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Daily Driver: 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers who drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, reviewed by Greg Migliore. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. It's Greg Migliore and today I am driving a 707-horsepower Dodge Charger. That can only mean one thing: I'm driving the Hellcat. Naturally, the spotlight feature of this car is the 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V8. Makes 707 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque. [00:00:30] Now naturally the engine sounds great and you can hear all of those horses going out the exhaust in back, which I think the Dodge guys have tuned really well. I think it's got one of the more unique sounds in the industry. All that horsepower will do that, but they've tuned it so there's a low kind of growl, and then it burbles and it's angry [00:01:00], it's visceral. I like it. It's intoxicating. It's different than other muscle cars. It's different than European exotics. I think it sounds great. I'm driving in sport right now which allows me to use the paddle shifters. I think it sounds a little better and the shifts of the eight-speed automatic transmission are a little bit more aggressive. For such a powerful car, Dodge did a nice job of tuning it to be actually pretty drivable. I just took a corner right there and the [00:01:30] steering offers you satisfying weight to your inputs. It's a little bit of a heavier steering, especially compared to some of the earlier generation Chargers. It's sporty, but it's not crazy. The design of the Dodge Charger is a critical element. That's why a lot of people buy this car, is it gives them that muscle car heritage look. The Hellcat has some special design cues that are also functional. You've got a couple of extra air intakes up front, keeps everything cool and breathing, the air flowing through; a nice spoiler in back [00:02:00] that helps keep the aero, and the downforce keeps you on the ground. The HID projector headlights really pop, especially at night, and in back you've got the LED taillights that spread out wide across the back end of this car like some of the great Chargers of the past. This car rolls on 20-inch black wheels with a spiderweb design. I think they look good. They're kind of low-key, which I think is great.

Chrysler Recalling 870,000 SUVs For Brake Defect

Chrysler is recalling nearly 870,000 SUVs because corrosion may make the vehicles' brakes harder to use. Jeep Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango SUVs from the 2011 through 2014 model years are involved. Chrysler says crimp joints in the brake boosters can corrode if they're exposed to water. If the water freezes, the boosters won't aid braking as they usually do. Chrysler began investigating after some customers said their brakes felt too firm when pressed down. The company knows of one accident, but no injuries, due to the defect. Dealers will install a shield to protect the boosters for free and replace boosters that aren't working properly. Chrysler has since changed the design to make the boosters more corrosion resistant. Chrysler will notify owners of the recall, which involves 867,795 vehicles. Related Gallery Safest Crossovers For The Budget-Conscious Family View 10 Photos Recalls Chrysler Dodge

Gauging reaction to the 2015 Dodge Charger Pursuit on Detroit highways

Steven Ewing and I kind of pretended to be cops a few weeks ago. No, not in the illegal way; we just took turns driving the 2015 Dodge Charger Pursuit around Detroit and its suburbs, learning invaluable life lessons along the way. A lot of those lessons came in the form of weird reactions from other drivers. Steve peeved his neighbors by surprising them in the parking lot, I can damn close to sitting in jail next to a murderer and we both caught our fair share of evil-eyed glances. One of my very first observations was a pronounced "bubble effect" when driving in traffic on the highway. Attempting to recreate the effect for the video camera, I grabbed Senior Producer Chris McGraw and we went for a ride in the name of pseudo psychology. The results weren't exactly as we'd predicted, but we had fun all the same. Get one more dose of your cop car fix, above.