The Big Red Stick.(NEWS)(Dodge Challenger R/T)

Byline: Steve Thompson

Teddy Roosevelt's advice to "speak softly and carry a big stick came to define him in a uniquely American way. And one could easily describe the exhaust note of the 2009 Dodge Challenger R/T as speaking softly, while the R/T's 370-hp Hemi is a very big stick indeed, as is the body that encloses it. This Dodge, like our 26th president, has a formidable presence that says, "Don't mess with me, sonny.

At Burger Kings and gourmet bistros, the response to the R/T was the same: close attention coupled with silence. No high-fives from teens, no beer bottles raised in salute, just the kinds of stares that follow important celebrities around restaurants, the classic response to the elusive quality of presence.

Plenty of other cars have presence, too. But, much to my surprise, the R/T earned its Big Stick title for me with how it worked even more than with how it looked. Bank-vault solid and nearly silent on the road, no matter what the surface, it was utterly unlike its pony-car predecessors. When I first attacked the tight, gnarled and bumpy twisties of my favorite test roads, I was amazed by its tenacious grip and supple ride. With ferocious stopping ability and very good throttle control, aided by the five-speed autostick shifter, it didn't roar, blare, slide or skid; it simply hustled.

Given Chrysler's ongoing troubles and the explicitly retro approach to the company's selling of the R/T, it would be easy to compare the car with its predecessor. But that would be a mistake, for this R/T is its own kind of car, as different dynamically from the Challengers of yore as today is from the 1960s.

Still, some things are the same, and among those is the need some drivers have for "contrarian vehicles to express values they hold dear. In the 1950s, sports carslow-slung foreign roadsterswere contrarian, as were Fiat 500s and ...