Police Dodge Charger Skillfully Takes On Brutal Rally Course

Retired police Charger gets put through its paces on a skidpad and a timed rally course to answer the question few will ask. Will it rally? 

The Dodge Charger is not the first car you might consider when wanting to get into rally. Perhaps you should, though. Especially in the case of retired police cruisers. You can find them well under $10,000, and they certainly have the power you’d want. Being rear-wheel drive (RWD), you can do have all the sideways fun you could ever want on the dirt. Realistically, though, could it genuinely be a rally car?

Team O’Neil Rally School set out to find an answer. In a recent video, they put a retired police charger to the test with varying criteria. Included in the testing are a 0-60 sprint, brake testing and a timed lap around their short rally course.

The Charger manages to fire off a 0-60 time of just 8.12 seconds on the loose gravel road.

“Pretty quick on gravel, these tires do a fantastic job,” Said Wyatt Knox, host of the ‘Will It Rally?’ series.

After brake testing, Knox put the brakes to the test. To have full control, they completely disabled the vehicle’s ABS.

“There’s always a risk that your brake bias is a little weird. A lot of that brake proportioning from front to rear happens through that ABS system. This one feels like it’s doing about the right thing,” he said, after doing a full ‘panic brake’ stop in the gravel.

Brake balance is especially crucial in rally, as trail braking is often used, which is using the brake beyond the initial turn in to swing the rear of the car around and point the nose toward the corner’s exit.

Finally, the hot lap test sees Knox skillfully piloting through a forest rally course with the rear end swinging back and forth. He even uses the foot-pedal parking brake in place of a handbrake in a couple of corners. He definitely has some incredible car control!

“This heavy-duty suspension really does a pretty good job,” he exclaims as he calmly talks his way through the course.

The Charger put down a run time of 2:05. However, it’s the first car they have tested on this course in the summer months.

Overall Knox makes it looks like the Charger would be a great option for rally. Though, we get the feeling a lot of that impression comes from his rally driving experience. Nonetheless, it is super cool to see a Charger get sideways in the woods.

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Braden Carlson

Braden Carlson is an automotive enthusiast from Boise, Idaho. At 19 he quit his day job to pursue a career in automotive journalism, launching his Youtube channel in his own name. Today you can still find him producing DIY video content, reviews and writing for an amassment of automotive websites. His work is most frequently found on Rennlist, The Mustang Source and Corvette Forum. When not writing or driving, he's likely to be found covered in grease and oil undoubtedly from one of his gratuitous collection of questionable project cars.