It’s hazy at Hells Gate, and the smoke stings your eyes.
A few miles to the north, an out-of-control wildfire has caused a road closure, turning this narrow two-lane canyon road into a suddenly empty spur to nowhere, free from traffic.
Contemplating the big Dodge Challenger sitting on the shoulder with the smell of burning timber hanging in the air, it’s not hard to see why the era of this sort of combustion-powered guilty pleasure is drawing to a close.
For 15 years, this huge coupé has represented moonshine-grade distilled nostalgia for a time that was shorter than everyone seems to remember. The original model was introduced in the autumn of 1969 and was dead in just four years, killed off by the meteor impacts of 1970s fuel crises.
Now, the modern V8-powered Challenger has reached its own vanishing point. Even for the British, who, the occasional grey import aside, have had to look enviously across the pond at American muscle cars, there’s likely to be a sense of loss.
The formerly closely related Dodge Charger will soldier on as either an electric car or powered by a twin-turbocharged straight-six petrol engine. It will now also be available as a saloon or a coupé, taking over the two-door muscle car duties from the Challenger. But from here on, that muscle will theoretically have a smaller footprint – no more thundering V8s of ludicrous displacement and power.
Sensible. A necessary evolution. No more dinosaurs. And yet… The road through British Columbia’s Fraser Valley is empty, there’s a six-speed manual attached to that whacking great V8 and the meaty tyres of this car appear to be bursting out of its bodywork like The Incredible Hulk splitting his trousers. The future beckons – but not before one more thundering visit to the past.
How does the Challenger handle?
Further downstream, the Fraser River turns silty and broad, its middle-aged spread creating fertile flood plains and happy farmers. Up here, it’s in its vigorous youth, the white-water torrent that gave this narrow passage the name of Hells Gate.
To carve a path alongside the river, this road’s engineers bored seven tunnels of varying lengths into the rock, each one a waiting echo chamber. That will be windows down, then.
Rev-match a downshift and stomp on the throttle and the Challenger does its powerboat party piece with aplomb, its big nose lifting. This one is equipped with a Shaker hood, a blister poking through the bonnet that visibly shakes under engine torque. Why? Because it’s funny.
