Challenger SRT8 vs. 370Z

Desert Rat

My brother has one of the original 2008 SRT8 challengers with a very low production number (#340 something out of 6400). It's the 425hp 6.1 with an auto, and it has just 5k miles on it. He's been mothballing it for a few years now.

I got a chance to drive it the other day and the first thing I did is got in it and did a standing run to 100mph. The car felt great. It handles well, and it's really comfortable, but honestly, I wasn't impressed with the get up and go. Those extra few hundred pounds over my Z34 give it a fairly close power to weight ratio to my car. I suspect in a flat line drag race the Challenger would edge the Z, but not by a helluva lot. Running through the gears and keeping those shift points around 6k or so with the manual gets the Z moving just about as fast.

I will say the Challenger is a more comfortable car for sure, but while it handles quite well, it's a boat by comparison.

Anyways, it was a non technical seat of the pants impression. His Challenger is in Montana; my Z is in Arizona so we couldn't go head to head, but it was fun getting to flog on another performance icon.

Obviously the newer SRT8s with the 485 HP scat pack are a different ballgame, and the Hellcat is in another league all together. I got a ride recently in the Hellcat too, since a friend of mine bought one. That is one scary fast car! Pretty hard to wipe the smile off your face riding around in one of those.