It's day 4 of the Ultimate Challenger Roadtrip and we are here in Italy, in the heart of the Italian Alps. The reason we are here is behind me that zigzagging road you see is the Stelvio Pass and we are headed up it in the challenger. 48 hairpin turns on this pass as it climbs to over nine thousand feet. So let's go over for a ride.
The challenger needs full rev to get around the most of the hairpins. It also helps to switch of the stability control because some of the corners are so tight with the such a severe camber change on the apex that the inside wheel starts to spin and the system shuts down the power just as you needed. On a road that would be a tight fit for a compact car the challenger feels like a lion back over to square dance, it makes all the right moves but in a very deliberate manner.
Well, here we are at the top of the Stelvio Pass and just look at that road behind me this is one of the worlds great driving roads but got to get here early because as soon as the sun comes out and drives it out the motor cyclists are here in force, but time it right and you'll enjoy every single mile of this road.
At the Stelvio summer, the challenger was the center of attention. We let these young fans crawl all over the car before we headed off to continue our journey. It's day 5 of the Challenger European tour and we have some unfinished business to attend to.
A couple of days ago rain and traffic ended our V max attempt on the German autobahn but on this quite sunny stretch of Italian autostrada, we are going to find out just how fast the challenger SRT8 really is. One hundred miles an hour, one hundred twenty, wind noise starting to built from the sunroof, one hundred thirty, one hundred forty, one hundred fifty, one hundred sixty one, one hundred sixty three, one hundred sixty four, hundred sixty five, one hundred sixty six, one hundred sixty seven.
There are a couple of bends in that stretch of road and we went through them at 150,155 even 160. It tracked nice and true with that sort of stability at speed you get out of a German car. So we didn't do it Germany, the rain and traffic beat us there but here in Italy, in the sunshine and the open autostrada we did it.
We are better to have a victory lunch in the famed Cavallina restaurant just across the road from the Ferrari factory. We are in the hills above Florence along the road leading to Futa pass. This route was used in the famous Mille Miglia, the 1000 mile race. It's an amazing piece of road, these constantly twisting and turning, going through villages. There is a Chrysler connection here. In the 1953 Mille Miglia journalist Paul Frere drove a Chrysler Saratoga through here to a first place finish in the over two liter class.
So far of all the places we've been in Europe, the Italians have been the most responsive to the challenger. They just adore the big brash coupe. We are here at Portofino on the Italian Riviera, a gorgeous little town tucked right on the edge of the Mediterranean sea. There were not cars here in the main square so you might ask what do we doing here? Well, there is a Chrysler connection. You see Portofino was the name of a concept car done by Tom Gale in 1987 who is based on Lamborghini Jalpa chassis. Now, the Tom's son Jeff did the exterior design on the challenger and we thought that was a good enough reason to come to this fabulous place.
There is only one narrow road in and out of Portofino. It literally clings to the cliff in places as it winds around the coastline, past gorgeous fillers and sparkling water. We've seen more exotic cars in the past 10 minutes than we've seen in days but all eyes are on the hemi-orange challenger. The challenger makes a bold statement in the Italy's stunning renaissance cities but it's also an eye catching on the crowd at autostrada. Now we are crawling along 20 miles an hour on the autostrada in the Sunday after noon rush hours but could be on the four or five back in los Angeles except the scenery is better, the coffee is better, the wine is better, so we are in Italy.
Now we are driving along the autostrada just outside Genoa in Italy, and we are up in the mountains. This is an amazing feet of engineering, this autostrada, you are constantly going through tunnels. When you are not going through the tunnels you are going over a bridge and so the whole trip bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel.
Coming off the autostrada, we spot these classic 1960's Fiat 500's barely half as long as the challenger and with an engine one twelfth the size, they seam like clown cars to us until we realized we've just put $170 worth gas into the big Dodge. No wonder the small Fiat 500 was once Italy's top seller.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services