Move over, Mustang, Vette, Viper...

In a recent Audio Scoop interview, Ralph Gilles, Vice President-
Activity vehicles, Jeep®/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®/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® 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.