2020 Dodge Charger Widebody First Drive: Bigger Is Better
Charger Scat Pack and Hellcat with the wider body offer improved performance on the road and track.
I was invited to travel with Dodge to Napa, California to test the 2020 Dodge Charger widebody lineup, including the R/T Scat Pack, the Hellcat and the Hellcat Daytona 50th Anniversary Edition. We got to drive all three of these high performance sedans on the track after driving the Hellcat on the street and that seat time made it clear that without any real competition, Dodge has made the best-performing large sedan sold in the United States even better.
Sure, the critics will continue to gripe about their dislike of the widebody look, just like they do with the Challenger, but with improved acceleration, braking and handling coupled with a widened, aggressive stance that looks wicked on the street, the 2020 Dodge Charger widebody package is a masterpiece.
Why a Widebody Charger?
Before getting into the first drive event of the 2020 Dodge Charger widebody lineup, we want to start by talking about why this package was created. Although the Charger really doesn’t have any competition in the performance sedan world, Dodge is always looking to move forward with their vehicles and the Challenger widebody showed how they could improve a car in every way with a relatively simple change. By adding the flared wheel openings, the engineers can install wider wheels and tires at all four corners while still meeting all of the internal fitment requirements.
Like the Challenger, the widebody package on the Charger allows Dodge to equip the Scat Pack and Hellcat models with 305-millimeter-wide tires from the factory. The wider rubber leads to more grip of every type, so with the wider Pirelli tires, the big sedan accelerates and brakes harder while being able to stick to turns better at higher speeds. In other words, the real advantage of the widebody package is the wider tires, which improve all of the key performance characteristics of the Hemi-powered four-door.
In the case of the Scat Pack, the optional widebody package has been introduced for buyers who want improved performance while on the Hellcat, the standard widebody package guarantees that everyone who buys one of the supercharged 2020 Dodge sedans gets the best performance possible. At least that is how the package was introduced, but I traveled to Napa, California to find out if these claims of improved performance are noticeable in the real world.
It should be noted that I attended the 2015 Dodge Charger first drive event which included track time, I have gone through driver instruction at Bondurant with the Hellcat Charger and I have logged thousands of miles on Hellcat Chargers in testing over the past few years.
I have also attended several other drive events with Hellcat Challengers and I daily drive a Hellcat Challenger, so to say that I am familiar with the modern Dodge muscle cars is a bit of an understatement. Having put many hard miles on a widebody Hellcat Challenger at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I had an idea of what to expect from the widebody Charger, but I was unsure of how well this approach would translate to a big sedan.
As it turns out, it translates quite well, as the 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack widebody and Hellcat are every bit as good as I had expected.
Hitting the Road with the Hellcat
My first seat time in the 2020 Dodge Charger came in an SRT Hellcat model in the form of 50 miles of road driving. The folks from Dodge laid out a drive route that allowed us to enjoy the twisty roads of northern California and the wide tires of the widebody Hellcat did a great job of gripping every turn. However, I found that the on-road test gave me a great chance to see how the 305-millimeter Pirelli tires held the road under power.
The biggest struggle with the Hellcat Charger (and Challenger) is getting traction on a hard pull with the 275-millimeter-wide tires. When launching from a stop, the supercharged Hemi effortlessly roasts the rear tires and if you don’t know what you are doing, the 2020 Charger Hellcat will still smoke the tires hard when you hammer the throttle from a stop.
However, as someone who has lots of experience trying to get traction with a 275 tires in a Hellcat car, the 305-millimeter tires of the widebody Charger allow more throttle input sooner. You still can’t put the pedal to the floor and expect the car to move much, but a hard launch from a stop take a bit less patience than with the standard-width cars.
Along similar lines, hard throttle from a slow roll in second gear can be tricky, but with the 2020 Charger SRT Hellcat, the wider tires of the widebody package get traction much more quickly. This is where the wider tires play the biggest role in improving low-end acceleration, as the 305-wide tires do a better job of putting big power to the ground when moving at lower speeds. Finally, the point at which you can go wide open with the 2020 Charger Hellcat comes sooner with the wider tires, so drag racers are going to love the added grip of the factory widebody Hellcat tires.
Of course, the curvy roads around Sonoma, California showcased the handling capabilities of the 2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, but on public roads where the speed limits were often very low, we could only get a little sample of what the big sedan was capable of in terms of handling. Fortunately, our drive route began and ended at Sonoma Raceway, and after touring the local roads for two hours, it was time to hit the track.
Scat Pack on Track
Our track testing time took place on the Indycar Circuit of Sonoma Raceway, which might be better-known as Sears Point to those older NASCAR fans. It is a tight, intricate road course with loads of elevation changes that put the chassis to the test, while the few short straights let the powerful Hemi engines do their thing.
That being said, Sonoma was a far better test of the braking and handling characteristics than acceleration, but in the long run, we know that the Charger accelerates hard. We were in Sonoma to feel how well these big, powerful sedans handle a tough road course. Mind you, this is a car that is labeled by many as being nothing more than a straight-line performer, but that simply isn’t true.
Track testing was broken up into two groups of five cars, one group of 2020 Charger R/T Scat Packs with the optional widebody package and another with four Hellcats and one Hellcat Daytona 50th Anniversary Edition car. We hit the track with a staggered start to avoid passing situations with a professional driving instructor on board to help us safely get the most out of the cars.
I started my track time in a 2020 Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack and as soon as I began carving along the twisty track, I was surprised at how well it stuck to the track. For a four-door sedan that weighs more than two tons, the widebody Scat Pack was able to brake and cut through the hard turns with precision while the wider, sweeping turns allowed us to experience how well the 485-horsepower machine powered through a corner.
As I expected, the massive Brembo brakes that are shared with the Hellcat models brought the big sedan down from 100 miles per hour to speeds low enough to take a tight, 90-degree turn. The 305-millimeter-wide Pirelli tires did a great job of providing traction on the exit of those tight turns while also gripping the track nicely on sweeping turns and through sections where we had to quickly cut back and forth across the pavement. Thanks to the adaptive Bilstein dampers, the big sedan corners better than most sports car owners would believe, keeping the car flat and planted all of the way around the track.
2020 Dodge Charger Widebody First Drive: Bigger is Better continued…
