The Dodge Challenger Is The Last Car With An Old-School Feature That’s Going Extinct
The Dodge Challenger has a date with destiny.
The model is being discontinued at the end of 2023, along with the Charger sedan, marking the end of Dodge’s V8-powered muscle car era before it goes electric next year.
And it’s not just taking internal combustion with it.
V8-powered Challengers come standard with a six-speed manual transmission that’s not available in Chargers, but they don’t just have three pedals.
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The Challenger and Charger are designed around a platform that dates back to 2004 and is derived from one that’s even older than that.
One feature that was handed down through the years is a foot-operated parking brake instead of one controlled by a console-mounted hand lever or an electronic switch like most vehicles today use.
And it turns out that it the Challenger is the only car currently on sale in the U.S. that combines a parking brake pedal with a manual transmission, which likely makes it the last four-pedal car ever, for better or worse.
While the production version of the electric Dodge Charger SRT Daytona won’t have a V8 or a multi-speed transmission, it is being equipped with features that can make it sound and feel like it does.
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Dodge has designed an eRupt feature that simulates hard gear shifts and a system called the Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust that uses speakers and sound channels to produce what it hopes is a natural-sounding faux exhaust note as “force generators” send good vibrations through the car like a rumbling V8 would.
One thing it definitely won’t have is a footbrake, at least based on the concept car, which has an electronic parking brake button on the center console.
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