The Challenge Continues

We're mighty pleased that, 38 years after the zenith of the musclecar era, we can still put a hot new Dodge and a thundering Mustang on the cover of Motor Trend. Here are a few snaps from our 1970 visit to the dragstrip in the original Dodge Challenger. This was a nicely equipped car, too, an R/T with a 440 Six-Pack, vinyl roof, and tacky luggage rack. It would be worth solid money today. We can't tell from these black and white pix what color it was, but we're guessing it was Plum Crazy, that wonderful 1970s shade of purple so popular on Mopars of the day. The 20081/2 Challenger SRT8 outperforms the old classic in every way possible, but couldn't improve on the original look. The proportions, overhangs, and dash-to-axle ratios were so much different then. Will there be a convertible version of the new one? TBD. Will we see those great 1970s colors again on future hot-rod Dodges? "Count on it" says one insider. Luggage racks and vinyl tops? Let's hope not.

Coverage August 1979

Three decades past, the talk of the day, much as it is now, was diesels. We tested eight of the current crop. The best mileage-maker was the Volkswagen Rabbit five-speed, which delivered 41.8 mpg on MT's 600 test drive. The worst was the Olds Cutlass 260 diesel, which could only manage 21.4. It also could manage to get from 0-to-60 mph in only a Paleolithic 20.0 seconds-and it wasn't even the slowest of the pack.