Dodge is taking the Charger’s 60th anniversary celebrations on the road, with a coast-to-coast programme spanning major American car shows, Route 66, Woodward Avenue and an NHRA national drag-racing event. The commemorative events for 2026 will also include the unveiling of what Dodge describes as the most powerful SIXPACK-powered Charger yet.
The tour began at the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals in Pennsylvania on July 10-12. Nearly 3000 cars from across the Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Ram and Jeep families filled the Carlisle Fairgrounds, with a dedicated display marking 60 years of the Charger. Dodge also presented its new 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged Charger in detail and gave the Purple Haze exterior colour its first public appearance.
The anniversary programme crossed the country on July 12, when classic and current Chargers led the Petersen Automotive Museum’s Route 66 Centennial Parade to Santa Monica Pier. The parade brought together cars representing different periods of American motoring to mark the road’s centenary, with further historic vehicles from the Stellantis collection joining the Chargers.
The Petersen will continue the celebrations on July 26 with its All-American Cruise-In in Los Angeles. Examples from each of the eight recognised Charger generations are due to attend, covering everything from the original 1966 fastback to the latest electric Charger Daytona and petrol-powered SIXPACK models. A discussion with a Dodge representative will also examine the car’s development across those six decades.
The loudest part of the tour arrives on August 8, when MotorTrend Presents Roadkill Nights Powered by Dodge returns to Pontiac, Michigan. The 11th running will again turn part of Woodward Avenue into a temporary drag strip for street-legal racing, while a second competition will take place on a closed-road course inside M1 Concourse for the first time.
Roadkill Nights will incorporate a Charger anniversary display, thrill and drift rides, and the opening round of the Direct Connection Grudge Match. Competitors will modify and race 550bhp Charger Scat Packs fitted with Dodge’s high-output SIXPACK engine. Their campaign will continue through further events before concluding with a final-four contest at the Mopar NHRA Las Vegas Nationals later in the year.
Dodge is also promising a significant new model reveal at Roadkill Nights. The company has confirmed that it will show the most powerful SIXPACK-powered Charger produced so far, although its output and full specification remain undisclosed. The existing high-output car develops 550bhp and 531lb ft, so the new version will sit above the present Charger Scat Pack.
One week later, Dodge will establish a display at the Woodward Dream Cruise on August 15. The current Charger R/T and Scat Pack will appear alongside cars representing earlier stages in the model’s history as Woodward Avenue hosts its annual gathering of classics, muscle cars, customs and contemporary performance machinery.
The tour concludes on September 18-20 at the Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals Presented by Mopar. Chargers will leave Stellantis’s Auburn Hills base in a pre-event cruise to US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Michigan. The meeting will be the first NHRA national event held in Michigan for 66 years, with Dodge and Mopar serving as title and presenting sponsors.
The events arrive as Dodge attempts one of the more difficult transitions in the Charger’s history. Its eighth generation must connect the name with both electric propulsion and a petrol engine that has two fewer cylinders than many traditional Charger buyers expect. The all-electric Charger Daytona Scat Pack produces up to 670bhp, while the petrol range uses a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six. It develops 420bhp and 468lb ft in the Charger R/T, rising to 550bhp and 531lb ft in the Scat Pack.
Both come with all-wheel drive, although a selectable rear-wheel-drive mode can send all the engine’s torque to the back wheels. Two-door and four-door bodies are offered across the range. However, rumours of a V8 return won’t go away. Now that would be the greatest 60th birthday present of all, wouldn’t it?
How the Dodge Charger reached 60
Dodge had used the Charger name on show cars before 1966, but the production version arrived on New Year’s Day with rather more ambition than simply adding another V8 coupé to Detroit’s increasingly crowded muscle-car market.
Based on the intermediate-sized Coronet, the first Charger was part fastback, part grand tourer and part rolling demonstration of what Chrysler’s engineers could do when the accountants briefly looked the other way. Its roofline swept almost uninterrupted into the tail, the headlamps rotated out of sight behind a full-width grille and the rear lamps stretched across the width of the car. Inside were four individual seats and a centre console that ran from the dashboard into the rear compartment. The back seats folded down, creating a surprisingly useful load area in a car that could also be ordered with a 7.0-litre Hemi.
It was an unusual combination. The Charger looked like a design study but carried the mechanical menu of a serious muscle car. The engine range started with a 5.2-litre V8, followed by 5.9-litre and 6.3-litre units, then reached its logical conclusion with the 426 Street Hemi. Officially rated at 425bhp under the optimistic SAE gross system of the period, the Hemi brought competition-derived cylinder heads, enormous valves and enough appetite for fuel to make even 1960s America pause for thought.
In the end, Dodge sold 37,344 Chargers during the shortened 1966 model year, which was respectable rather than transformative. Sales dropped below 16,000 in 1967, despite the arrival of the 7.2-litre 440 Magnum and the assistance of Allison Parks for the Playmate Pink colour scheme (above).
The first Charger was dramatic, technically interesting and slightly awkward, rather like a concept car that hadn’t quite been finished before being pushed onto the streets. The answer came in 1968 and it changed the Charger permanently.
