By Patrick RallReviews
7 min read
Charger
The Super Bee package returns to the Dodge Charger lineup for 2023 as part of the Last Call festivities, and after years of sedan fans clamoring for a drag strip-ready four-door muscle car, Tim Kuniskis and his team have answered those calls. The 2023 Charger Super Bee looks great inside and out, but this is far more than a slick appearance package. With unique suspension tuning, lightweight brakes and special wheels wrapped in drag radial tires, the 2023 Super Bee is the first modern Charger that has been outfitted for the quarter-mile, following in the footsteps of the Challenger 1320.
I recently had the pleasure of spending a week driving the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee, and while the weather didn’t cooperate for track testing, the advantages of this 392 HEMI® engine-powered sedan can absolutely be utilized on the street. At the same time, this Charger is just as comfortable to drive in rush hour traffic as the rest of the lineup – so there is no compromise in comfort to get the improved quarter-mile abilities.
The 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee package is offered witheither the “narrow” body width or the widebody. The Super Bee widebody modelscome in Plum Crazy with white decals on the hood and quarter panel, creating astark, eye-catching contrast. On the other hand, the narrow body comes in B5Blue with light blue decals, creating more of a subtle look across the hood anddown the sides. That is the version that I had for testing and I love thesubtle, two-tone look.
When combined with the other attributes of the Super Beepackage, such as the black Mopar® hood pins, the SRT® Hellcat-style hood and thefactory drag radials, this Charger looks like a badass street brawler and drawsa ton of attention. I have had many modern Dodge performance cars for testingover the past few years, including the Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye Jailbreak,and none got as much attention in traffic as the new Super Bee. Even with themore subtle blue-on-blue livery, lots of people in daily driving traffic rolledup next to me to compliment or to ask questions about the Super Bee.
On the inside, the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee features the bee logo embroidered on the upper portion of the leather-and-alcantara front seats and the small nameplate on the passenger’s side of the dashboard carries the Super Bee logo. There is also a nice spread of carbon fiber trim around the gauge cluster and infotainment system, and along the center of the shift console, giving the interior a more upscale, sporty feel. Of course, the 8.4-inch Uconnect® infotainment system screen and the adjustable driver information screen in the gauge cluster are standard, so this package packs plenty of technology.
In my opinion, the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee in B5 Blue isthe best looking of the Last Call packages – but the appearance is only a smallpart of the allure with this muscular sedan.
To make the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee more capable on thedrag strip, the team outfitted the car with a few key features – 4-pistonBrembo front brakes, specially tuned Bilstein adaptive dampers and drag radialtires on specially prepared wheels.
The 4-piston Brembo front brakes on the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee are lighter than the 6-piston calipers, but more importantly, the 4-piston units are smaller. For anyone looking to switch to a lighter 18-inch wheel on the B5 Super Bee for drag racing – or on the Super Bee Widebody that comes with 18-inch wheels – these front brakes will allow that and for those sticking with the stock 20-inch wheels, there is less weight on the front end. Best of all, these smaller Brembo brakes still do a great job of getting the Charger stopped in a hurry, so there is no real compromise in terms of normal braking function while daily driving.
Next, the Bilstein adaptive dampers are equipped with a DragMode setting that allows for the best front-to-rear weight transfer. Thisweight transfer pattern applies extra force to the rear wheels on launch,aiding in traction. Simply switching from any other mode to the drag settingmakes such a dramatic difference in how the car moves on a launch that youdon’t need to be on a track, or even making a hard pull. Just popping thethrottle from a stop in the different modes quickly reveals how hard the SuperBee sends weight to the rear wheels, but thanks to the function of the Bilsteindampers, the other modes still offer smooth, balanced weight transfer fromfront-to-back and side-to-side, providing the kind of handling Charger ownerswill want when they are on a road or track with turns.
The most obvious performance feature of the 2023 ChargerSuper Bee is the addition of factory Nexen drag radial tires wrapped aroundlightweight knurled wheels. These tires offer dramatically better grip forputting power to the ground and the knurled wheels help to keep the stickytires from moving on the wheel at the point of launch. With most Charger R/TScat Pack sedans, if you hammer the throttle from a stop, it is going to useall 485 horsepower and 475 lb-ft of torque to smoke the tires through severalgears. A hard launch with the standard street tires of the Scat Pack packagetakes quite a bit of practice to master, and even with loads of experience, youonly have to climb into the throttle a touch too quickly to begin roasting therear rubber. On the other hand, the Nexen drag radials on the Super Bee allowedme to confidently launch hard without much fuss or throttle work.
In normal driving conditions (no burnout) on a 90-degree day,I was able to stop on a desolate country road, bring the RPM up just enough toload the torque convertor and hammer the throttle. Right at the point when thecar moved, the tires would spin just a little, but they would quickly grabahold of the pavement and allow me to put full power to the ground. While thehigh heat and humidity prevented very low numbers, I was able to pullconsistent 4.2-4.3 0-60 times without any special effort. In short, on a brutallyhot day, the Charger Scat Pack will effortlessly repeat those low-4-second 0-60times.
It should also be noted that having sticky drag radial tiresat all four corners does improve handling as well. While the Charger Super Beeis not designed for hard cornering, the rubber compound of the Nexen tiresholds the pavement well under hard cornering, so while the sidewalls are softerthan a tire designed for road racing, the drag radials allow you to get in andout of corners much more aggressively than you can with basic street tires.
Finally, even with the factory-equipped drag radials, the4-piston brakes and the special suspension setting, the 2023 Dodge ChargerSuper Bee serves perfectly as a daily driver. Thanks to the adjustable Bilsteinsuspension system, the Super Bee offers the same ride quality and corneringability as the other Scat Pack models. As mentioned above, the 4-piston Brembobrakes still offer incredible stopping power and the drag radials do notdiminish the ride quality or daily driving road handling abilities at all.
Some people on social media have expressed some concern in how the Nexen drag radials would do in the rain and as mentioned above, it rained quite a bit while I had the new Charger Super Bee. In fact, I got caught in a torrential downpour that caused some people to pull off of the road and wait for clearer skies. I continued on carefully and had no problem accelerating or cornering, even where there was standing water that looked to be a couple inches deep. That being said, I was driving very gently and I would expect that most drivers with drag radials in the rain would do the same.
Really, there is only one downside to the 2023 Dodge Charger Super Bee – only 1,000 are being built as part of the Last Call program, so they are tough to find. However, for those who manage to score one, they will have the best-performing 392 HEMI engine-powered Dodge sedan to date. This is the perfect package for a Charger lover who wants a car to serve as a great daily driver and a great bracket racer, or anyone who just wants a big Dodge sedan that will put down the power on the street.
