Move over, Mustang, Vette, Viper...

In a recent Audio Scoop interview, Ralph Gilles, Vice President- Activity vehicles, Jeep=AE/Component Design, talked about the growing excitement surrounding the Challenger Super Stock concept.

Narrator: I know you were in Las Vegas recently with the black Challenger Super Stock concept. Did you drive it?

Ralph Gilles Vice President - Activity vehicle, Jeep=AE/Component Design Yes, I've driven the car back on our proving grounds at Chrysler. It was actually shown in kind of a nostalgic rivalry in Las Vegas. It was white, red and blue, and we just repainted the car to matte black. It's a bit of an experiment because we're going to do some testing now and actually start racing. It'll be at the Mopar=AE Mile High event, so that'll be fun. The car ran a mid-11 seconds at 125, I think, miles per hour. So it's got the goods and it will get better as we fine tune it.

Narrator: Were you happy with that timing?

Gilles: Absolutely! For something straight out of the box it's quicker than we thought. We had traction problems. That new 392 makes so much power that we had a lot of traction issues. Once we get that down, I think we can cut a high 10, maybe. I think the Challenger-we've always talked about this at work, at the watering hole-we talk about how Mopar is this untapped well of energy. You can tell by watching Barrett- Jackson and all that that there's a lot of love out there for Mopars and HEMIs, and what not. The Challenger is perfect. I just drove a prototype the other day - an early development prototype-and it kind of mixes the best of both worlds. It has the power and virility of the muscle car era, but it's sensible, it's comfortable, it's got more room, it'll be dead reliable, so I think the timing is perfect. You can have your cake and eat it, too, and have fun doing it.

Narrator: I'd love to ask you about the Challenger production vehicle, bu t there's not much you can tell about that right now.

Gilles: No, just that it's coming along. I mean, we've already talked about when it will come out. The car is really, really cool, and the engineering staff around it is very enthusiastic, and it's created a vibe that we haven't seen at Chrysler in a while.

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