The New Dodge Charger Is Already As Heavy As A Pickup, So Why Not Put A Bed On It?

Many cars were seen quite differently half a century ago. What they were back then doesn’t translate the same today.

Recently, our Mercedes Streeter was invited to test the latest Dodge Charger, a modern version of the traditional Mopar muscle car. My guess is that in her mind (as with many people), she imagines a “muscle car” as a compact, lightweight thing, which is what most of them really were in the scheme of things during their heyday of the sixties and early seventies. The reality is that those were never small cars, as the hubcap-shedding ’68 Charger in the movie Bullitt demonstrated. Today, those cars are almost universally considered to be large, heavy boats in the scheme of things today, and it turns out this new Charger is similarly-sized to the old one and weighs even more.

As a person with more tiny Smart cars than you can count on the fingers of one hand, Mercedes voiced these opinions in Slack a few days back:

She also commented that it felt like a car you were “sitting on instead of in”, which I just kind of figured was expected for a mid-sized American sedan (I put several hundred thousand miles on Ford Panther bodies back in the day, so the new Charger doesn’t fit into my description of “large” car). In the back of my head, I sort of knew what was coming next based on that comment above. I waited, but didn’t have to wait long for the payoff:

Do you see? These stupid ideas aren’t all from my own mind; sometimes I’m just the pawn with Photoshop in the game.

Mopar Dodged The American Ute Market

Beginning nearly seventy years ago, American companies started to build a new type of vehicle: the “coupe ute” pickup truck based on standard cars. Ford was the first with the Ranchero in 1957.

Many (myself included) thought that Chevy was the pioneer here, but their own El Camino entry didn’t arrive until two years later.

Oddly enough, the last member of the Big Three never really played in this field. I’m well aware that our friends in the Upside Down World had a steady stream of Aussie Mopar “utes”, but they were generally made to be much more utilitarian and not a balance of style and function like the American examples. Well, those fender-top turn signals on Project Cactus are pretty stylish, however.

Oddly enough, the one time that Chrysler corporation did delve into the “coupe ute” market it was not with a full-sized rear-drive product but instead a French-developed front-drive compact: the Dodge Omni. Adding a pickup bed to the Omni-based Charger/O24 sport coupe created the rare Dodge Rampage (and twin Plymouth Scamp), which was far more competitive with the VW Rabbit pickup than an El Camino.

That means it’s high time, after three-quarters of a century, for what’s now called Stellantis to give us that high-powered “coupe ute” we’ve waited so long for. As Mercedes Streeter said, it’s within “a hot dog’s length of a Tahoe and weighs as much as a RAM 1500.” Time to get to work.

Maybe Call It “Ram/Charger” Instead?

How do we turn the Charger into a pickup? Well, there’s a two- and four-door version of Dodge’s muscle car, and we could start with the sedan’s shorter front doors to give maximum cargo area, but that would result in a confining, uncomfortable cabin. I’d rather go with coupe doors in the same manner as old El Caminos did. I’ve increased the wheelbase by four inches or so and added some overhang in back, but the end result is no longer than the last 1978-87 A/G body El Camino.

Tiny rear quarter windows fit in sail panels that flow into the bed, but the rear window itself would be essentially vertical for maximum bed length.

The tailgate would admittedly be a bit shallow since we can’t dig into the stock-mandated bumper, but we could still offer some kind of cage to fit over the opened gate to accommodate bigger, longer items if needed.

That’s still a pretty large vehicle for cargo and just two passengers, right? Well, maybe we can try some other tricks.

We Had To Ride In The Bed As Kids

You’re a bit of an idiot and time waster if you’ve read much of my writing, but if you did so, you might have noticed that I’m not a big fan of two-seaters. Sure, sports machines are great, but if it’s to be used as a “real car,” it has to occasionally carry two friends to their car in the rain or take your nephew and niece to get ice cream. That’s why I almost always try to find ways to get at least “occasional” seating into cars, and “coupe utes” are no different.

So far, I scribbled up an idea for a new El Camino EV based on a Blazer that had a passenger compartment that could expand into the cargo bed if you need to carry two more people (animation below).

For my Mustang Mach-E-based Ranchero EV, I had a different extra-passenger idea.

A third person could sit on the split bench front seat when you fold up the center armrest/console. Here’s the Mach-E interior animated into a Ranchero.

With my Ram Scamp based on the unfortunate Hornet, I did a bit of the opposite.

Here I kept a rear seat and doors, but allowed for a “liftgate” to give access to all the space up to the backs of the front seats. Admittedly, that “awning” the gate creates is hardly weather-proofing.

I didn’t want to go quite as tricky with the new Charger-based Rampage, so I simply kept the solid cargo wall below that near-vertical backlight, but moved it back enough to create a cargo area with rather pathetic rear seats that, if nothing else, might be a little bit better than what passes for rear perches in a Toyota 86 or certainly a Lexus LC500. What looks like a center armrest could be an opening hole around nine inches wide to allow you to carry very long objects like 2x6s or eight-foot lengths of baseboard molding.

Kids could fit there, or even two less-than-really-tall adults on the passenger’s side if the shotgun seat is pushed pretty far forward. Of course, legally we can’t say one person would sit sideways back there, but that would absolutely happen on quick trips to Culver’s for lunch with an office mate. If nothing else, it’s good indoor storage space; that’s important since even if you based this Rampage on an electric Charger, the frunk on that thing is a bit of a joke. Again, it’s a big car, so it has to offer something to justify its size.

This Thing Is A Party At Both Ends

Now, when Mercedes Streeter suggested that I draw up this odd machine, she almost certainly wasn’t thinking about it from a marketing perspective. I have very serious doubts that such an El Charger Camino would find many buyers.

Still, this is the firm once known as the Chrysler Corporation we’re talking about, the people that gave us things like the Viper and Prowler that never stood a chance anyway as legitimate, profitable products, but they sure did their job as halo products for the often-struggling brands.

A new Rampage might just be bonkers enough to bring the right kind of attention to what was supposed to be Dodge’s big revival machine. What have they got to lose?

Top graphic images: Stellantis; The Bishop; DepositPhotos.com