“Long in the tooth,” “old hat,” “dated,” “lipstick on a pig” — these are the common terms car journalists throw at cars sitting on bones older than about eight years. And while some writers used those words to refer to the Chrysler Lx-platform during its twilight years, for the most part, sentiments towards the Charger, Challenger, and Chrysler 300 remained the same for almost 20 years: These cars are badass. And to pull off two decades of badassery is an incredible feat that we should all applaud, so here’s our little tribute to the incredible Chrysler Lx platform and the hard work Chrysler put into keeping it special for so long.
When the 2006 Dodge Charger came out, it changed the game for a lot of people, including me. I’d already fallen in love with Jeep after my dad purchased a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I’d already fallen in love with Ram after the third-gen 1500, with its imposing grille, made it impossible to resist. But the final straw that turned me into a legitimate Chrysler fanboy, and someone who would go on to study engineering and work at Chrysler, was the Charger. To many, it was blasphemous — “A real Dodge Charger cannot have four doors!” the old-timers cried — but in my eyes, it was epic. Styled by the brilliant minds of Freeman Thomas (who had designed my favorite car of all time at that point, the Audi TT) and Ralph Gilles (a true legend who has penned more gorgeous Chrysler products than I can even mention), the Charger looked tough, was outfitted with a firebreathing 5.7-liter V8 pulled out of a full-size pickup truck (!), and as a rear-wheel drive muscle-sedan it could do burnouts for days.
The Charger, its stately Chrysler 300 cousin, and its equally-tough-looking Dodge Magnum sibling showed the world that a new era, brought forth in part by the DaimlerChrysler merger, was here for Chrysler — an era that would continue on well beyond the Teutonic partnership. Phil Patton from the New York Times broke it down well in his article “From a Bad Marriage, Pretty Babies,” writing:
When Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler a decade ago, predictions for the offspring — chunky German sedan meets lithe PT Cruiser — ran to cartoonish extremes. But the 300 hangs marvelously and daringly on the edge of cartoonlike excess, never quite succumbing. The 300 and its Dodge sibling, the Charger, combine American bravado with German solidity, just as the authors of the merger hoped.
The Charger and the 300 changed the definition of the American sedan with an influence as profound as that of the original Ford Taurus in the mid-1980s or the cab-forward Chrysler LH cars — the Chrysler Concorde and Dodge Intrepid— that helped to save the company in the ’90s.
One of the ideas behind the union was to join German taste and restraint with the sort of American exuberance and design vitality demonstrated by Tom Gale, vice president for design at Chrysler from 1985 to 2000, in creating the Prowler, Viper, PT Cruiser and LH sedans.
The rest of the article talks about how Freeman Thomas, Trevor Creed, and ultimately Ralph Gilles (who penned his farewell to the Lx-platform, whose production ended Friday after almost two decades at the Brampton, Ontario plant) were responsible for the iconic 300 and Charger designs — yes, it was already clear as of the writing of that article, May 27, 2007, that these cars were iconic, with the author writing about the DaimlerChrysler merger that “wins as big as the 300 and Charger are historic,” and going on to note that hip-hop figures had “endorsed the look.”
Indeed they had. From the jump, the 300 and Charger were humongous hits, finding their way into driveways of rappers and politicians alike (Barack Obama famously owned a first-gen 300), in some ways bridging the gap between social classes by offering timeless style at a reasonable entry price (the 2005 Chrysler 300 and 2006 Dodge Charger started at about $23,000, which is about $35,000 today).
And it wasn’t just about the style; the 300, Charger, and Magnum were solid performers for their size, too. “The great American sedan reborn — with a little help from Mercedes-Benz” was Motor Trend‘s headline for its 2005 Chrysler 300 review, which discussed the vehicles’ Mercedes-Benz underpinnings, stating:
There’s plenty of Benz, mostly of the E-Class variety, in these large machines. The aluminum five-link rear suspension on all 300s is based on the E-Class design, but the 300 has a wider track and bigger wheels and tires, with a steel cradle in place of the E’s aluminum one. The 300’s 120-inch wheelbase is two inches longer than the E-Class’s and just one inch shy of the Mercedes S-Class’s. Its seating position is 2.5 inches higher than the 2004 300M’s, and its generous interior has lots of rear-seat legroom and headroom for six-footers.
