This One-Off Dodge Charger Coupe Conversion Is The Anti-Challenger

There’s a pretty good reason why Dodge doesn’t make a Charger coupe – and it’s called the Challenger.

The two models share a common (albeit modified) platform, after all, and mostly the same powertrain options. But what if you like the Charger’s aggressive styling better than the Challenger’s retro design?

That’s evidently how Nick Kizi felt. Nick started his own bodyshop over in Warren, Michigan – home of GM’s main tech center – back in 2013 called Fantasy Collision & Customs. With the doors just having rolled up and a crew of just two other guys, Nick and company undertook this project to show what they could do.

Now as you might have gleaned from just the lead image above, the guys at Fantasy didn’t just remove a set of doors, fill in the gaps, and call it a day. To read Rides magazine describe it, they chopped the sedan in half, shortened the wheelbase by ten inches, and put it back together.

Removing the rear doors, they lengthened the front ones. And while they were at it, they cut the roof down by two inches. Coupé, indeed.

The 5,000-man-hour process also saw them widen the rear fenders by seven inches – on each side – and fit giant wheels: 24 inches in diameter at all four corners, steamrolling 9 inches across at the front and an unfathomable 15 inches at the rear. Inside they fitted 16-inch Wilwood brakes, and fitted it all to a custom air suspension.

The 5.7-liter Hemi V8 was left mostly stock (except for the custom exhaust), the roof was replaced with a custom glass panel, and the whole thing was painted white with red pinstripes. The interior was done up to match in pearl white with red stitching.

The finished product looks like a real show-stopper – and not without historical precedent. After all, the original Charger made in the 1960s and ’70s was a coupe, before the name was used on a front-drive hatchback and then on the four-door sedan we know today.