2023 Dodge Challenger Swinger Review: It’s Time to Go, Old Friend

The Challenger has been a faithful companion for a decade and a half, but it’s time for it to be put out to pasture.

Published December 11, 2023

Believe it or not, it’s been 15 years since the Dodge Challenger first hit the street. When the first rolled off the production line in Brampton, Ontario on May 8, 2008, the housing market seemed merely shaky, with the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG and the other “too big to fail” banking institutions still months away. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were battling for the Democratic presidential nomination; Donald Trump had just named Piers Morgan the winner of the first season of Celebrity Apprentice.

Same-sex marriage was only legal in one state (California would become the second after Massachusetts to legalize it on May 15); recreational marijuana wouldn’t become legal in any state for another four years. 2008 was the first year of what would become the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man had just come out a week earlier) and the first year of the iPhone (the original model debuted in mid-2007). In the years since then, the United States has added 27.8 million people — the equivalent of New York and Arizona combined today.

Yet for everything that has changed in that time, Mopar’s muscle car is largely the same. Sure, it’s seen its share of bolt-ons and upgrades, most notably in the form of a 2015 facelift that brought a fresher look inside and out and a few performance updates, like a more efficient eight-speed automatic in lieu of the old five-speed — but at the heart of it all still lies the same LX platform that dates back to the early Aughts and includes suspension bits and other parts from the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and S-Class developed at the end of the 20th Century.

Time, though, has a way of catching up with all of us, and that’s just as true for the Challenger as it is for anything else. After a decade and a half of soldiering on, this old soldier is set to fade away at the end of 2023 alongside its four-door Charger sibling. Their legacy will live on, in the form of an all-new car arriving next year that blends the Charger’s name and the Challenger’s coupe body style with a once-heretical electric powerplant. (A turbocharged inline-six version is almost sure to arrive soon thereafter, but in either case, the Hemi is dead.)

The 2023 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Swinger: What We Think

The Challenger is still a charming car in plenty of ways: it’s supremely comfortable on the open road, delightfully quick in a straight line, remarkably eye-catching even after all those years — and has more character in its proverbial pinkie than the average crossover has in its whole body. That said, it’s also rough-riding, bulky, inefficient and less fun to drive than other cars of its price. Its appeal by this point is largely nostalgic — not just for the original Challenger of the Sixties and Seventies, but also for its own glory days at the turn of the Obama era. I’ll be sad to see it go, but it’s time for this hero to ride off into the sunset.

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The Challenger looks as good as ever, but it’s still a boat

The Challenger has always had a few strong cards in its hand, even as that hand has grown more veins and wrinkles. One of its most notable traits is its design: the Chally is retro in the best of ways, channeling the spirit of the past without copying it outright.

Those lines that look so good from the outside present usability issues inside, though. Staring out over the hood still feels like conning an aircraft carrier, and parking feels about as easy as mooring a fishing boat. Placing the corners of the car takes a little more thought than your average two-door.

And boat-like sensations still dominate when in motion, at least compared to the more battened-down Ford Mustang and Chevy Camaro. Floor the gas, and the car pitches back like it’s going on plane; tackle a tight turn, and the body rolls more than in most cars with two doors and more than 400 horses. Yet in spite of this, the ride is surprisingly brittle, most likely due largely to the massive rim and thin rubber of the tires. It’s no worse than on many sports cars … but considering the Challenger is meant to be more a muscle car in the traditional sense — less “sports car” and more “ordinary car with crazy power” — it feels like a bit of an unwelcome compromise.

The six-speed manual is fun, but not the best fit

Amazingly, even though the Challenger has been around longer than my entire automotive journalism career, I’ve never driven one with a manual gearbox. Turns out, there’s a good reason why Dodge seems to have generally favored automatic versions in their press fleets: the slushbox is a better fit.

The automatic makes for easier cruising on the highway, where the Challenger is most at home. Not only are there a broader spread of cogs to choose from — it has eight speeds to the manual’s six — but kickdowns are quicker, the excellent ZF box dropping several ratios in the time it takes to wrangle the lever from fifth to fourth. Burnouts — the Chally’s other area of excellence — are easier with the automatic, too, as there’s no risk of shagging the clutch as you try to get the rear wheels spinning.

All that wouldn’t matter much if the stick shift brought extra pleasure to the drive, but there’s there’s little joy in operating this gearbox. The manual’s clutch is heavy and long of travel, as is the shift lever itself. In cars like the Porsche 911, Honda Civic Type R and BMW M2, you look forward to the next chance to row the lever; in the Challenger, you do it begrudgingly.

I’m certainly glad that Dodge has worked to keep the manual alive, and I’m sure that stick shift versions will carry a nice premium on the used market in a few years. But for any buyers who actually plan on using their Challengers as everyday cars, the slushbox is the superior choice.

The Swinger is yet another of the variants that have kept the Challenger alive

You could fill a book with every trim level, special edition and other variant of the Challenger that Dodge has rolled out over the last decade and a half. To close out the Challenger/Charger production run, ~~Chrysler~~ ~~FCA~~ Stellantis brought out seven final “Last Call” special editions: the Swinger is one of these, with just 1,000 copies rolling off the line in a choice of F8 Green, Sublime Green and White Knuckle paint options. Any of those paints come paired with “Gold School” badging and wheels, a Shaker hood air intake, Nappa/Alcantara seats, green interior trim accents and the Apollo-era stripe and badging on the trunk and rear quarter panels.

The overall look is, in all actuality, rather subtle by Mopar standards; the Sublime (get it, “lime”) green paint works here on a way it wouldn’t on many other cars besides a Lamborghini, and the gold trim bits are shockingly understated. I personally think the graphic on the rear is a little too far — God only knows how many people will shout Austin Powers lines in bad English accents at buyers over the course of ownership — but the package certainly can hold its head up proud amongst the many, many other special Challys to hit the street.

I’ll miss the Challenger, but it’s time for it to retire

Much like the hundreds of thousands of owners of the 730,000 or so Challengers to roll off the line since 2008, I have plenty of fond memories of this muscle car. I’ve taken multiple road trips across the desert with friends in them, laid 75-yard-long patches of rubber and created clouds of tire smoke so thick they poured in through the air vents.

But while pleasant memories may keep the old guard around, carmakers can’t leverage those existing fans forever — and as the automotive world has kept moving ever-forward, the Challenger has slowly but surely lost ground in wooing the next generation. Newer performance cars offer more speed, more performance, more efficiency and more technology; all the special editions and fantastic colorways in the world can’t make up for that.

A bargain price might be able to, but the Challenger can’t win there either. The Swinger rings up the register at $67,785 to start, and can push past $70K with options. If you’re wondering whether that reflects a hefty special edition markup, well, nooope; a similarly optioned non-Swinger R/T Scat Pack Widebody will cost at least $65,525. In a world when $61,510 will net you a Mustang Dark Horse and $69,995 will buy you a mid-engined Corvette, that’s a lot of coin for a 15-year-old coupe.

Especially one that seeks to maintain the classic muscle car mission: providing ordinary Americans with daily drivers that pack a bigger punch than expected. At the end of the day, the Challenger still needs to be a car for ordinary folks to use every day, and in spite of Dodge’s valiant attempts to keep it relevant, it’s passed its prime here in 2023. I’m sad to see it go … but as they say, all good things must come to an end.