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
Wait, wait, weight, the Charger is freaking 4,800 pounds? That’s 1,000 pounds heavier than a Mustang GT, how is that even possible?
It was built as an EV first so it has the strength for the added weight of a battery.
Also AWD and a Charger is HUGE.
They probably left the batteries in, just disconnected them. 🙂
The visual comparison on CarSized is absolutely hilarious. In the absence of a screenshot, see the link.
A Charger is 17.2″ longer, 4.4″ wider, and 4″ higher than a Mustang
Deadly serious, in this day and age, why is the EV version not a >1500++hp monster already?
With BYD’s Denza putting out 1582hp and Xiaomi SU7, a basic sedan, which goes from a paltry 295hp all the way to 1526hp – this should be the easy.
It’s because Stellantis fully cheaped out on making EV related components. They couldn’t even be bothered to use a larger motor in the rear, so it uses identical motors front and rear likely to save development costs. It means it has the awkward combination of launching relatively poorly while also being incapable of doing burnouts. It also means they can’t offer a single-motor RWD model (which would get 5-10% better range) because the undersized rear motor isn’t quite big enough for how heavy it is.
And unfortunately for them, it doesn’t seem like Bosch or some other supplier is making something they can take off the shelf.
I am not interested in this car.
I am however interested in this motor. 30lbs of boost is serious, could be interesting for a swap into something that weighs slightly less than a city bus. That’s provided this engine isn’t the launching pad for Stellantis’ new connecting rod space program.
Offenhauser made this work with an integral cylinder block/head. I’m slightly dubious about the head gasket durability long term.
Nope.
Snot rocket?
Is that short for it’s not rocket? Judging by the color maybe the snot is to be taken literally.
It’s when you have a cold and stuffed nose. You plug one nostril, inhale deeply and shoot snot from the other one. So yeah, snot yellow.
My wife’s Subaru is a color they call Plasma. I thought, nice, it would be the color of some hot ionized gas, neon red? Argon purple? Sort of a mystery.
It turns d out to be a pretty accurate blood plasma color, bile green, much like this. The Subaru cross tech or whatever it’s called also comes in orange and royal blue, much like the colors of the NY state flag or the old Dutch flag. Two of my favorite colors.thatlike so much that I’m likely to buy a guitar or car for no reason other than the color.
Anyway, if we are walking down the street and I say nice blue or nice orange, she gets very grumpy about the whole thing.
3 digit horsepower is so 2010s. It’s the 2020s. 4 digit should be the minimum for a starter car. I expect that 5 digit horse power should be right around the corner.
Which I can’t wait for. Because the Costco lot is brutal.
Agreed. 900+ HP pickups (RAM) and 1,000+ HP crossovers (Porsche) is hardly adequate for my runs to Trader Joe’s. When will manufacturers come to understand that the amount of power at the beck and call of my right foot is an extension of my manhood, and I’ll accept nothing less than everything I desire in that aspect of my lifestyle.
Trader Joe’s Parking Lots make Costco seem like an Abandoned mall that is headlined by a Spencer’s Gifts. I’m not sure if a Top Fuel Dragster has enough beans to snag a parking place there.
I’ve actually had a couple of near-death experiences in the parking lot for the Toluca Lake TJs and don’t shop there anymore because of it.
Nothing short of an up-armored Humvee with a 25mm chaingun would prompt me to return there.
https://down-id.img.susercontent.com/file/id-11134207-7rbk6-m74p9u9f6m8914
So, an ordinary stop at Wawa, then. The place where strangers will stand in place for 5 minutes to hold the door open for you, only to run you down in the parking lot
I’ve yet to visit a Wawa (or a Buc-ee’s, or a Shake Shack, Five Guys, etc…) but I’ve seen more than a few police bodycam videos set in a Wawa parking lot. 😉
Buc-ee’s is maybe worse, just on account of the massive crush of humanity that’s enough to make a simple pee break turn into a half hour ordeal, but they’re much less common than Wawas, which are on almost every street corner in the areas I travel for work
Meh horsepower.
One foot pound of torque at zero rpm. for every pound of car. That’s what I want.
You’re right. Where’s my 1,000 hp FWD Nissan Sentra with a CVT?
In the shop waiting on a new transmission.
A weekly occurrence I expect. 😉
When can I get a vehicle that moves the universe around it rather than it in the universe?
Not sure if I’m too old or too young……….what is a snot rocket and what does ‘clean the marbles off the rear tires’ mean?
Agreed. 900+ HP pickups (RAM) and 1,000+ HP crossovers (Porsche) is hardly adequate for my runs to Trader Joe’s. When will manufacturers come to understand that the amount of power at the beck and call of my right foot is an extension of my manhood, and I’ll accept nothing less than everything I desire in that aspect of my lifestyle.