The second-generation car (above) abandoned the vast fastback glasshouse for a lower, tighter body with rear buttresses, concealed headlamps and deeply sculpted flanks. The shape pinched in around the waist before swelling over the wheels, creating the Coke-bottle profile that has been copied, referenced and occasionally vandalised by retro designers ever since.
This was the Charger most people picture when the name is mentioned. It looked aggressive while standing still, although it was also clean enough to avoid the cartoon excess that would engulf areas of the muscle-car market a few years later. The R/T specification brought the 7.2-litre 440 Magnum as standard, with the 7.0-litre Hemi available to anybody with sufficient money and a relaxed attitude towards rear-tyre expenditure.
Dodge expected to sell about 35,000. It shifted more than 96,000 during 1968, including 17,000-plus R/Ts. The Charger had gone from interesting outlier to cultural fixture in the space of one model change.
Hollywood helped. A black 1968 Charger R/T pursued Steve McQueen’s Mustang through San Francisco in Bullitt, bouncing over hills, shedding wheel trims and sounding considerably more intimidating than the hero car. The Mustang received top billing, but the Charger looked like the machine you would least like to discover filling your mirrors.
Television later turned the Charger into the General Lee in The Dukes of Hazzard. Hundreds of 1968 and 1969 cars were reportedly sacrificed to the programme’s appetite for jumps, crashes and improbable escapes. A 1970 R/T then became Dominic Toretto’s supercharged street car in the first The Fast and the Furious, introducing another generation to the sight of a black Charger rearing up on its back tyres.
By then, the second-generation body had become one of those rare pieces of industrial design that remained recognisable outside its original audience. People who could not identify a 440 Magnum from a washing machine still knew a Charger when they saw one.
Its shape was rather less impressive to Chrysler’s racing engineers. On NASCAR’s fastest circuits, the recessed grille pushed air into the nose while the tunnelled rear window created turbulence. The Charger looked slippery but behaved like a garden shed in a hurricane. Dodge first tried to solve the problem with the 1969 Charger 500, fitting a flush rear window and a conventional grille. It helped, although not enough.
The response was the Charger Daytona (above). Dodge added a pointed nose cone, smoothed the airflow around the front, flush-fitted the back screen and mounted a vast rear wing high above the boot lid. The height was partly aerodynamic and partly practical, allowing the boot to open beneath it.
Just over 500 road cars were built to satisfy homologation requirements. On the track, the Daytona did exactly what its appearance promised. On March 24, 1970, Buddy Baker lapped Alabama International Motor Speedway at 200.447mph, becoming the first driver officially recorded at more than 200mph in a stock car on a closed circuit. The Daytona and its Plymouth Superbird Mopar stablemate became so effective that NASCAR changed the rules to limit them.
A third-generation Charger appeared for 1971. It was shorter between the axles, broader in stance and more exaggerated in almost every detail. The body wrapped tightly around the wheels, the grille split into two sections and the surfaces carried enough creases and scallops to keep a bodyshop occupied for weeks.
The performance hardware had not yet disappeared. Buyers could still order the 7.0-litre Hemi (above) or the 7.2-litre 440 Six Pack, while the Super Bee name moved from the Coronet range to the Charger for a single year. Yet the original muscle-car period was already approaching the wall at considerable speed.
Insurance premiums were rising, emissions regulations were tightening and the industry was changing the way it quoted engine output. The Hemi disappeared from the production range after 1971. The Six Pack followed soon afterwards. Power outputs fell, weight increased and the Charger gradually swapped tyre smoke for thicker carpets.
By 1975 the Charger had become a different sort of car entirely. The fourth-generation model shared much of its structure with the Chrysler Cordoba and adopted the formal styling of a personal-luxury coupé. There was an upright grille, an expansive bonnet, generous interior trim and an of-the-moment vinyl roof
The Daytona badge returned, but now it identified an appearance package rather than a car created to bend the air around Talladega. This was not quite the betrayal later mythology suggests – like the much-maligned (but which actually sold in large amounts) Ford Mustang II, it was a reflection of the times. Personal-luxury cars were selling strongly and America’s appetite for vast engines had been dented by the fuel crisis. Dodge built what the market wanted, even if what the market wanted was a Charger wearing opera windows. Rear-wheel-drive Charger production ended after 1978, but the name did not remain dormant for long.
The Dodge Charger returned in 1981 on a compact, front-wheel-drive hatchback derived from Chrysler’s L-body platform. To anybody raised on Daytonas and R/Ts, the new Charger must have looked as though the nameplate had been attached to the wrong car in the factory car park.
Its engines displaced 1.7 or 2.2 litres and its priorities were low weight, economy and affordability. Yet the basic car was not without promise. Carroll Shelby, by then working closely with Chrysler, recognised that the humble hatchback could be made considerably more entertaining.
The Dodge Shelby Charger arrived for 1983 with revised suspension, quicker steering, larger brakes and a more powerful 2.2-litre engine. Turbocharging followed in 1985, giving the lightweight front-wheel-drive car the sort of mid-range punch that could embarrass much larger machinery.
