Dodge Challenger GT: the first muscle car with four-wheel drive

That driver has not read the Highway Code’s guidelines for driving in adverse conditions.

That’s because he or she is revelling in a new-found ability to romp. The formula for building a muscle car is normally a very straightforward one. Big engine at the front that outputs great sledgefuls of torque down a driveshaft to the rear wheels. Maximum wallop, minimum agility, interesting in the rain. Or snow.

By ‘interesting’, do you mean ‘hopeless’?

Well, challenging. Hence, Dodge Challenger, see? But this is the Challenger GT, which breaks all the rules. It’s the first two-door muscle car to get four-wheel drive. It also has an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and traction control, and a computer, and all sorts of luxuries that would have had the good ol’ boys slapping their Wranglers in hilarity.

Yikes, don’t tell me it’s a plug-in hybrid?

Sadly, the GT doesn’t get the supercharged V8 Hellcat engine. But it does get what is, by British standards, a tasty lump. It’s a 305hp V6 that’ll have you wincing your way to the petrol station every couple of hours. But when you come back out of the kiosk with your empty wallet, you’ll see its brooding four-light face and be happy again.

I think I want that kind of happiness. Can I?

Dodge doesn’t sell the Challenger in the UK. Amusingly, if you click on the ‘Europe’ drop-down on Dodge’s website, your only options are Azerbaijan and Iceland – two places that would suit this snow-friendly four-pawed Challenger quite nicely. But there are plenty of American specialist importers that’ll get you one, and probably not for insane money – the GT is US$34,490 over there.