Dodge Killed the V8, Tried an EV, Then Built This 550-HP Six to Win Muscle Car Fans Back

After years of Dodge flip-flopping between V8 muscle and an all-electric future, the new Charger Sixpack lands somewhere nobody quite expected: a 550-horsepower turbocharged inline-six. Jakub and Yuri put it up against the Kia Stinger, the Honda Prelude, and even an old Charger at its $89,995 CAD price point. Watch the most brutally honest verdict yet on whether a six-cylinder Charger still deserves the name.

Dodge spent years insisting the V8 muscle car was dead, then insisting the electric replacement was the future, and now — after all of that back and forth — has landed on something nobody entirely expected: a turbocharged inline-six. Jakub and Yuri from TheStraightPipes get behind the wheel of the new Charger Sixpack to find out whether a six-cylinder engine can actually earn the Charger name, or whether this is Dodge quietly admitting the whole EV detour didn’t work out the way it planned. What they find puts a very specific number on the table, and it’s not the number most Charger fans were expecting to hear.

From V8, to EV, to This: Dodge’s Winding Road Back

The modern Charger’s story over the past several years reads like a company changing its mind in public: first the V8-powered Charger and Challenger were retired amid emissions pressure, then Dodge unveiled a fully electric Charger concept and eventually a production EV version, and now, after mixed reception to the electric direction, a gas-powered six-cylinder Charger has arrived to split the difference. Whether that counts as a correction or simply another chapter in an ongoing identity crisis is exactly the kind of question this review sets out to answer. Few nameplates in recent memory have cycled through this many fundamentally different powertrain identities in such a short window, and every one of those pivots has happened in full public view, with enthusiasts and reviewers alike weighing in at each stage.

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550 Horsepower From Three Liters and Two Turbos

Under the hood sits a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged inline-six, part of Stellantis’s Hurricane engine family, making 550 horsepower and 531 lb-ft of torque in this Sixpack tune. Those are genuinely serious numbers for a six-cylinder engine, putting it within range of what V8 Hellcat models used to offer, and doing it with a smaller, more efficient architecture that can theoretically be tuned even higher in future variants. For comparison, the last supercharged Hemi Hellcat V8 topped out well north of 700 horsepower in its highest states of tune, meaning this six-cylinder Sixpack sits closer to the mid-tier V8 Chargers of the recent past than to the outgoing flagship — a gap the review has to reckon with directly.

The Hurricane Engine Nobody Asked For, Explained

The Hurricane inline-six was developed specifically to replace Stellantis’s aging Hemi V8s across multiple brands, using twin turbochargers to make up the displacement gap rather than relying on a bigger, heavier block. For a brand whose identity was built almost entirely around big-displacement, naturally aspirated V8 sound and character, swapping in a turbocharged six is a significant philosophical shift, even before considering how it actually drives. Stellantis has been rolling the Hurricane engine out across Jeep, Ram, and Dodge product lines simultaneously, positioning it as the company’s long-term answer to tightening emissions rules rather than a one-off experiment confined to the Charger alone.

$89,995 CAD: Where That Actually Lands the Charger

Jakub and Yuri peg this particular Charger Sixpack Scat Pack configuration at $89,995 CAD, a price point that puts it squarely in competition with a specific, deliberately chosen set of rivals rather than leaving it to compete only against its own V8 or EV siblings. That price tag also anchors the entire review’s tone, since a car’s value proposition changes completely depending on what else that same money can buy.

Kia Stinger, Honda Prelude, or Old Charger — Which Would You Take?

The hosts frame the Charger’s real competition as the Kia Stinger, the Honda Prelude, or simply an older, previous-generation V8 Charger bought used — a comparison set that deliberately spans a modern sport sedan, a resurrected sports coupe nameplate, and outgoing Detroit muscle rather than sticking to a single obvious rival. Asking which of those a buyer would actually choose over this new Sixpack Charger is the central question the review builds its entire argument around. It’s a pointed comparison set specifically because none of those three rivals is a turbocharged six-cylinder muscle sedan themselves, forcing the conversation toward what a buyer actually wants from this kind of money rather than a narrow spec-sheet shootout.

What ‘Brutally Honest’ Actually Means in This Review

Calling a review ‘the most brutally honest’ sets a specific expectation: no sponsor-softened praise, no reflexive nostalgia for the outgoing V8, and a willingness to say plainly if the new engine doesn’t deliver the character longtime Charger buyers are used to. TheStraightPipes has built its channel’s reputation partly on exactly that kind of unfiltered take, which is why the framing matters as much as the spec sheet here, and it sets this review apart from more diplomatically worded manufacturer-friendly first drives that tend to avoid saying anything too pointed about a new engine’s shortcomings.

Torque Numbers That Matter More Than the Horsepower Figure

550 horsepower is the headline number, but 531 lb-ft of torque from a 3.0-liter twin-turbo six is arguably the more important figure for how the car actually feels to drive, since torque delivered low in the rev range is what makes a car feel genuinely quick in everyday driving rather than only impressive on a dyno printout. How that torque curve compares to the outgoing Hemi V8’s more old-school power delivery is likely to be the review’s real point of difference.

Whether the Inline-Six Charger Earns the Name

Ultimately, the question this review is built to answer isn’t just whether the new Charger is fast — turbocharged sixes making 550 horsepower are objectively quick by any measure — it’s whether a car wearing the Charger name still feels like a Charger without the V8 rumble that defined the nameplate for decades. That’s a much harder thing to prove than a horsepower figure, and it’s exactly the kind of verdict a genuinely honest review has to commit to one way or the other. Whichever way Jakub and Yuri land, their answer matters more than most reviews, since this Hurricane-powered Sixpack is very likely the template for where Dodge’s gas-powered lineup is headed next, with or without a V8 anywhere in the picture.

Watch the full video and tell us what you think — comments are open below.