Thursday, November 03, 2005

DRIVEN: 2006 Dodge Magnum RT



Story and Photos by Mike Galipeau

The family vacation – a drive halfway across the country in the middle of the summer, with two children. For this story, I’ll be Clark Griswold, my wife will play Ellen, my son is Rusty, and my daughter will be Audrey.


The old family wagon has 270,000 km on the odometer. It’s a Volvo, so I know it will make the 5,000 km trip to Wally World. Alright, so we weren’t going to Wally World, but we were heading to the East coast, to visit cousin Eddie (My brother). Ellen was a bit concerned about the reliability of the trusty wagon.

Off to the dealership I go to find a new family car. There it was, the 1983 Family Truckster in Metallic Pea, with wood paneling and eight headlights. I wish…



Truthfully though, DaimlerChrysler Canada, hooked us up with a 2006 Dodge Magnum R/T, almost as cool as the Truckster. Instead of Metallic Pea, we got Cool Vanilla and no wood paneling. It was the first time I had seen a Magnum in that colour, and it really brought out its muscular look. Well that, and the HEMI badges, the dual exhaust, and the 18-inch wheels and tires.

Gas was $1.04 a litre in Eastern Canada, so Ellen was not impressed to see a 5.7-liter 345-hp, 395-ft-lb powered car show up in the driveway. More about that later!

Wally World, er, sorry Halifax, was waiting so it was a 5:30 a.m. departure for 10 days of family bliss. However, the night before was spent loading the car.



My initial thought when I popped the trunk on the Magnum was “this is smaller than our Volvo back here.” However, the Magnum’s cargo space is deceiving. The sloped roofline and tiny rear windows make it seem small. The rear floor has a removable system that provides added cargo space, but I found this out after we had returned from our trip.

Even without the floor panels removed the Magnum swallowed a full-size stroller, two huge (and heavy) suitcases, a playpen, two diaper bags, a massive bag of toys, and various other items that we never looked at again.

Audrey and Rusty were ecstatic about the optional DVD system in the back – I got to listen to the Wiggles and Bob the Builder the entire trip, as Rusty didn’t want to wear the supplied headphones. I was excited to use the DVD based navigation system, though.



Our departure time felt very, very early, and we were off. Ellen was expecting to have to fill up every hour, but I secretly kept my eye on the mileage as we went. The number finally settled on 10.5 L/100km while on the highway – I was amazed. I had not seen the old 5-cylinder turbo Volvo do that. I had really hoped that the MDS (Multiple Displacement System) would prove Ellen wrong.

And yet, when you wanted to pass, the five-speed auto downshifted smoothly. It didn’t matter that we had a full trunk, two adults and two children in the car going up a 50 per cent grade with a headwind and the A/C on – this car moves!

My 2 1/2-year-old son “Rusty” put it best. “Dad, when you pass someone, I hear the HEMI, I like it.”

Eighteen hours later, thanks to the engineers at DaimlerChrysler for the DVD system, we were at Cousin Eddie’s in Porter’s Lake, NS. Eddie is a die-hard Dodge fan, and was blown away by the Magnum. We spent the next three days at their trailer. Alright, it’s a house, and a very nice one.



While in the Halifax area, we took a Griswold family day-trip to Peggy’s Cove. We had parked right beside a couple who had rented a V6 Magnum. It really occurred to me then how much the R/T package adds to this car. Yeah, you get the HEMI, but the car just looks more aggressive. While he was whining about the cost to rent a car and the rearward visibility, I was telling him about the 100-foot patch this thing laid. I mean, could lay if you wanted it to…

It was time to hit the Cabot Trail. I had been looking forward to this part of the trip the most. A friend had told me that he had to have the brakes done on his car immediately after driving the loop! With the Griswolds in the car, though, I’d have to take it easy and enjoy the ride. Turns out, the Cabot Trail is the most scenic, twisty, hilly road I have ever been on.

The Magnum is a big car. I didn’t realize it until we got back in our Volvo wagon – it felt tiny by comparison. However, the Magnum does an amazing job of shrinking itself on the tight, twisty sections, then feeling like a ‘60s Big Block beast when the road straightens out. The ability to manually select the gears on the Mercedes-Benz-sourced five-speed automatic worked well when heading downhill into a 180-degree bend. The brakes never even felt like they were working too hard, although I did think the steering was a bit over-assisted.



The rest of the trip was amazing although the Cabot Trail was my Wally World, and as far as I was concerned, we had made it. With three days to go, we hopped on the ferry in Pictou, NS, and headed to PEI. From PEI we drove the 11 km Confederation bridge back to New Brunswick. We stayed another night in Moncton, then drove the next day straight to Burlington, on the west side of Toronto.

We had put the 2006 Magnum R/T through a lot – we drove a total of 4,980 km in 10 days. We had the car on two ferries, one big bridge, through five provinces, took it to the beach, the Cabot Trail, through Montreal and spent a grand total of only $512.00 in fuel door to door. That’s only 10 cents per kilometre. Considering we had budgeted $800.00 for gas for the trip, Ellen was now a believer that a big-cube V8 could be practical and fuel efficient when built and packaged properly.

However the car is not perfect. The interior door panels did feel and look a bit plasticky in areas, but overall the interior has an upscale feel. Ellen felt that the seats could have been a bit deeper, and some more bolstering could be added, but stepping up to the SRT-8 package should take care on that.

The Magnum truly is practical power. It worked as a Family Truckster, it satisfied my need for grunt and handling, it kept the kids entertained. The entire Magnum line-up should be high on your list if you’re looking for the next Family Truckster – just pray you don’t have to deal with a salesman that looks like Eugene Levy in a cheap suit.

1 comment:

dGarry39 said...

You will definitely love the Magnum RT and might not let you look back at your old tiny car.