“Snot rocket” is when you plug one of your nostrils and blast snot out of the other. Usually performed in the shower or on public transportation. “Clean the marbles” is when you spin the tires before drag racing to knock all the little balls of rubber and gravel off your sticky tires that you picked up on the way into the box.
“Launch Edition” is sucker code for “the one with all the problematic Rev. A parts that nobody will want in 5 years”.
Realistically, its Stellantis, if they reintroduced the Slant Six tomorrow, it would somehow become unreliable
Muscle cars seem kind of pointless these days when dime-a-dozen EVs can show them the taillights.
I have a 1966 Fairlane and a 2024 Mach-E. The EV will spank the muscle car in the 1/4, but I only race the Fairlane. It’s way more fun hustling a manual transmission and loud ass small-block V8 down the track than wooshing across the line in an EV. There’s room for all kinds of cars under my tent!
Good for you! I wish I could accommodate two cars in my life. I just can’t justify the insurance cost for an additional car that I may use a couple times a month.
My decent-at-everything, great-at-nothing Polestar 3 will have to do.
Stellantis marketing meeting
Boss: How do we sale more vehicles?
Team in unison: HORSEPOWER!
Boss: Great job everyone. Make it happen. Meeting adjourned.
I actually quite like the black with yellow tail 4 door. I wouldn’t be sad to drive one of these in a few years when they are in my price range. EV or ICE.
Man, way to spoil the best part of this (otherwise not-so-great) car by butchering the awesomely clean front end design. That face! Oof.
I really wanted to like this car but it just feels like it’s not quite there yet. The weight is absolutely obscene, they’re kind of huge and bulbous in real life, even thought I’m into inline 6s I don’t know that I’d trust 200+ Stellantis horsepower per liter, etc. They’re also way too fuckin expensive but then again so is everything else….
Me too. I am actually a decent fan of the styling. It would be nice to see this general style/design done on a better platform. Double duty of EV/ICE really gimped both options; although I am sure they both probably make a good GT/commuter/Dad car, they still just don’t seem to be Dodge enough.
But also, out of every single thing Stellantis has done since its existence, I think the Hurricane 6 is about the only thing I trust from them. They did a really good job
copyingbeing inspired by the B58. I absolutely love when I get a rental with a Hurricane 6. It’s just a shame Stellantis can’tcopybe inspired by any other manufacturer like Toyota and reliability, Honda and packaging, GM and affordable performance pricing, Rivian/Tesla anything EV related, etc.I wanted to like the base model because it’s a 5-door liftback with some pretense of performance.
But it’s pricetag doesn’t make sense, let alone its weight – and Stellantis’ latest direction complaining about everything the last guy did is as tiring as trying to follow a politician’s tweets how it was the “last guy’s fault”.
The new Charger has to be one of the worst selling cars right now. You NEVER see them
Granted, I live in the middle of nowhere, but I have yet to see one.
I live in PHL where you can see just about any car on any given day and I see the new Charger less than I see McLaren’s and whatnot lol
I live in a rural community and see new Chargers all the time….sitting unmoving on the back of my local dealership’s lot. I think the CJDR dealership would be in trouble if it weren’t for the dealer group also owning a Toyota dealership next door selling RAV4s and Siennas faster than they can get them in.
A good point.
I live in the high-T uber alpha male macho macho man land part of California and I rarely see the new Charger.
In fact I’ve maybe seen three so far.
But the older ones, with all the mufflers and resonaters thoughtfully replaced by straight pipes, are thick on the ground and roar about like mosquitoes in a Florida swamp.
Sit on my front porch any given evening and you’ll hear the non-stop echoing T-Rex like bellows of Dodges/Rams at varying distances. It’s both bemusing and dismaying.
Of course not. It doesn’t have a loud, thundering V8 that high-T uber male macho macho men need to feel as such.
If my credit is crap, I make $15/hour, and I have 12 points on my license including a charge for evading police; can I get it in Plum Crazy?
Only if you promise to leave the yellow foam on the front splitter when you pick it up!
This is the way.
With a white stripe and bumper instead of black?
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
It’s got nothing on those previous gen Maximas. Now that’s a whole hive of bees stinging it: https://www.iihs.org/cdn-cgi/image/width=636/api/ratings/model-year-images/2495/
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.
Damn, seriously? they look like low profile 17’s at most
Yeah, the new Charger is a bigger car than you expect.
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:
What? That’s only 1000lbs more than a similarly sized Lincoln Mk VIII.
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+.