Test Drive: 2012 Dodge Charger powers up the wow factor

— -- Chrysler Group is introducing a spanking new eight-speed automatic transmission on V-6 versions of the 2012 Dodge Charger (and the mechanically similar Chrysler 300) that go on sale this month.

Big whoop, you chide. Tell us interesting stuff about the car.

OK. It has an eight-speed automatic transmission.

And boy, does that make all the difference. The Charger, as did many Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep models, got a makeover for the 2011 model year. But so many updates are arriving on 2012 models that 2011 is kind of a lost year. It almost seems as if Chrysler ought to apologize to buyers of 2011 models for giving them half loaves.

The eight-speed that you now get standard on all but the very base Charger SE V-6 models (and it's a $1,000 option on that one) replaces a five-speed that depressed the performance and hurt the fuel economy of the 2011 Charger and 300.

It's hard to put into words how much better the 2012 drives, feels, flings and fuels than the 2011, but let's try.

Wow.

For the practical-minded who believe cars have no soul, no identity, no chemistry, get this:

The new transmission gives the car better low-speed scoot (making less-tedious that stop-go routine most of us must abide). It takes small steps up through its gear ratios so the engine never sags and leaves you wishing you'd bought the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 instead. The V-8 continues to use a five-speed. It's scheduled to get an eight-speed in the future, but Chrysler won't say when.

The eight-speed finds the just-so gear if your olfactory sense requires you to rocket past that hog-hauler on a rural two-lane road in hilly terrain. And it provides overdrive gears aplenty (the three top ratios are overdrive) so the car can cruise at naughty speeds while the engine loafs, thereby using little fuel.

How many "wins" is that? Win-win-win-win?

For the passion privileged among you: The 2012 drives like a dream.

It feels the way your euphoric (and erroneous) recall would portray the big, old American sedans of yore. It helps turn today's auto reality into the good ol' days, erasing whatever silly shine Detroit sedans of the (name your decade … '50s, '60s, '70s, whatever) might seem to have had.

Those same small steps among the eight ratios that make the car smooth and fuel-efficient, also make it a royal, howling hoot to drive. It flat goes. Never mind what a stopwatch might say, it's that grin on your face that measures acceleration.

Dodge has graced the 3.6-liter Pentastar V-6 (292 horsepower as used in the Charger) with a growl proportionate to the thrust of your right foot. It presents itself, as do European six-cylinders, as a full-fledged powerplant, not a wanna-be anything. Not the engine you bought because you couldn't afford the Hemi, or were terrified of $6 gasoline, or to placate your spouse or mollify your neighbors or avoid brimstone from the eco-preacher down the street.

Nope. None of those. The V-6, because of that eight-speed transmission, now is very much the package of choice. Lighter and thus, nimbler, than the Hemi V-8 (because the V-6 weighs less) and, ta-dah, available now with all-wheel drive formerly reserved for the V-8.

Surely Dodge must have done other things. It can't have banked solely on a transmission update that salespeople can't show you and that you might not appreciate enough to buy the car.