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Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Dodge could resurrect the ACR nameplate on a track-hungry Challenger

Dodge will reportedly celebrate the Challenger's 50th birthday by introducing a track-focused variant of the coupe that will resurrect the American Club Racer (ACR) nameplate. It will arrive as a cocktail of the automaker's best race-bred parts, including bits and pieces sourced from the defunct Viper. The Challenger ACR will be presented as a follow-up to the sold-out Challenger Demon available during the 2018 model year. While Dodge developed the 840-horsepower Demon for drag racing, it's designing the ACR to tackle America's windiest road courses, according to anonymous sources who spoke to website Mopar Insiders. It will need to take a turn, not just go really fast in a straight line. To that end, Dodge will give its popular muscle car more downforce by adding a full body kit that will include a huge adjustable rear wing shaped like the one fitted to the Viper ACR. The racer will be based on the Widebody variant of the Challenger, which handles considerably better than its narrow-bodied sibling, and it will rely on composite materials like carbon fiber to keep weight in check. In other words, it will receive more extreme modifications than the Challenger SRT8 ACR that Dodge introduced during the 2011 SEMA show but never approved for production. If this configuration sounds familiar, it's likely because the carmaker sponsors an independent team named Wesley Motorsports, which races a Hellcat Redeye all over America. It features an adjustable suspension provided by Blistein, slick Toyo tires, and a supercharged, 797-horsepower V8. The Challenger ACR described by Mopar Insiders sounds a lot like the one Wesley Motorsports regularly enters in hill climbs and time attack competitions (pictured). Coincidence? It's too early to tell for sure. Dodge hasn't commented on the report, and it hasn't announced what it has in store for the Challenger's 50th anniversary. The original Challenger made its debut in late 1969, and it arrived in showrooms during the 1970 model year, so Dodge will need to unwrap its surprise before the start of the 2021 model year to keep it timely. Expect an announcement during the first half of 2020. While pricing information remains a mystery, Mopar Insiders added the Challenger ACR will come standard with only a driver's sat. Buyers will be able to add a passenger seat for $1.

Mopar '14 teased, returns to Challenger

Every year, Mopar selects one special vehicle from the Chrysler portfolio and creates its own, one-off, special edition. Previously, there was the Mopar '13 Dart, '12 300, '11 Charger and the '10 Challenger, and for 2014, this teaser image shows that the company will be giving the unique treatment to Dodge's muscle coupe yet again.
Mopar has not revealed any details about its '14 Challenger, though the brand's president and CEO, Pietro Gorlier, says that "This limited-edition ride is for muscle-car fans who love high octane and customizable performance." All we know is, it's white, has some blue stripes, and a black (or carbon fiber) rear spoiler.
We'll know more when the Mopar '14 Challenger is revealed at the SEMA show in early November. In the meantime, click the image above to check out the teaser in high resolution, and have a look below for Chrysler's official press blast.