I Drifted The 2026 Dodge Charger So Hard In Snow That I Made Myself Dizzy And Accidentally Overheated Its Engine

What is a muscle car? Historically, muscle cars were intermediate coupes with massive lumps of V8 power shoehorned into their unsuspecting engine bays. They were astoundingly fast, but usually only in a straight line, and frightened insurance agencies to the point where a flagship muscle car owner would nearly pay half the value of their car in premiums every year. Dodge was one of the brands that kept that spirit alive in the 21st century with somewhat affordable Chargers and Challengers that were locked and loaded with V8s, making cataclysmic levels of power. Now, we’re entering a new generation of muscle, one where power levels are still high, but the V8s have retired in favor of boosted straight-sixes. That’s the new Dodge Charger Sixpack, the internal-combustion version of a car that began life as an EV.

Does Dodge still have the muscle touch? I drove both the 2026 Dodge Charger R/T and the 2026 Dodge Charger Scat Pack to find out, and there’s great news and some weird news.

I tested Dodge’s Hurricane-powered muscle cars in a unique environment, the snowy and icy roads of northern rural Vermont and New Hampshire. Normally, this would be just about the worst place to test a traditional muscle car. Where are you going to put down all of that power in the land of moose, syrup, and orange signs warning of frost heaves?

Dodge’s team was pretty clever here. The internal combustion Chargers ship only with all-wheel drive. The new Chargers bring an opportunity for Dodge to spread its demographics further. A lot of Challenger and Charger owners live in places that might get a dusting of snow at best. But Vermont? Oh, Vermont is not that. Snow out there is measured in feet, and people talk about days with temperatures below zero like they’re nothing. Vermont is, at least you’d think, one of the last places you’d expect to see a Charger thundering down a valley.

As you’re about to read, the addition of AWD now makes the Charger a much more serious snow car. But it’s not just about being safe in the snow, either. I crossed the border into New Hampshire to pay a visit to the wizards of the Team O’Neil Rally School. While there, I took these Chargers to their absolute limits. In one instance, I performed a full throttle, rev limiter-banging circular drift for so long that I got dizzy and the engine got pegged right at the hot mark. Oh yeah, it’s fun, alright. This won’t be my full review, but it will focus more on just driving the Charger.

(Full Disclosure: Dodge invited me out to Stowe, Vermont, to participate in the first media drives of the Dodge Charger R/T and the Dodge Charger four-door. Dodge paid for my flights, cozy lodging, and excellent meals.)

Rock You Like A Hurricane

Back in 2024, Dodge rocked the car enthusiast world when it launched an all-new Dodge Charger Daytona that weighed as much as the state of Texas and replaced the roaring V8 with batteries, electric motors, and a speaker “exhaust” system. It was a controversial car among reviewers and fans alike.

Now, the new Charger comes with a gas engine. This is thanks to the vehicle’s platform, the STLA Large, which was designed as a native BEV platform with the ability to also burn gas. This causes some oddities, which you’ll read about soon.

Dodge sells that internal combustion Charger in two main flavors. The line opens with the R/T, which sports a three-liter twin-turbo Hurricane straight-six good for 420 horsepower and 468 lb-ft of torque. The current flagship is the Scat Pack, which sports the Hurricane cranked up to 550 horsepower and 531 lb-ft of torque. Dodge calls this engine the Sixpack, and officially, the R/T dispatches 60 mph in 4.6 seconds while the Scat Pack does the same deed in 3.9 seconds. The gassers come with a ZF-designed eight-speed automatic transmission.

Dodge compares the standard output Sixpack to the outgoing 5.7 Hemi, saying that it makes 50 more horses and 73 more lb.-ft. of torque for a 60 mph time that’s half a second quicker than the old Charger. Dodge says the new gas-powered Scat Pack sedan is the most powerful sedan under $60,000.

Dodge offers more details about the Hurricane in the new R/T:

Twin 50mm, low-inertia turbochargers spool up rapidly for near-instant boost, and counter-rotating turbine assemblies help cut lag and balance airflow for crisp throttle response. Up to 22 psi of boost, and full peak torque by 2,500 rpm, put effortless low-end punch right under the driver’s right foot. Precision direct fuel injection at 5,075 psi (350 bar) pairs with centrally mounted injectors for clean, controlled combustion. Oil-jet-cooled, cast-aluminum pistons, with an anodized top ring and DLC-coated pins, reduce friction and enhance durability when the revs and temps climb.

Dual overhead cams and wide-range, fully independent variable-valve timing optimizes power and efficiency across the rev range. The engine-mounted, water-to-air, charge-air cooler and its own dedicated cooling circuit keeps intake temps in check through repeated acceleration runs. The plasma transfer wire arc cylinder-bore coating creates an ultra-thin, robust, low-friction surface for long-term performance.

