Cutting The Roof Off A Dodge Charger Daytona Won’t Make Up For The Missing V8, But It’s Still Cool

What does the future of tuning look like in the EV age? For a while, consensus has settled on it being largely confined to suspension, wheel, and maybe a few weight reduction modifications, with cosmetic alterations boosting visual appeal. Well it turns out, there’s another potential route of EV modification we’ve all been underestimating. How about cutting the roof off? A Florida shop has already managed to do just that to a Dodge Charger Daytona EV, and the really crazy part is that it’s looking like a step forward rather than sideways.

If you’ve exited a prolonged Austin Powers-like cryogenic state over the weekend, let me bring you up to speed. The year is basically 2025, the only V8s left in the Dodge lineup are found in the Durango SUV, and the brand has decided to pivot when it comes to its large car offerings. No, Auburn Hills hasn’t brought back the Diplomat, but instead, the next-generation Charger has launched as an electric vehicle first.

This wouldn’t be a problem for just about any other car brand, but Dodge has done this thing called painting itself into a corner. For years, the brand became the bastion of modern American muscle with ludicrously powerful V8s, lurid burnouts, and screaming superchargers. Unfortunately, this staked a side in the culture war around propulsion, and instead of simply trying to walk across the field, Dodge is calling the new Charger Daytona an electric muscle car.

Judging by comments sections everywhere, this seems to have made people angry, and it’s fairly easy to see why. If we take “muscle car” to mean low-sophistication, high-mayhem fun, the Charger Daytona seems a bit too buttoned-down and modern for that. Take the lack of a burnout mode, for example. Most cars will never do a burnout, but muscle car owners like burnouts to at least be possible.

At the same time, if we take “muscle car” to mean cheap speed, the Charger Daytona Scat Pack isn’t that cheap. It starts at $75,185 including freight, which makes it thousands of dollars more expensive than the similarly quick $67,575 Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, the $57,985 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT with the performance upgrade, and the $56,630 Tesla Model 3 Performance.

However, what if someone were to turn the Charger Daytona from something marketed as a muscle car into something else? That’s where Drop Top customs comes in, a Florida shop certified by Dodge to turn Challengers into convertibles. After making some two-door Hellcats even cooler likely at the expense of some structural rigidity, the outfit seems to have got its hands on a Charger Daytona EV, and the results are intriguing.

Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way — this early conversion looks a bit rough. The panel gap between the trunk and the left quarter panel looks Cybertruck-tier, the roof appears wrinkled when up, and the boot to cover the stowed convertible top definitely looks tacked-on. In addition, ditching a hatchback for a conventional trunk probably hurts practicality, but that last point doesn’t really matter. With careful use of a body saw, Drop Top Customs has turned a divisive and somewhat expensive performance EV into an electric four-seat convertible, and that’s a far more tantalizing proposition.

Few manufacturers seem willing to explore cutting the roof off of EVs, and I wonder why. Short of the Maserati GranCabrio Folgore, there just isn’t much on the market right now, and that’s a damn shame. Imagine breathing in the wind under a canopy of stars with an absence of traditional engine or drivetrain noise, the dull roar of tires on asphalt underscoring crickets in the grass. Imagine having a four-seat convertible to use as a parade car without having to worry about idle hours or poor low-speed fuel economy. Cutting the roof off of just about anything and letting the outside in makes it more involving, so why not try it with mainstream EVs?

After all, what Drop Top Customs has created here is something bigger than a take on an electric muscle car. It’s an electric four-seat convertible based on a mainstream model, and not only is that concept agnostic of powertrain, it’s also been an underserved segment for a long time. The Toyota Solara convertible, Volkswagen Eos, Chrysler 200 Convertible, and Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet have been out of production for ages now, and it’s about time someone picked up the mantle.

The first Dodge Charger Daytona convertible might need a little more visual fine-tuning, but it’s a great concept. Fix the panel gaps, de-wrinkle the top, and this thing’s going to sell in at least the dozens. That’s not a dig, it’s the reality of third-party convertible conversions. Coachbuilding isn’t particularly popular in America, so by the general standards of the niche industry, anything approaching three figures per year of volume would be pretty damn good. I, for one, would take a drop-top Charger Daytona over a regular one, and am thrilled to see a shop exploring this concept.

(Photo credits: Drop Top Customs, Dodge)

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