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With its thick, easy-grip rim, circular hub and pierced silver
spokes, the leather-wrapped steering wheel evokes the original car’s
“Tuff” wheel, as does the steering column “ribbing.” The floor
console, its center surface tipped toward the driver, is fitted with
a proper “pistol grip” shifter shaped just right to master the
quick, crisp shifts possible with the six-speed manual “tranny.”
Inasmuch as the original Challenger was the first car to have
injection-molded door trim panels (now common practice), the doors
received special attention.
“We imagined that the door panel was a billet of aluminum covered
with a dark rubberized material,” Barrington relates. “Then we cut
into it to create a silver trapezoidal cove for the armrest.”
Although the flat-section bucket seats of the original Challenger
didn’t offer much support for aggressive driving, the front seats in
the Challenger concept car boast hefty bolsters much like those
found on Dodge’s famed SRT series cars. The trim covers’ horizontal
pleats or “fales” provide just a hint of that “70’s” look.
Rethought, reworked, reproportioned and redesigned, the Challenger
concept car offers iconic a HEMI-powered performance coupe derived
from a classic American muscle car. |