For comparison, the Scat Pack’s Garrett GT2054 turbos boost up to 30 psi.

Both the two-door and four-door Chargers stretch 206.5 inches long. That’s a skosh more than 8 inches longer than the old Charger and nearly 9 inches longer than the old Challenger. It’s also 79.8 inches wide, or 1.5 inches wider than a Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Wide Body. At 59 inches, it’s also 1.5 inches taller than the outgoing Dodge muscle cars. To put that into perspective, the new Charger is only four inches shorter than a Chevrolet Tahoe. This is a mammoth vehicle.

It’s a heavy one, too. The electric Charger punishes the scale at 5,838 pounds, or roughly the weight of the state of Alaska. Going on the Sixpack diet helps the Charger dramatically. At roughly 4,816 pounds, the gas model weighs only about as much as the state of Ohio. For comparison, that’s about what a Ram 1500 Quad Cab with a 6’4″ bed weighs.

The mass is hard to hide. The floor sits so high that the footwell forces you into a sort of go-kart-like seating position. The door sills are tall, and the side skirts say “No Step” on them, so you don’t try getting in a Charger like you would a crossover.

Is Six Better Than Eight?

Dodge brought us to the ski town of Stowe, Vermont, to test these cars. Stowe was the perfect environment to test a new AWD car. Snow had fallen a couple of days before the drive, and a few days before that, it was -17 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The snow piles on the side of the road were several feet high, and ice covered the road in patches. This would be nasty for a rear-wheel drive car on summer tires or even some all-seasons.

On that crisp winter morning, the Hurricane roared into life and then remained loud as it idled high, thrumming away angrily like it didn’t like waiting to be hooned. That exhaust system has two modes, with the Sport mode opening up the exhaust into a more straight pipe configuration. The car’s speaker system plays engine noise, too. Thankfully, the noise emitted by the speakers is not totally fake like you’d find in a Toyota Tundra, but is the same as the actual noise outside. Clearly, this is Dodge’s way of getting around the fact that the car is pretty well sealed from the outside.

Setting out onto the road, the Dodges stuck out. If I had to wager a guess, the official vehicle of Vermont has to be a Subaru or an old Volvo, because you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing a Forester or some Volvo wagon. Others were rolling in 4×4 trucks and SUVs. I saw zero sports cars and only two previous-generation Chargers. Notably, those cars were parked under piles of snow, not on the road. Honestly, our group of Chargers looked like a club of Dodge owners who got lost on the way to warmer climes.

But that was the great part about the Charger. It doesn’t look like a capable AWD vehicle, but it was. It handled snow with the same kind of grace that you would expect from something like a Subaru. Dodge didn’t even bother giving these cars winter tires, as it believed the traction from the factory all-seasons would be more than enough. They were right. There was never a moment, even when the pavement went over ice, when I felt I wasn’t in total control.

I even had plenty of traction for shenanigans. The Charger has no problem scampering to 60 mph in the dead of winter, and you’ll even get a little drama as the tires skip, and the straight-six fires off nasally, raspy shots like a pissed-off BMW. Fans of the V8 might hate that BMW comparison, but I quite like it. I won’t say that it’s better or worse than a V8, just different. The sound of a hopped-up straight-six is great in its own way, and I think Dodge did a good job at preserving the Charger’s rowdy image without having a V8.

If you’re looking for a traditional muscle car, Dodge nailed the assignment. The new Charger has plenty of heart-skipping thrills in a straight line. If AWD launches aren’t your thing, you can even tell the AWD system to buzz off for 100 percent RWD fun, including as many burnouts, donuts, and drifts as you want. You can even tell traction control and stability control to take a hike and use your brain’s computer to keep the tires spinning and the front end in the direction you want it. There are videos out there of Dodge Badassadors doing donuts in icy parking lots in these things, and it’s just as fun as it looks.

On the road, the 550 HP of the Scat Pack hits like a sledgehammer. The power comes on hot and hard and doesn’t stop until you hit the engine’s somewhat low 6200 RPM redline. Then you get to do it all over again. I think the Scat Pack meets the oft-repeated auto journo standard of “groundswell of power.” The power is always there and always ready to rock.

The 420 HP of the R/T isn’t as dramatic and doesn’t kick your head into the seat as hard, but it is plenty healthy. If the Scat Pack feels 10/10, the R/T is closer to 7/10. But that’s not too surprising since it does take nearly a second longer to hit 60 mph. Otherwise, the experiences between the Hurricanes feel largely similar. I suspect the R/T will be fine for most people and will be the volume model, because to get the most out of the Scat Pack requires you to drive fast enough to find yourself on the wrong side of the law. The R/T is the better daily driver.