Motor Trend was a fan of the 300’s driving experience, writing:
The car rides more firmly than a Mercedes E-Class (including the air-suspension-equipped models in the softer of its dual settings). Carving up mountain roads tends to be limited more by the perceived size of the car than by its dynamics. There’s moderate roll at turn-in, but the C remains poised as you push it, with mild understeer. The 300’s steering is a bit too light, but it’s also direct and precise. And the big brakes, aided by the optional ABS and brake assist but without the Merc’s electronic brake transfer nanny, are powerful, lending Germanic effectiveness without the electro-artificial feel. Chrysler has thoroughly tackled the noise problem prevalent on the old 300M and Concorde (you couldn’t hold a conversation with back-seat passengers) with a stout chassis and lots of sound deadening. Frame rails are composed of octagonal sections, and there’s liberal use of polyurethane foam throughout. The result is a sedan that feels exceedingly solid and runs quietly until you stomp the throttle to the floor. This car is perfect for an old-fashioned cross-country family trip, but it won’t get soft and unappealing when you get to twisty mountain or canyon roads.
Car and Driver liked the Charger when it came out for the 2006 model year, calling it a “keeper” in the headline, and continuing:
We hammered our Charger around Virginia International Raceway and were surprised at the car’s balance and general neutrality…
…Brake feel is terrific…
Throughout, the Charger’s body motions remained as studiously supervised as a Vassar faculty party. The firmer optional dampers eliminated even the minor dive and squat we’ve noticed in the 300C. In fact, during an 800-mile two-stop blast from VIR to Detroit, the ride-and-handling trade-off proved nothing short of miraculous until we encountered Michigan’s Baghdad-quality potholes. Even then, the platform held as firmly and shiver-free as a bridge abutment, and no subassemblies rattled or squeaked.
Here’s Motor Trend‘s take on the 2005 Dodge Magnum, the wagon-version of the Charger:
It should come as no great surprise, considering its kinship to the Mercedes E-Class and the oft-praised Chrysler 300, that the 120-inch-wheelbase Magnum is a superb long-distance hauler. Surprisingly, however, it’s also relatively agile. Smooth, linear steering, a low center of gravity, four-wheel independent suspension, aggressive tire fitment, and solid structure give it an enjoyable alertness when the road turns twisty, heightened in RT trim. Although well mannered for a large wagon, the Magnum doesn’t move with the finesse of leading midsize cars.
Other outlets weren’t as thrilled with the vehicles’ rather tremendous two-ton girth, and indeed, as time would go on, this — along with interior quality up until Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne bought Chrysler and fixed the cabin plastics around 2011 — would be the go-to complaint from journalists through the years, but it didn’t matter. That’s because Chrysler knew its cars were fat, and instead of sweating too much trying to lighten them, the company just leaned into the heft by throwing in more and more power. In fact, when I attended a 2016 launch of a new Dodge Charger Pursuit police cruiser, I recall the head of the Dodge brand Tim Kuniskis making a joke about why the event was being held right there on Woodward Avenue — there are no turns!
Yes, he was joking about how Dodges are heavy and not the best handling, and he could joke, because nobody cared. Dodges were drag-racing, loud, burnout-ripping beasts, and they were cool whether they could navigate a hairpin or not, and the sales numbers proved it.
I know some of the people who work on the vehicle dynamics team at Chrysler, and what they did with the Charger, 300, Magnum, and Challenge (the two-door coupe that would come for the 2009 model year) is remarkable, but the truth is, Chrysler knew that its cars weren’t going to beat BMWs on the handling circuit — that’s not what these cars were about. They were unabashedly about two things: 1. Swagger and 2. Straight-line, neck-snapping speed. By being honest — and confident — about what these cars were, Chrysler was able to extend the life of the LX cars by simply pumping more and more cubes and more and more boost under that hood.
It was a combination of continued styling improvements and continued power upgrades that prevented the LX cars from ever becoming anything less than badass over their 19 year span. So let’s talk about those.