The ultimate version was the 1987 Shelby Charger GLHS. Shelby bought the final 1000 Turbo Chargers and converted them at his own facility, adding an intercooled 2.2-litre turbo engine producing 175bhp. In a car weighing little more than a tonne, that was sufficient to make the steering wheel a fairly active participant under hard acceleration.
GLHS officially meant Goes Like Hell S’more. It lacked the poetry of Gran Turismo Omologato, but nobody could accuse Shelby of disguising the car’s purpose. The Charger then vanished for 18 years.
A handsome 1999 concept (pictured above) suggested a possible return, combining the proportions of a rear-wheel-drive performance car with four doors. Tom Gale’s design team gave it a long bonnet, rearward cabin, Coke-bottle flanks and buttresses, while disguising the rear doors within the bodywork.
Beneath it sat a heavily reworked version of Chrysler’s front-wheel-drive LH platform, converted to rear-wheel drive and fitted with Prowler-derived suspension and Viper brakes. The 4.7-litre supercharged V8 produced 325bhp through a five-speed manual gearbox, but the real surprise was its fuel. It ran on compressed natural gas stored at high pressure in three composite cells, giving a claimed 300-mile range without swallowing the boot. At around 1360kg, it was also considerably lighter than the original 1966 Charger. Inside were four carbonfibre-backed bucket seats, machined-aluminium pedals, a pistol-grip gearlever and a full-length centre console.
The production revival eventually arrived for the 2006 model year, sharing Chrysler’s LX architecture with the 300 and Dodge Magnum.
The decision to make it a saloon caused predictable outrage. For some enthusiasts, a Charger with rear doors was as simply unacceptable. Yet the basic formula was right – it had rear-wheel drive, a long bonnet, a broad stance and adequate space to work as daily transport. More importantly, the R/T came with a 5.7-litre Hemi V8 producing 340bhp.
The SRT8 followed with a naturally aspirated 6.1-litre Hemi and 425bhp, matching the advertised output of the old 426 Street Hemi while delivering it through modern brakes, tyres, suspension and electronics. Daytona and Super Bee editions returned with bright paint, decals and chassis changes, although thankfully without any attempt to recreate the 1969 rear wing.
A heavily revised Charger arrived in 2011. Its body drew more openly from the late 1960s cars, particularly in the scalloped sides and full-width rear lamps, but it remained a large four-door saloon. The R/T’s 5.7-litre V8 produced 370bhp, while the SRT8 gained a 6.4-litre Hemi with 470bhp. Then came the Hellcat. In 2015 Dodge installed its supercharged 6.2-litre V8 in the Charger and announced 707bhp. This was not a lightweight coupé, a homologation special or a barely legal racing car. It was a large saloon with five seats, a sizeable boot and ample power to trouble contemporary supercars.
It also arrived at exactly the right moment. Much of the performance-car industry was moving towards smaller turbocharged engines, increasingly discreet styling and carefully managed efficiency. Dodge responded by fitting a supercharger the size of a kitchen appliance to a V8. The Charger SRT Hellcat (above) was crude in some respects, sophisticated in others and completely unapologetic. It could run beyond 200mph, destroy its rear tyres almost at will and still carry a family and their luggage.
Dodge kept turning up the wick. The 2021 Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye produced 797bhp. The later Jailbreak version raised that to 807bhp and allowed buyers to combine paint colours, stripes, wheels and interior finishes that had previously been restricted to particular models. The old four-door Charger bowed out in 2023 with a run of Last Call editions, including the Super Bee and 807bhp King Daytona. After 17 years in production, it had survived long enough to become a period piece in its own right.
Its replacement faced an unenviable task. The eighth-generation Charger (pictured above) had to follow one of the loudest, fastest and least restrained production saloons ever built while navigating an industry shifting towards electrification. Dodge began with the electric Charger Daytona, initially offered as a two-door before the four-door joined it. The new car effectively absorbed the roles previously divided between Charger and Challenger, while its styling drew heavily from the 1968 Charger.
The Daytona Scat Pack develops up to 670bhp, although its most controversial feature is not its power but its Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust. This uses speakers and resonating chambers to create an external sound intended to give the electric Charger some of the drama of its petrol predecessors. Whether it sounds like the future of muscle cars or an industrial vacuum cleaner depends largely on where you stand in the culture war.
Petrol power returned through the SIXPACK models, using a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six rather than a V8. The R/T produces 420bhp, while the Scat Pack develops 550bhp and 531lb ft. Both use all-wheel drive but can send all their torque to the rear wheels at the driver’s command.
The SIXPACK name refers back to the three two-barrel carburettors used on some of Dodge’s most serious engines during the original muscle-car era. There are no carburettors here and two cylinders have gone missing, but the intention is familiar: immense wallop for the price.
Over 60 years, the Charger has been a fastback, a muscle coupé, a NASCAR special, a personal-luxury barge, a turbocharged hatchback, a four-door super-saloon and an electric performance car. What comes next might yet be the biggest surprise.
More details on the Dodge Charger at 60 here. For information on the Petersen Automotive Museum’s Fast and the Furious exhibit, head here.
