Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShooter
ZL1 has awful back seats and a tiny trunk. It's HALF a car. Visibility remains poor. Fit and finish is variable at best.
Hellcat gives you a whole car, but costs you in weight. In spite of a good suspension, the Hellcat feels like a boat.
Saying the ZL1 is a better car is pretty silly when both cars have serious shortcomings for many drivers.
I own a Charger Hellcat...and am getting the ZL1. As I've said before, that gets the best of both worlds. I like driving whole car that isn't a SUV. To put that in perspective, our Hellcat replaced a Grand Cherokee Overland and it's nearly as practical! The ZL1 is a toy by comparison and only for weekend drives. So which is the better car? I can easily prove that my new Mercedes SUV is better than either.
Depends on what you need and want.
R
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To be fair, he is simply pointing out what many HC owners feel about their particular car...that he thinks the ZL1 is better. As an all around, all purpose, do-everything-well car, the ZL1 IS the better car from a performance standpoint when both cars are stock. It'll hang with the HC in a roll-on, it is faster in the quarter mile (stock cars stock tires), it handles much better, etc. When mods are added but limiting yourself to the stock blower, the HC will walk away from the ZL1 in a straight line. And I think the same can be said until you start getting into heavy builds. At that point the weight and size advantage the ZL1 enjoys would play a part. So I don't think he was throwing a diss at the HC. He was just expressing what he thinks.
As far as visibility is concerned...I've said it time and again that with blind spot indicators visibility is not an issue. I could bring you along with me and you'd be surprised at how well I could zip in and out of traffic. I've played cat and mouse with plenty of cars on a backed up GSP plenty of mornings on my way home from work. It takes a combination of awareness, blind spot monitoring, and anticipating where other cars should be. If you can do all of that well and take quick glances when unsure as well as having great reflexes, then you won't have any issues at all. I swear I sometimes get on the GSP purposely just to add some excitement to my commute.
And rear seats, well that is a given. These cars are not made to fully utilize the rear seats. Nobody buys these cars with the thought that they'll be carting around 3 other people on a daily basis. In 5 years of owning my 5th Gen SS, I have had a person in my back seat less than 3 times. And only 1 of those times I can recall right now. I'd have to think about the other two to remember them. If I was gonna have people in my car, I would not have bought even the Challenger HC. I would have bought the Charger HC. But as it is my cars are perfect for me.
GM had a clear purpose for the ZL1. And they built it around that. If they added more trunk space or more room, then it would have sacrificed weight and performance. We can't have it both ways. And for me, I'd rather have the performance and sacrifice the room than the other way around. I don't need trunk space because I hardly ever use the trunk anyway.
The fit and finish of both of these cars are on the same level. I cannot find any evidence that either car has a better quality fit and finish over the other. But for what they are and the performance you get and what you pay for, the fit and finish is fine enough for me.
I think you really need to go ahead and get the ZL1 and see how well it performs in order to appreciate it. You'll see how awesome of a car it really is. But you can't go into it comparing it to the HC because they both were built for different purposes. Go into it thinking about what GM built it for and how well it is at what it was built for. Because some of your comparisons about the ZL1 would be similar to someone criticizing the HC for not being able to corner well when it wasn't built for that. Get one and you'll see how good it is.