Ford got the ball rolling in the pony car war with the legendary Mustang in 1964, and GM followed with the Chevrolet Camaro three years later in an effort to appeal to a new generation of car buyers who weren’t interested in tail fins, bench seats or push-button starts, but cubic inches.

Chrysler pushed out the Plymouth Barracuda, based off the compact Valiant sedan ahead of the Mustang in ‘64, but the ‘Cuda wasn’t a serious pony car competitor until it was redesigned as its own model for 1970.

The Dodge Challenger originally bowed in 1970 and was revamped slightly the next year, with its ‘split’ grille being the most obvious cosmetic change for ‘71 (check out the Challenger Concept for a 'modern' version of this), but it was changed back to the original style for ’72.

Much like the Charger, ‘Cuda and several other performance Chrysler models, the option of a 426 HEMI V8 – rated conservatively at 425 horsepower - was by far the most attractive, but as a $1,200 option, the price was slightly jarring for people who were used to paying less for a Camaro or Mustang. Only 75 were built, with just five leaving the United States, compared to nearly 400 the year before.

I don’t usually dig tape striping on cars because it mostly looks out of place and cheap, but a small addition I liked for the ’71 Challenger was ‘R/T’ striping along the driver and passenger sides of the car. It stood out when the stripes were white.

A couple other neat options with the R/T package were: a ‘Shaker’ hood that looked boss and drew air through its vents to cool the engine, a sliding glass sunroof and color-keyed bumpers.

Much like its first model year, the ’71 Challenger had several different performance variants, one of which was the 440 Six Pack, which packed a nasty punch, with 390 angry horses begging to be set free in the concrete jungle.

The Six Pack also had 490 lb/ft of torque at only 3200 RPM, which certainly led to more than a few melted tires around town. After ’71, the Six Pack was dropped from the Challenger line.

In ’71, the Challenger handled just as well as its first incarnation, despite the dangerously-small 14” wheel/tire combination that would never see the light of day on any performance car in 2009.

It’s interesting to note that in 1971, Chrysler didn’t drop the compression ratios in the engines of their performance vehicles, making the 440 and HEMI Challenger perform considerably better than GM competitors, who dropped their ratios considerably.

Despite the solid performance of the ’71 Challenger and Charger, because of increased fuel costs, better emission standards and skyrocketing insurance rates, the eulogy was already being written for the muscle car era, which reached its apex only one year earlier.

The muscle car era never dies in SHIFT, download the Team Racing Pack and take the Challenger R/T for a spin today.

Here are some more shots of the 1971 DODGE CHALLENGER R/T:

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