Tropicana Magazine Jul-Aug 2017 #114: Bold & Beautiful

THE DRIVE
So if these two American icons don’t
represent the muscle car segment, what
does? One of the cars that stand tall and
proud is the Dodge Challenger, whether you
want it in the incredibly powerful Hellcat
form or the even more ludicrous Demon
form. Dodge is not a brand that’s big in our
little corner of the world, but they are one
of the remaining American automotive
brands that dare to build a proper muscle
car in this day and age.
The Challenger is not a car that likes
corners, and in Demon form, it even comes
with tyres that make it highly difficult to
control if you try to drive it in any direction
other than dead straight ahead. That sounds
like a muscle car if we’ve ever heard of
one, and it fulfils the simple requirements
of being based on a family car (the Dodge
Charger) and having ludicrous amounts of
power. A sports car, it is not.
If any of this nit-picking makes you
upset, there’s no need to fret. There are
times when being pedantic is a lot less
important than coming to terms with
what people believe, and while it may be
factually and historically incorrect, people
derive immense amounts of joy from these
concepts. While the Mustang and the
Camaro may not be muscle cars (and never
have been, by definition), it’s alright to think
of them as they are.
Because the truth is that the automotive
world is constantly changing and evolving.
That pony car term that was mentioned
much earlier has its roots specifically in
cars that appeared (key word) sporty and
appealed to a younger crowd, and in this
day and age, the Volkswagen Golf GTI and
Mercedes-AMG A 45 would be pony cars by
that very definition. It’s a confusing world
that we live in, and to quote Shakespearethat
which we call a rose // by any other
name would smell as sweet- so call them
what you want and enjoy them while
you can.
TM | July/AUGUST 2017
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