With the arrival of the Dodge Magnum, you didn't have to call your car a truck any more. The term crossover vehicle has been thrown around a lot the last couple years, meant to apply to SUVs leaning in the direction of cars and/or minivans. But the tag is too vague to mean much.
Suddenly, with the Dodge Magnum, it fit. There was a car with the capability to wean the country off of SUVs. Its bold, hot rod lines might scare some people away, but its utility can't be denied. It's a full-size, American car with spacious cargo capacity and available all-wheel drive. It's engineered for safety, styled for image and designed for utility. If those aren't what people want when they buy an SUV, what do they want?
Plus, the Magnum gets better gas mileage than full-size SUVs. The base Magnum SE comes with a 190-hp, double overhead cam V6 that gets 21 to 28 miles per gallon, at a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $23,095 including destination. And the 340-hp, 5.7-liter Hemi in the R/T boasts technology that shuts down four of the engine's eight cylinders when the car is just cruising, delivering up to 30 miles per gallon during those moments. Put in everyday terms, if you used it to commute on the freeway at a steady 60 mph, you could average 25 miles per gallon.
For 2006, Dodge has pushed a different edge of the performance envelope with the SRT8. Powered by a 6.1-liter, V8 Hemi making 425 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque, the SRT8 lives up to the Magnum name, accelerating from 0 to 60 in about five seconds and from 0 to 100 and back to 0 in less than 17 seconds. And it does that without giving up any of the utility or much of the comfort of the other three models.
Take your pick. There's not a loser in the bunch.