Culture|Garage

Prepare to drool, Mopar lovers, because your definition of the muscle car is about to be changed. Well, at least that’s what the guys at Xtreme Velocity Motorsports say, anyway. The old adage of “goes fast in a straight line” is a bit irksome to the people that started XV, so they set out on a mission- to make a “musclecar” into a “do-anything supercar.”

XV Motorsports is an organization full of car guys who are fans of all makes, but they felt that Mopars were being left out of the “track-ready musclecar” game. The B and E-body series is what they specialize in, so it comes as no surprise that their flagship car is a ‘70 Challenger-with a twist. That is, it can take on the twists. Call it a “restomod” call it a “hot-rod,” but either way, this thing hauls ass.

Powered by a 5.7-liter hemispherical-head V8, the XV Challenger cranks out 443 horses, (there is also an optional 600-horse Hemi available on production cars) and is mated to a five-speed manual transmission. You can thank Sean Hyland of Sean Hyland Motor Sport for the big mill, which is more than suited to track racing- Hyland is a championship winning mod-motor Mustang driver and builder, so he should know a thing or two about big engines on small tracks. This is a big switch from your typical 440 and four-on-the-floor setup, but it ain’t the only switch.

Underneath you’ll find a Multimatic Motorsports-prepped suspension which allows the big ‘ol Chally to be thrown around on the track like something much smaller. Making this happen meant correcting factory flaws in the suspension geometry, as well as liberal doses of aluminum hardware to lighten up the beast. The suspension isn’t something you’ll find in the Summit or Jeg’s catalog, either, as most of it was hand-fabbed just for this build. Don’t despair, however, as XV sells some of these parts (made in-house) to all takers. So what did it take to come up with this kind of a suspension? A four-post suspension rig, torsion tests, computer modeling and track testing- not your typical custom-shop Kentucky windage. According to XV, their Challenger rides on high pressure mono-tube shocks, coil-overs, aluminum upper and lower control arms and aluminum spindles, among other components.

Build quality over the original cars has been increased too, as acid-dipping and perfecting the bodywork take place on each of the XV cars. The look may be classic, but each car is as hand-built as any good supercar should be. The doors seal properly. Gaps are even and true. Big six-piston disk brakes make stopping positively modern. It’s an old car without the old-car foibles- you can think of XV as a kind of automotive Viagra.

If you have the itch to wring a B or E-body Mopar through the corners, XV will build the car for you, as long as you have the bucks for them. They aren’t what you’d call cheap, at $130,000-250,000, but it may be worth it to see the look on some unsuspecting Porsche driver’s face as you throttle by him, on the outside, in a tight hairpin. Heck, it’ll pull 0.90 Gs on a skidpad, if “going for a ride” to you means “going for a slide.”

The interior is nearly textbook Chrysler, although the updated seats feature side bolstering, and a new steering wheel and simple gauges also reside in the austere environment. In the middle of the cockpit sits a Hurst shifter-a nod to musclecar tradition. While it is a little dark in there, your attention will be focused on the track, er, road-so who cares?

Sure, musclecars aren’t everyone’s thing, but you can’t argue with the styling on the car, which is more or less true to what Chrysler penned over 30 years ago when they designed the Challenger. It deviates at it’s rubber-band thin tires which are wrapped around 18-inch Kinesis wheels and a stance which appears just a bit different than a stock Challenger. Otherwise, the flagship Challenger uses flat-black paint on the hood and decklid spoiler, just as Mother Mopar intended. And why not? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That seems to be the guiding principle behind the XV build, where every problem was fixed to leave nothing but a great car as the result.

via: Popular Hot Rodding, XV Motorsports, Car and Driver

ShareThis