My only complaint about the forward thrust is throttle tip-in. If you drive around town with a light foot as I do, you’ll sometimes feel like the vehicle snaps off the line a little hard, and sometimes, the car bucks a little if the snap causes your foot to lift slightly before coming back onto the throttle.

Built Like A Steakhouse, Handles…Like A Steakhouse

Things also change when you try to turn this beast. All of that weight is somewhat resistant to changing direction, and if you try to turn it right near the limit, the front end tries to plow forward. It will turn, but it will also make you work with finesse to do it. In a way, that makes the new Charger even more faithful to the muscle cars of old.

The standard “performance suspension” of the Charger R/T and Scat Pack is also interesting. Both vehicles rock a multi-link with forged aluminum link setup in front and an independent four-link configuration in the rear.

The suspension is on the stiffer side, which means that the body is controlled enough as you wrestle the brute through a corner. There’s some dive and some roll as it’s hard to beat physics, but I thought it kept its poise. Take this to the Tail of the Dragon like Car and Driver did, and your Charger will probably surprise the drivers of lighter vehicles. It’s no Miata, of course, but not exactly a boat, either.

Conversely, when you’re just cruising, the Charger’s reactions to bumps felt similar to riding in a half-ton pickup truck. By that, I mean you feel the full weight of the vehicle roll through the bumps. Hit a frost heave, and you feel the whole mass of the car lift up and then come back down. MotorWeek says that the Sixpack feels as though you’re sitting on the car rather than in it, and I think that is pretty accurate.

The good news is that even though the Charger never lets you forget how much it weighs, I think its mass comes at an advantage when you’re touring. The Charger is largely unbothered by potholes, and it feels calm and steady on the highway. Winds don’t make a difference, and the Charger doesn’t even seem to notice the turbulence coming off a semi-tractor. You could drive a Charger all day across the country and still feel fresh when you step out of the other side. It’s a great cruiser for sure.

Fuel economy is about what you’d expect. I scored 17 mpg during my testing in both the R/T and Scat Pack, but I was actively driving them hard. Combined EPA fuel economy is 23 mpg for the R/T and 19 mpg for the Scat Pack. I performed a short, 20-mile-long hypermiling test and scored 31 mpg by barely breathing on the throttle in an R/T.

The Low-Key Snow King

A big part of the new Charger’s advertising is its AWD system. In snow mode, the vehicle splits power 50/50 to both axles. In Normal mode, 60 percent of the sauce reaches the rear. In Sport mode, 70 percent of the power is dispatched to the rear. Then, of course, you can tell the system to send it all to the rear. The system uses a clutch-based transfer case from Magna to divert power.

To demonstrate just how good the Charger is in snow now, Dodge took us into New Hampshire, where we paid a visit to Team O’Neil. There, we got to absolutely send it in different Chargers with a rally coach in the passenger seat. There was also a Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat Jailbreak on deck for comparison, too. Team O’Neil set up three exercises: a skid pad, a slalom, and a short snow road course.

If you’ve read my content for long enough, you know that I live by a full-send mentality. That was no exception here. I started in the Scat Pack and showed the car no mercy. All of the Chargers at the track were equipped with studless winter tires.

I entered the skid pad at full throttle and kept it pinned. The brilliance of the Charger’s AWD system is that it’s happy to do its thing while you’re completely sideways in the mush with countersteer locked in and the tires kicking up tails of snow. The tires had just enough traction in the slush that if I started a drift just right and kept steering to a minimum, I was able to sustain a circular four-wheel drift that lasted the full 360 degrees of the skid pad. Then, I kept it locked in and kept going.

I also played with the options, including fully disabling stability control and going RWD for the most “manual” experience I could achieve. Staying in the drift in RWD mode with stability control fully turned off was actually pretty difficult. The skid pad wasn’t a perfect surface of snowy slush, but there were patches of snow, ice, and bare dirt. So, in RWD mode, I’d find that the surfaces changed, and I didn’t react quite quickly enough to correct. Often, I’d end up with the rear end swapping sides with the front. Flipping back on AWD mode in Sport mode but with stability off was the cure. When all four wheels were doing business, the car just didn’t care about the pad’s conditions. It was so happy to slide.

The slalom was another blast. It was here that I learned some new skills. I’m used to performance driving in the dirt and mud, but snow and ice have even less traction than a somewhat muddy rallycross track. Keeping the Charger out of the snowbanks required thinking ahead of the vehicle. I would give the engine a dose of throttle, break the rear end out to slide around the first set of cones, give another dab of throttle as the rear end begins to swing around again, and then use that momentum to carry me around the first turn and to get me started swinging around the hairpin at the end of the slalom.

The biggest lesson I learned from the Team O’Neil drivers was to keep looking forward toward where I wanted the vehicle to go next.