The Lx-Cars Just Got More And More Powerful, And That Was The Ticket
In 2005, the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum came with three engine options: a 2.7-liter V6 making 190 horsepower through a four-speed automatic transmission; a 3.5-liter “High Output” V6 making 250 horsepower through a five-speed auto; and a 5.7-liter HEMI V8 making 340 horsepower through a five-speed auto. When the Charger launched for the 2006 model year, it came with the same engines, though shortly thereafter all three vehicles — the 300, Charger, and Magnum — received SRT-8 variants, which had 6.1-liter HEMI V8s putting out 425 horsepower through a five-speed automatic.
For reasons almost certainly having to do with emissions, the 2.7-liter base engine’s power dropped to 178 ponies starting in 2008, the same year that saw the debut of the Challenger Coupe, but only in 425 horsepower SRT-8 guise; this was the very first LX car to be equipped with a manual transmission. In 2009, the Magnum died off, and the Challenger received the 250 horsepower high-output V6 as the base engine and the 5.7-liter HEMI for the R/T trim. But now the Hemi was stronger than ever, making 360 ponies in the 300, 370-ish in the Charger, and 370/375 in the Challenger (five horsepower more when equipped with the six-speed manual).
Not much changed for 2010, but in 2011, things got real. That was when Chrysler started pumping the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 into pretty much everything, and that included the L-cars. This 3.6-liter V6, which debuted with 292 horsepower in the 300 and Charger (“63% more standard horsepower!” Dodge stated in its press release) and 305 ponies in the Challenger, would replace both the 2.7-liter and the 3.5-liter V6s (the final engines built at the Kenosha Engine Plant, which was then leveled and has sat as an empty field for over a decade now, ending an over 100 year-long history of auto manufacturing in the town) and continue on as the base engine for the 300, Charger, and Challenger all the way until their final model-year, 2023.
2011 also saw the death of the Charger SRT-8, but the birth of the all-wheel drive Charger R/T. This model was special in that it paired a playful all-wheel drive system with the 370 horsepower HEMI engine, creating the ultimate snow-drift mobile. I know this, because I was an intern at Chrysler in the summer of 2012, and an intern got a Charger R/T AWD for the weekend, and he ripped humongous donuts and did incredible drifts in it. Honestly, I’m amazed we all weren’t arrested. I also remember from that summer that, when asked what his three favorite cars of all time are, CEO Sergio Marchionne responded (and this is a rough quote): “The Ferrari Enzo that I own, Audi RS6 Wagon, and the all-wheel drive Dodge Charger R/T.”
As for the 300, it would get a whole new look (more on styling changes in a bit) along with a slight horsepower bump for the HEMI — to 363 from 360. The Challenger, for 2011, got a huge horsepower bump for its SRT model, with the figure jumping from 425 to 470 thanks to the replacement of that 6.1-liter HEMI with a 6.4. The Charger would get this same treatment when its SRT8 variant (and the cheaper variant, the “Super Bee”) returned for the 2012 model year.
Speaking of the 2012 model-year, that’s when the eight-speed automatic joined the party. It was optional at first on the 3.6-liter in the Charger and 300 (which got all-wheel drive for 2012), though the Challenger kept the five-speed automatic on all three engine options — 3.6, 5.7, and 6.4 (it’s worth noting that the latter two offered a stick shift, but only in the Challenger). The eight-speed was a huge deal for Chrysler, allowing it to boast about a “best-in-class 31 highway miles per gallon (mpg) and best-in-class all-wheel-drive fuel economy.”
For 2013, the Charger’s base V6 horsepower could be bumped from 292 to 300 if you got the “Rallye Appearance Group,” and then not a whole lot changed until 2015, when Chrysler went ape-shit with the L-cars. That model year, the 300 SRT died off, as did the V8 all-wheel drive versions of both the 300 and Charger. That was a sad loss. On the plus side, the eight-speed automatic became standard on all models, but more importantly: There was power. Lots and lots of power.
