The Perfect Drive
There are a lot of reasons for wanting to live in Southern California, from the laid back left coast culture to the seemingly endless
sunshine and sandy beaches, Hollywood celebrity sightings and famed car culture, but one of the most enticing prospects would be regular jaunts up the circuitous Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest highways to the equally appealing Willow Springs raceway.
Such was the day I just experienced during a full-line SRT ride and drive event that started from and ended at the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, the aforementioned roadways tempting immature, reckless, albeit most enjoyable behaviour in between. I started the drive in Jeep's new Grand Cherokee SRT8 (read about it Dec 1), filled in the middle of the day with on-track
stints in the new Viper Coupe, various other SRT cars and world's fastest SUV (at least for the time being), and capped it all off with a drive on the track and then back through the mountains in the new Charger SRT8.
This is the meanest looking LX car of the bunch, which in case you have been off continent for the last two years include Chrysler's adrenaline inducing 300, and the equally tantalizing Dodge Magnum sport wagon. Charger has been positioned to take on mid- to full-size models of all sorts, and with a range beginning at $27,495 it offers a lot of car for the money. The same business proposition holds true throughout the line, with the range-topping SRT8 possibly offering the best "bang-for-the-buck" in the auto industry - period!
There are a lot of reasons for wanting to live in Southern California, from the laid back left coast culture to the seemingly endless
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| Out in front of the Ritz Carlton, Pasadena, CA, journalists and Chryco PR reps hover around Dodge's latest super sedan, the Charger SRT8. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
Such was the day I just experienced during a full-line SRT ride and drive event that started from and ended at the Ritz Carlton in Pasadena, the aforementioned roadways tempting immature, reckless, albeit most enjoyable behaviour in between. I started the drive in Jeep's new Grand Cherokee SRT8 (read about it Dec 1), filled in the middle of the day with on-track
 |
| The Charger SRT8 is the meanest looking LX car of the bunch, more Viper-like than the 300C SRT8 and Magnum SRT8. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press) |
This is the meanest looking LX car of the bunch, which in case you have been off continent for the last two years include Chrysler's adrenaline inducing 300, and the equally tantalizing Dodge Magnum sport wagon. Charger has been positioned to take on mid- to full-size models of all sorts, and with a range beginning at $27,495 it offers a lot of car for the money. The same business proposition holds true throughout the line, with the range-topping SRT8 possibly offering the best "bang-for-the-buck" in the auto industry - period!