The LB-chassis Dodge Charger might have the weirdest launch arc of any car in recent memory. First unveiled as a widely panned EV, slow sales of the electric model led to huge discounts. Cleetus McFarland recently bought a brand new one for 50% off. Yeah, 50% off. Roughly a year after the EV’s launch, combustion-powered models joined the party, and they’re strange in their own right. No more V8s, no more Pentastars, only a pair of twin-turbocharged straight-sixes. On the outside, the Charger seems like an obvious victim of the Carlos Tavares era of Dodge parent company Stellantis. A plan that didn’t seem right from the start, hampered by decisions that didn’t seem to focus on the wants of Americans. Well, America seemingly has free rein again, and Dodge is celebrating by reviving a time-honored name: Super Bee.
To create the Charger Super Bee Launch Edition, Dodge started by taking the three-liter Hurricane straight-six and bolting on larger turbochargers. The compressor wheels in these new Garrett units measure 56 mm, up from 54 mm in the Scat Pack’s turbos. Fed by thermal-wrapped intakes and modified intercoolers and serving up more than 30 PSI of boost, these turbos help boost output to 600 horsepower. Granted, peak torque stays at the same 531 lb.-ft. you’d find in a Charger Six Pack Scat Pack, but a 50-horsepower boost isn’t nothing. Dodge claims it shaves three-tenths of a second off the Scat Pack’s zero-to-60 mph time, with the Super Bee boasting a 3.6-second figure. That’s slightly quicker than Dodge’s claimed time for a 2015 Charger SRT Hellcat, although the Hellcat’s purported 11-second quarter-mile time should help it blow by the 11.8-second Super Bee at the top end, provided the older Dodge can actually find traction.
In the real world, the Charger Super Bee might actually have it due to the repeatability of all-wheel-drive launches. Dodge has specced beefier half-shafts to better handle abuse, and you can still flip this large car into rear-wheel-drive mode to clean the marbles off the rear tires. However, smoky stuff is easy in a car this heavy. While Dodge hasn’t released a curb weight for the Charger Super Bee, the Six Pack Scat Pack two-door weighs 4,816 pounds. So how much tire and suspension is Dodge throwing at the problem?
The answer, it seems, is yes. New continuous adaptive dampers team up with stiffer bushings and spring rates, with a 20 percent stiffer rear anti-roll bar also attempting to get a grip on body control. Speaking of grip, 11-inch-wide 20-inch wheels come wrapped in 305-section Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar 3 rubber. That’s a foot of 220-treadwear tread section at each corner. Add in six-piston front calipers and 16-inch discs at all four corners, and the Super Bee sure seems to be trying its hardest to overcome the mass of its platform.
As for aesthetics, the Charger Super Bee gets a dramatically revised front end that looks more aggressive than the clip on slower models. The tacky light bar’s been ditched for an all-mesh upper grille, the main grille’s now single-frame, and there are chunky corner vents that are actually functional cooling pieces. A prominent front lip caps it off, but it’s easy to miss given the Super Bee Launch Edition’s signature hue of snot rocket yellow-green. Dodge calls this hue Sucker Punch, which yeah, that’s exactly what it does to your eyeballs.
However, that 100-decibel paint comes attached to a bizarre livery. While the stinger stripe down the flank makes sense, a completely contrasting rear bumper looks decidedly strange. Dodge also showed off a four-door Charger Super Bee with the inverse color combination, and I’m not sure if it looks better.
Part of this feels anticlimactic, but what Dodge isn’t telling everyone is just as important as what it is. The Charger Super Bee Launch Edition isn’t an SRT model. It doesn’t have those three little letters in its name that signify the most powerful models Mopar offers. The only SRT badging on the car is found on the six-piston calipers, and that feels like a massive clue. Earlier this year, Stellantis announced plans for a Dodge Charger SRT by 2030. Could something even faster be in the pipeline? It’s looking likely, but only time will tell. For now, the Super Bee Launch Edition is the top-dog Charger, although we won’t know what it’ll cost, when it’ll officially arrive, and what availability will look like until later this year.
Top graphic image: Dodge
I thought they quit making Transformers movies?
Let’s go back to..”add lightness”! Per Colin Chapman. 4800 lbs! Ridiculous. Are you sure they didn’t leave a EV battery in there?
A bit on the nose, no?
It’s weird how this Charger seems to have become a retro, oversized, American interpretation of a Skyline GT-R. And I’m kinda here for it. Or would be, so long as Stellantis doesn’t continue to have quality problems…
Did it get stung by the bees? Because it looks puffy and swollen like a dog who ate a bee
600 hp and AWD makes 3.6 seconds sound pretty underwhelming, but this does weigh almost a full Miata more than my 2.0T Camaro.
Is it just me or does it look, uh, kinda fat and awkward? The proportions are all off for a muscle/sports car.
Wheels too small, greenhouse a bit too tall over the driver, nose a little too short.
It does ride on the same platform as the Jeep Grand Wagoneer. I think the engineers at Dodge are doing the best they can with this as a starting point.
Its on the Jeep Wagoneer EV platform. Which is not the BOF Grand Wagoneer.
The paint scheme does not do it compliments either.
Yeah, it is just too slab-sided. I can’t believe those are 20×11 wheels, they look much smaller under that huge hody.
Self-Bricking is apparently a standard feature:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/my-2026-dodge-charger-test-car-bricked-itself-three-times-in-five-days
Agreed that the black (or yellow in the inverse version) rear bumper looks weird. I like the shape of these, but the diving hood and pass through grille/wing of the EV looks better, and I’m not sold on the front end of any of the ICE ones including this.
It would be more appealing to me as a sort of “anti-Charger” with the straight-6 and AWD if not for this part:
So, if they do a I6 SRT, will that make 34psi of boost? They seem really interested in doing steps of boost with this motor by 4: 22 with the S/O, 26 with the H/O, and now 30 with this H/O+.