2015 was the year that Chrysler truly democratized horsepower. Forget the 292/370/470 power options, you now had a humongous range of power choices. There was still the 292 horsepower Pentastar (which was now quite quick thanks to the eight-speed, doing 0-60 in the low sixes, just a few ticks off from the 5.7-liter V8 mated to a five-speed when the car debuted in 2006), which jumped to 300 horsepower with the Rallye package. And there was still the 370 horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI. But the 6.4-liter jumped up to 485 horsepower, and could be had not just as an SRT (called the SRT 392) but also as a cheaper R/T Scat Pack. The Challenger also got the cheap (the Charger and Challenger Scat Packs could be bought in the low $40,000 range) but absurdly powerful R/T Scat Pack trim, and in a manual, too. This amount of power at this low price is something that should not be overlooked, because the Scat Pack was a huge deal, and yet it’s easy to overlook the Scat Pack because… The Hellcat had arrived.
For 2015, both the Charger and Challenger could be had with a 6.2-liter supercharged HEMI making 707 horsepower through an eight-speed automatic, though the Challenger could be had with the Dodge Viper’s six-speed stick. There had never been anything quite like them — two impossibly powerful, rear-wheel drive muscle cars that you could buy from your Dodge dealer for just $65,000. The cars set the world on fire, with designer Ralph Gilles inaugurating, in the most epic way possible, what would later become a nationwide symphony of supercharged fury:
Things got even crazier in 2018, when the Challenger Demon debuted with 840 horsepower and the ability to literally lift its front tires off the ground during launch. The thing comes with a TransBrake, which locks the transmission to load up the torque converter, and then with a single release of a clutch: BOOM, zero to sixty in 2.3 seconds — the quickest production car ever. Yes, ever.
Yes, the 2018 model-year was an absurd one for the Challenger, with Dodge stating about the available trims:
The Dodge Challenger has the strongest model lineup in its history, ranging from the 305-horsepower V-6 SXT model to the high-octane powered 840-horsepower SRT Demon, and including Challenger GT, R/T, R/T Scat Pack, 392 HEMI Scat Pack Shaker, T/A, SRT 392, SRT Hellcat and SRT Hellcat Widebody models in between.
Yes, the lowest trim made 305 horsepower, the ones in between made 370, 470, 707, and then the top-dog Demon made 840. Just wow!
The Demon went away in 2019, but was replaced by the Hellcat Redeye, which didn’t make 840 horsepower, but did make 797. The TransBrake was gone, and so was the 2.3 second zero to 60 time (up to 3.6 seconds), but it was still a monster. The Hellcat also saw a 10 horsepower jump to 717.
The Charger Hellcat later saw that 10 horsepower bump in the 50th Anniversary Daytona models in 2020, and from 2021 on 717 became the standard Hellcat horsepower for the Charger. In 2021, though, the Charger got a Hellcat Redeye variant of its own, with Dodge boasting an absurd top speed of 203 mph. That same year, the Challenger received a “Super Stock” Trim for its Redeye models, bringing horsepower up to 807. Then in 2022, Dodge offered a “Jailbreak” option for the Charger Redeye, bringing power up to that same 807 figure. This would later become its own Charger trim in 2023, joining the standard 797 Horsepower Hellcat Redeye and the 717 horsepower Hellcat, as well as of course the 300 HP Pentastar, the 370 horsepower 5.7-liter HEMI V8, and the 485 horsepower 6.4-liter naturally aspirated HEMI.
What has the 300 been doing all this time that Challengers have been getting 707 horsepower Hellcats and 797 Horsepower Redeyes and 807 horsepower Super Stocks and Jailbreaks? Not a whole lot. It’s stuck with its 292/300 horsepower Pentastar V6 and a 363 horsepower 5.7-liter V8. That is, until the final model-year, 2023.
The car that started it all also ends it all, with Chrysler writing its farewell press release:
the 2023 Chrysler 300C — returning to the 300 lineup after a two-year hiatus — honors the powerful legacy of its forbears by delivering 485 horsepower and 475 lb.-ft. of torque, acceleration of 0 to 60 mph in just 4.3 seconds, a quarter-mile mark of 12.4 seconds and a top speed of 160 mph.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Dodge’s CEO Tim Kuniskis via AutoGuide, who writes about future plans for Dodge and the Brampton, Ontario plant:
“It’s been a 20-year run of Dodge muscle cars, over 3 million vehicles and over a billion horsepower. Brampton built the Dodge brand”
Just absurd.
