The 550bhp Petrol-Powered Dodge Charger Scat Pack Is Here, But There’s No V8 Yet

With Stellantis rushing to appease its North American brands’ fans and do a complete 180 on its plans to wind down production of its Hemi V8 engine, we were rather expecting that the ‘new muscle’ Dodge had in the pipeline for a reveal today might have been the long-rumoured version of the new Charger equipped with the venerable eight-pot.

Unfortunately, it’s not, but what we do have is nothing to turn our noses up at. A little earlier than planned, the company has confirmed full details on the versions first announced alongside the EV last year that get power from Stellantis’ new 3.0-litre twin-turbo ‘Hurricane’ straight-six.

Named the Sixpack – a badge from Dodge’s past that once referred to a six-barrel carburetor – the six-pot Charger comes as either a coupe or saloon. There are two outputs available, headlined by the Scat Pack, a name that we still find a little unfortunate.

With the ‘High Output’ version of the Hurricane engine, it makes 550bhp and 531lb ft, good for 0-60mph in 3.9 seconds, a 177mph top speed and a 12.2-second quarter-mile, per Dodge’s numbers. Meanwhile, the lower-rung Charger R/T with the ‘Standard Output’ engine gets 420bhp and 468lb ft, giving it a still-respectable top speed of 168mph.

Both versions get an eight-speed automatic gearbox and standard all-wheel drive, although they bring the option to send all the power to the rear wheels for extra skiddiness. There are lots of other party tricks at play too – as well as the usual gamut of drive modes, there’s a launch control system and a line lock setting that allows you to do big, smokey burnouts as you line up at the drag strip. Definitely for that, and not showing off at your local cars and coffee. Goodness, no.

To try and ensure it does more than just straight lines, the Sixpack gets four-link fully independent rear suspension and a front multilink setup, a rear limited-slip diff, and a fairly serious braking setup: 380mm vented discs up front and 360 at the back, with six-pot callipers on the front too.

With the lower-rung electric R/T version of the Charger already dead, it leaves the range for now as these two straight-six powered versions plus the 670bhp Daytona Scat Pack electric halo model.

With various combinations of trims and body styles set to arrive in the US between now and the middle of next year, pricing for the entry-level six-cylinder Charger R/T coupe starts at $49,995 (around £37,000). The more powerful Scat Pack increases that to $54,995 (around £41,000), while opting for the saloon is an extra $2000 (around £1500) on top of both versions.