back in our seats. So, acceleration check, 0 to 60. Dodge is saying 3.3 seconds. They lied, because we tested it at Motor Trend, and it did it in 3.2. 3.2 seconds to 60. Quarter mile, 11.5 seconds. Now, that's, I mean, back in the day, even the fire-breathing Hemi Charger from the mid and the late 60s, I mean, one of those things could do 14 seconds in the quarter. That was pretty amazing. 13, you were really, really all in the mail. 11.5 seconds, I mean, you couldn't do that with a second Hemi engine and, like, another truckload of carburetors strapped onto the thing. You just couldn't do it. This has some advantages built into it being an EV, though. Yes, that is true, because it can put power down to the ground in a way that a rear-wheel-drive V8-powered car just can't. Now, I have to say, this is probably one of the nicest interiors that we've seen out of Stellantis in a very long time. It is genuinely gorgeous. Yeah, I love it with this red light reflected up in the dash, which, of course, you can't see. You know, for a short guy like me, everything's in touch, because that's important. Because I don't know if you noticed, statistically, muscle car owners are two inches shorter than everybody else. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. It might have been in the Reader's Digest. No, I really like the ergonomics. It has the fury. It has the sound. What else does a muscle car have to do? Well, it has to look cool. It does look so cool. Oh, I've got to go before this guy cleans up. Okay, I don't care how many Chryslers, how many cars you own, how many 454s you own, that's impressive. It is objectively impressive. And, you know, the size, you were talking about how this thing has a practical back seat. It's a hatchback, so it's got a nice big trunk. I mean, that actually attracts, because a lot of muscle cars were really big cars. You know, they were intermediates. By the way, I'm with you. You mentioned the old Chargers. I think the 1968 Dodge Charger is one of the most beautiful cars ever created. Certainly one of the most beautiful Chryslers ever created. And the way they've imitated the way the flanks of the car go up over the fenders, and you can actually see that line in the side view mirror. Aside from the fact the mirrors are big and usable, you know, the Charger had these little mirrors. But looking out over my shoulder, you can almost convince yourself that there is a 1968 Charger out behind it. In all honesty, I think it's the best design that's come out of this Glandis as of late. Of course, the biggest shortcoming of this car is the range, of which there is not much. So if you drive it in this car, what's the EPA rating on this? This one has the super sticky tires, so it's about 220, give or take a few miles. And we found that if we were after our performance testing when we've been, you know, kind of driving it for all it's worth, that would drop to under 200. But, you know, the Mustang, after 200 miles on the Mustang, you need to fuel it up as well, so the range is about the same. The problem is, it is obviously a lot easier to fuel up the Mustang than it is to charge up the Charger. I think part of that problem is the fact that Dodge went high performance on the motors, but they did not go high performance with the voltage system, which is 400 volts instead of 800 volts or more, like you're seeing on Hyundai, Kia, etc. Yeah, when we charged this thing before our video shoot, we were jealous of the guy in the Kia EV9, who was like in and out of there in 15 minutes. No one in a muscle car, electric or gasoline-powered, should be ever jealous of a Kia. That's not a good look. We both felt some tramlining, you know, with these great big sticky tires kind of grab the road and go hither and thither a little bit. You know what, this thing rides comfortably, it's reasonably quiet. I can't say this is as much fun as the Mustang. It's nowhere near as much fun on a curvy road. It is surprisingly confident. But, you know, the long-distance comfort is something that I really admire. And again, if you think about it, all those classic muscle cars were generally built on the intermediates. You know, they were fairly comfortable riding cars. But it just amazes me how much this car meets the bar that was set by the Mustang. But we have to contemplate, with the fake noise, with the electric motor, with all the software advances, is it even a muscle car, period? I will never get tired of that. I do like the fact that we used a turbine car. That's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. I've got to be honest, as much as I love the Dodge, I really thought the Mustang was going to drive away with this one. But the Charger is pretty impressive. Yeah, I came in here thinking there's no way the Mustang is going to beat the V, but the Charger is fantastic. You know what, the Charger does so many traditional muscle car things. It's ridiculously fast, faster than the Mustang. It's got the noise, it's got the fury, it looks good, it's shock and awe, you know. There's one important thing every muscle car needs to be able to do. Oh, I was hoping you wouldn't come up with this. We've got to see if we can do a burnout. The burnout. Let's go try it. Let's try it. Charger can't do a burnout. Charger really can't do a burnout, can it? I turned the volume up on your little speaker. Oh, you're funny. But you know the thing is, Dodge could program it to do a burnout. They could program it in a line lock, they could program more power to the rear end, so maybe someday it'll be able to do a burnout. Someday. Yeah, no. No. So for now, I think we can both agree, the best muscle car you can get, this baby, for a Mustang. It's the Mustang. For more about these fantastic cars and all things automotive, visit us on the web at MotorTrend.com. Hey, I'm doing a video, don't talk to me, I'm doing a video over here. I told this guy, I said the Charger's a decent muscle car. Guy looks at me like I've got tree heads. Who cares? Who cares? What's an electric f***ing muscle car? What the f*** is that? I says, a muscle car without a V8? Why don't you have a pizza without the cheese? I says, get the f*** out of here. That's what I says to the guy. I says.