The Second Ticket Was Styling, Which Changed Gracefully Over The Years
In the previous section, I didn’t even mention the performance packs, the addition of active exhaust, the addition of launch control, the addition of line-lock for maximum burnout-effectiveness, and all the other times Chrysler added performance to the LX-platform cars. What the company did to keep those cars fresh from a performance standpoint was a true masterclass in relevancy-retention, but just as much of a masterclass were the styling refreshes. The 2005 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Magnum looked like what you see above, and in 2006 when the Charger joined the party, it looked like this:
By 2008, when the Challenger got in on the fun, it looked like this:
Have mercy that Challenger still looks fantastic. Also in 2008, the Magnum received a styling update that would remain for just 2008, the model’s final model-year:
In 2011, the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger both received major updates, with platform changes from “LX” to “LD.” With that came all new styling inside and out:
The interior update from the hard plastics of the MCM (Material Cost Management) days of DaimlerChrysler was a huge boon to customers and automotive journalists, whose only real remaining major gripe was the cars’ heft — again, a gripe that Chrysler battled by simply leaning into it and injecting more and more power.
2015, like I said in the “power” section of this retrospective, is the year that changed the game. The Charger went from what you see above to looking like this:
The Challenger went from what you see above to looking like this:
I’d be a fool not to give the “Hellcat Twins,” as they’d become known, their own little section, so here are the 2015 Charger Hellcat and 2015 Challenger Hellcat:
Even the 300 got some love in 2015:
From there, the big changes happened to the Challenger in 2018, when the 840 horsepower Demon arrived, along with a widebody version of the 707 horsepower Hellcat:
For 2019, the Charger GT and R/T got a snazzier-looking hood, and the Hellcat got a new grille, but the bigger change was that the 485 horsepower 6.4-liter Challenger R/T Scat Pack (on the right in the pic below) could now come as a widebody, which is shared with the 797 horsepower Hellcat Redeye (on left in the pic below) that replaced the 840 horsepower Demon:
Then in 2020, the Dodge Charger Hellcat and Scatpack got widebody versions just like the Challenger:
Then Charger got its own Hellcat Redeye in 2021:
For 2023, Stellantis has shown off seven of each of the Charger and Challenger “Last Call” special editions, which you can view here on MotorTrend‘s roundup of the 14 last-hurrah models. But the very last L-Car to come off that Brampton Assembly Line is a one-of-2000 limited-edition Chrysler 300C, a trim that hadn’t been available in a couple of years, but now returns for the first time ever with that same 6.4-liter HEMI V8 that’s been found in R/T Scat Packs and 392 Chargers/Challenger SRTs:
I’ve Barely Even Scratched The Surface
There’s so much more that needs to be said about the L-cars. About the wagon version (basically a Magnum with a 300 face) offered in Europe, about the Lancia Thema (also a rebadged post-2011 300), about the police cars offered in the U.S.:
About the Chrysler 300 SRTs that Australia used as police cars:
About the roles they’ve played in the Fast and Furious Franchise:
About how the cars were fundamental to the establishment of Roadkill Nights, the absolutely BONKERS high-horsepower, smokeshow of an event held each year on Woodward Avenue outside of Detroit:
I could go on and on about all the little special editions over the years that I didn’t cover above, about all the small styling tweaks, about all the powertrain tweaks, about all the chassis tweaks, but this article would take you hours to read, and I look at the analytics data of this website enough to know that you all have 2-3 hours. But suffice it to say that all these changes over the years are what have kept this incredible platform fresh. At no point in the last 19 years has the LX/LD platform ever been anything less than badass, and that’s a hell of a feat for any automaker to pull off. And as you can see by all the iterations I mentioned and those I’ve been unable to mention: Chrysler, Fiat Chrysler, FCA, Stellantis, or whatever you want to call them did this through hard work.
All Images: Chrysler
