This 2017 Dodge Charger isn't Real

I imagine that a great many people who are reading this right now are thinking “this picture is obviously not the 2017 Dodge Charger”, but since there are so many people sharing this image on Facebook and clamoring for the chance to buy this car in two years, I felt the need to address this obnoxious rumor.

I am sorry to have to disappoint so many people online, but I want to make it as clear as possible. The car above is not the 2017 Dodge Charger. Although this image might look like an official piece of marketing material from Dodge, it is not. It is nothing more than the work of a Photoshop artist with a vivid imagination.

The Fake 2017 Charger Broken Down
While this has fooled some people into believing that the car above is the next generation Dodge Charger, the fluid, curvy body lines are actually those of a 1999 Dodge Charger Concept, shown below. The 99 Charger Concept has a vastly different front end from the car included in this new rumor, but it is clear that every other aspect of the artwork above comes from the 1999 concept.

Even the wheels and the background are the same, and while it blows my mind that there are Dodge lovers who don't recognize the lines of the 1999 Charger Concept, that is what we are actually seeing above.

Instead of the curvy front end of the 1999 Charger concept, this fake 2017 Charger artwork has a grille opening that is borrowed from the 1969 Charger, while the lower front fascia is just a generic layout that fits the front end. Really, the front end doesn’t fit the body all that well, as you can see that the far (passenger) side of the front end meets the fender line at a point where it is almost level, while the near (driver) side fender curves down much further to meet the grille opening.

No Blown 426 Hemi, Either
However, this rendering is clean enough and well-presented enough that it fooled a great many people into believing that the dark red car shown at the top of this piece was the 2017 Dodge Charger. When you add to the fairly well-done artwork the promise of a supercharged 426 Hemi, the graphic becomes even more enticing, but I would say that there is basically no chance of Dodge offering up a production version of a modern supercharged 426 Hemi. The blown 426 is a lovely idea, but with the concerns of even high performance cars being as fuel friendly as possible – we aren’t likely to see a supercharged 7 liter Hemi in the near future.

In all reality, the odds are very good that the 2017 Dodge Charger is going to look a great deal like the 2015 Dodge Charger. Unfortunately for those folks hoping for a car like the one above with a 69-esque front end, an elaborate customization will likely be your only choice. The Charger front end will surely change over the years, but I wouldn’t expect a return to the design of the 1968-1970 design any time soon.