If you are looking to buy a high performance sedan and money is no object, you want to buy a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. With 700+ horsepower, state-of-the-art handling bits and a luxurious cabin, the Hellcat Charger truly is the ultimate performance four-door. However, with a price starting just south of $75,000, the supercharged super-sedan isn’t in everyone’s price range.

That is where the Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack Widebody comes into play, offering comparable handling, styling and interior comforts with a decrease in horsepower and a big drop in price. I recently spent a week driving the Charger Scat Pack Widebody.

Since then, I believe that the 485-horsepower four-door with the wider body is the perfect performance package for those buyers who are looking to stay away from the Hellcat pricing. Mind you, with a price-as-tested of $54,065, the Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack Widebody is far from cheap, but for someone who wants the best handling performance and solid V8 power with a loaded cockpit, this big sedan is hard to beat.

Hemi Power and Acceleration
The 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack Widebody is powered by the 392-cubic inch Hemi, which offers 485 horsepower and 475 lb-ft of torque. That power is sent towards the rear wheels by means of an 8-speed automatic transmission that yields lightning-quick upshifts and downshifts when the car is set to Track Mode. With the help of the 305-millimeter-wide Pirelli PZero tires that come with the Widebody package, Dodge claims that this big sedan will sprint from a stop to 60 in 4.3 seconds.

Even in 90-degree weather, I was able to back up that claim over and over, getting down to a best time of 4.2 seconds. The big tires do a great job of putting the power to the ground, so I would almost call it easy to launch the Charger Scat Pack. Of course, if you really hammer the throttle at a standstill, it will smoke the tires, but this high performance sedan is much easier to drive hard than is the Hellcat.

In addition to getting great traction from a dig, those big Pirelli tires have no problem gripping when you hammer the throttle from a low-speed roll. Even though the 392 Hemi makes big power through the mid-range, the tires of the Widebody package hold the power, again making the Scat Pack more user-friendly than the Hellcat.

The Scat Pack sounds incredible at any speed, offering a ton of Hemi rumble in every driving condition, even when you aren’t driving it hard. Although I’ve not driven a Hellcat Charger in a few months, my daily driver is a Hellcat Challenger and at lower speeds or at idle, the Charger Scat Pack seems to be louder than my supercharged Challenger.

The Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack doesn’t offer the sheer violent power of the Hellcat and that makes sense, as it has over 200 less horsepower, but there is no other sedan in this price range that offers the aggressive acceleration and the sweet V8 roar of this naturally aspirated four-door.

Impressive Handling
The Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack doesn’t accelerate as hard as the Hellcat, but when it offers nearly identical handling performance, if not better. The Scat Pack engine is a bit lighter than the Hellcat Hemi, so there is less weight over the front wheels of the naturally aspirated Charger. With the Widebody package, the Charger Scat Pack has the same adaptive Bilstein dampers, the same massive Brembo brakes and the same beefy Pirelli tires as the Hellcat.

A performance sedan with the same suspension, brakes and tires as the Hellcat but with less weight offers slightly better handling attributes. I didn’t take this car to a race track, but I have tested a Charger Scat Pack at Sonoma Raceway in California alongside the Hellcat sedan.

The Hellcat gets around the track quicker thanks to the copious amounts of power, but the Scat Pack feels a touch lighter on its toes, making it a little easier to wield on a big road course. More significantly, the Charger Scat Pack really does offer incredible on-road handling characteristics for a four-door car that weighs well over two tons.

While testing the Charger R/T Scat Pack Widebody on a local twisty road, I encountered a modified Mini Cooper S. It was lowered a bit with aftermarket wheels and tires, so this is the kind of car that many people expect to handle a whole lot better than a Dodge Charger. We cruised together on this curvy road for a few miles, driving casually through the straight stretches. When we would get to curvy sections, the Mini would hammer down and try to get away from me, but I was able to stay right with the lightweight compact car.

The combination of the high tech Bilstein dampers in their Track setting and the wide Pirelli tires allowed the two-ton sedan to take the big sweeping turns and when we hit tight turns, the Charger gets down to low speeds in a hurry. In fact, in separate testing, I was able to repeatedly come to a complete stop from 60 miles per hour in just 108 feet.

While the Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack doesn’t pack the big power of the Hellcat, it offers every bit of the handling and braking performance. If you want a big sedan that handles very well, the Charger Scat Pack Widebody is impossible to beat, even if you consider pricier models from other brands.

Best of all, due to the adjustable, adaptive Bilstein shocks and the Drive Mode system, the push of a button introduces remarkably smooth ride. I wouldn’t call Track Mode rough, but you can feel the road, while in the Street setting, the dampers offer a much more comfortable ride.

The 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack Widebody features an available new leather flat-bottom steering wheel. Standard cloth performance seats feature an embroidered Scat Pack Bee logo.

Loaded Interior
My 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack test car was equipped with the Plus Group, which adds heated/cooled seats that have Nappa leather bolsters with Alcantara centers, along with an array of other premium interior features. These front seats look great and they are comfortable on a long drive, while the suede center section keeps you firmly in place during stints of spirited cornering. Standard features include the 8.4-inch touchscreen, a flat-bottomed steering wheel with shift paddles and the driver information screen.

Between the big touchscreen and the small screen in the gauge cluster, the Scat Pack has all of the same basic performance readout options as the Hellcat. This includes an elaborate gauge suite, along with the Performance Pages, complete with performance timers, a G meter and all of the Drive Mode controls.

The 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack Widebody features an available new leather flat-bottom steering wheel

Whether you are sitting up front or in the back, there is a ton of room in every direction for even very tall adults. You can comfortably seat two adults in the rear seat, or three, if they don’t mind giving up some leg and shoulder space. However, the interior makes for the perfect family car with plenty of room for two adults and three kids.

If you want a high performance sedan that will beat just about anything on the street in a stoplight sprint while handling and braking better than most four-door cars sold in the United States, the Dodge Charger R/T Scat Pack Widebody is the perfect option. Add in the fact that the interior has room for an average family with loads of high tech features and you have a car that you’ll look forward to driving every day.

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The 2020 Dodge Charger Scat Pack Widebody features an available new leather flat-bottom steering wheel. Standard cloth performance seats feature an embroidered Scat Pack Bee logo.