At first, I focused on the cones that were right in front of me and the turn I was working on. By looking ahead, I found that the car largely went where I was looking. I use this concept when on a rallycross track, when riding motorcycles, and when flying. But for whatever reason, on this snow course, I was fixated on not hitting the cones. When I stopped worrying about the cones, my drifts got so much better!

The road course was extraordinarily short, just about three turns. Most of it was really icy, so we spent the turns going slowly. But it was still fun as it was nice to get the rear end out through those few turns. The road course was closed very early in the day when one of the only other journalists at the event stuffed their Charger deep into a snowbank. It was decided that it just wasn’t worth it to keep the course open.

Drifts So Good I Got It Hot

After I got my fill of the Scat Pack, I got into an R/T sedan. This car was even better at the skid pad than the Scat Pack. While the Scat Pack made enough power that I had to sometimes feather the throttle to keep my drift correct, the R/T made just enough power that I was able to keep the throttle pinned for the entirety of the time that I was in the skid pad.

I’m not exaggerating, either. I buried the throttle going into the pad, got the rear end out, and just kept the throttle embedded. I then proceeded to do what felt like seven full laps of the skid pad while completely sideways. I felt like I was in a washing machine on a spin cycle. I got properly dizzy, too. But I’m a bit mad, so I kept going. Well, that was until a warning popped up on the instrument cluster warning about the engine being hot, which was immediately followed by a low power mode.

I looked down and, sure enough, the coolant temperature was right below the hot mark. I thought it was rather smart that the engine has an overheat protection mode like that. I’m used to seeing that kind of feature in heavy diesels. But in most of the passenger cars I’ve driven, they’d happily let you nuke the engine. Not the Dodge Charger.

So, I pulled over, and within about a minute, the engine cooled down enough and automatically restored full power. In fairness to the Hurricane, I had the throttle pinned right at redline for seven full drift laps, and the vehicle wasn’t moving fast enough to get much air through the grille. It was as much of a drift as it was a cooling system torture test.

I also noticed some differences between the R/T and Scat Pack on the slalom course, too. The Scat Pack was quick to kick its rear end out with only a dab of throttle, but I had to be more deliberate to get the R/T to do the same. I’m not sure if it was the horsepower difference, a difference in tip-in, or just that I had been drifting almost non-stop for a couple of hours and was probably tired by that point.

My only real complaint from the track was that the Charger’s shift paddles are so tiny and have the same kind of tactile feel as the keys of a laptop keyboard. They’re fine. They get the job done, but I feel like Dodge missed an opportunity to make them more dramatic. Half of the time, I tried to grab another gear and turned up the radio. Oops. In the end, I just left the vehicle in auto mode.

My grand finale at Team O’Neil was the Durango Hellcat Jailbreak, and that thing was just a cartoon. Unlike the Chargers at the track, this was still wearing its stock all-seasons. The Hellcat just struggled to find any traction. I ended up going into manual mode, locking the transmission into second gear, and using the throttle to turn. It was hilarious from start to finish, making the big ol’ SUV pirouette around Team O’Neil with that supercharger whining. I probably spun out about a hundred times in the Durango, and I was laughing all the way through.

An Imperfect, But Fun Successor

As I stated earlier, this isn’t my full review. I completely skipped over the interior, the tech, and the bizarre malfunction that took my tester’s infotainment screen out for 30 minutes. That will come later.

The big question surrounding the new Charger is whether it’s a real muscle car. Sure, the electric one doesn’t have an engine at all, and the gas-powered model has a twin-turbo straight-six. These things are also nearly as big as a full-size SUV while weighing as much as a studio apartment. On the surface, they don’t really fit the definition of a muscle car by old-school standards. As I said, the car never lets you forget how heavy it is, and you cannot ignore the fact that it is a gas car based on an EV platform.

Yet, at the same time, these Chargers feel like they capture the essence of the muscle car. They’re fast, they’re dramatic, they’re loud, and they’re stylish. These cars love to drift, live for burnouts, and are down to clown whenever you are. The V8 might be gone — and you never know when Dodge will bring it back — but the Charger hasn’t strayed from its heritage.

The Charger has even remained within reach of normal people. It starts at $49,995 for the R/T, while the Scat Pack opens at $55,690. Sadly, neither price includes the required $1,995 destination fee. As we’ve already written, dealers are already discounting these things, too. That’s a lot of horsepower for the dollar!

After I got to rip around in the Chargers for a day, I finally understand why people buy Chargers. These cars are for people who find a Toyota Camry too boring and a Ford Mustang not practical enough. They’re cars for people who spend their lives a pair of rear tires at a time and communicate via smoke signals. Only now, they’ll be able to continue their shenanigans in the snow, too.