The traditional American station wagon was a dying breed, but Chrysler staged a revival with the 2005-08 Dodge Magnum.
There’s a touch of irony in this. As much as anyone, Chrysler was responsible for the demise of the American station wagon with its pioneering minivans in 1983. By the early 2000s, wagons were fading from the scene. But Chrysler gave the longroof body style a second wind with the Dodge Magnum, which first appeared in concept form at the 2003 Detroit auto show. Car and Driver magazine was impressed enough to feature the concept on the cover ot its February issue that year.
Car and Driver liked the production version, too, when it appeared in August of 2004 for the 2005 model year. The editors named the Magnum to its 10 Best list and raved about the 14.3-second quarter-mile times of the R/T version with its 5.7-liter Hemi V8—fairly respectable for a 4,295 lb bus. (The even racier SRT8 model offered 425 hp.) Based as it was on the DaimlerChrysler LX platform shared with the sporty Dodge Charger sedan, the Magnum was very much a Charger, sporting the same features and equipment, but with a family-friendly cargo area in the rear.
Both rear-drive and all-wheel drivetrains were offered, while trim levels included the SE, SXT, R/T, and the muscular SRT8. Engine choices ranged from 2.7L and 3.5L V6s to the aforementioned SRT8 mill with 6.1 liters and 425 hp. In 2008, the Magnum received a facelift with a new front fascia and an interior update (above). But by then, the enthusiastic but limited demand for the sporty wagon had been exhausted: Annual sales fell from more than 52,000 in ’05 to not quite 7,000 in ’08. Production at the Brampton, Ontario plant was cancelled to make way for another Charger variant, the two-door Challenger.
There’s one more wrinkle to this story. In Europe, where the Dodge brand had no presence, and in other international markets, the Magnum was marketed as the Chrysler 300C Touring. Assembled for Chrysler by Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria, these wagons featured Chrysler 300 front-end sheet metal, badging, and interiors (below). Since the components are easily interchangeble, a few Mopar enthusiasts in the USA have created their own Chrysler/Dodge Magnum hybrids.
Damn…I wish I could’ve bought a SRT8 with all wheel drive….if they ever built one!
I’m a fan of wagons and looked forward to buying one of these since few other choices were available in the mid-priced range. But they put styling over utility by sloping the rear and I found the result unusable. If a box is your big selling point, it has to look like a box.
Funny I have never had an issue with the cargo capacity. Why not just buy a mini van instead of a unique one of a kind.
A detail not clear in this article: the Magnum preceded the Charger by one year. So, for one year, Chrysler had the 300 sedan and Dodge only had a corresponding wagon. This angered Dodge dealers since wagons weren’t big sellers. When Dodge finally got the Charger, it outsold the Magnum by over 200%.
I have a 07 Mag RT AWD Hemi. It’s the most incredible vehicle I’ve ever owned. Black makes it look like a police car when you come up behind folks on the freeway. People can’t figure it out what it is even while it’s parked. Another stupid decision by Dodge when they killed it.