Let’s say you’ve just bought an Alfa Romeo Giulia, and you’ve saved $15,000 because dealerships are trying to get them off the lot. What are you going to do with all that money? If your new Italian sports sedan isn’t a risky enough buy, you could invest that cash in a car that will almost certainly try and kill you.
This tip came to us from a reader named Nathan, who spotted it on Craigslist. Down in Chattanooga, Tennessee, someone’s built a “Skeleton Challenger” that’s kind of like if you built a wireframe version of the car in the real world. The owner has clearly grown tired of it, because it’s up for sale for $14,900.
I’m going to just come out and say it. This thing looks really freaking cool. It’s also probably a riot to drive. And you should never, ever buy this car. Sorry, random Chattanoogan I will never meet. I have to tell the truth.
The car is kind of a bitsa—in Australian terminology, that means a car made out of the bits of multiple other vehicles. We’re told it started life as a 2009 Dodge Challenger. However, it’s got a 3.6-liter V6 along with an eight-speed automatic transmission from a 2018 model. That gives it a nice 305 horsepower and 268 pound-feet of torque. It’s worded ambiguously, but either the car itself or the drivetrain has 78,000 miles on it. It’s not really clear. Meanwhile, the interior and electronics were cribbed from a 2019 Challenger. Some of the trims are wrapped in bright yellow and purple which is great if you’re a Lakers fan.
Obviously, though, we’re dancing around the main thing, which is the fact that this car doesn’t have any conventional body panels at all. Instead, they’ve been replaced with a steel tube frame that actually does a pretty good job of approximating the original lines of the Challenger. Just about the only part of the original body that’s intact is the windscreen frame. Everything else, from the hood to the doors to the fenders, has been replaced with steel tubes.
It looks all the more amusing where original parts are hanging from the new tube body. For example, the front “bumper” has what appear to be adjustable splitters bolted on to no aerodynamic effect. At the rear, the Challenger lights sit beneath the spoiler, with the left tail dangling at a sad angle.
Now, I said you shouldn’t buy this, and I stand by that. Why? Because it simply isn’t safe. I know this isn’t cool to say, but these homebrew tube frame builds are known as “Death Karts” for a reason. That tubing is simply nowhere near the right size to offer any protection whatsoever. I promise you it’s not the proper spec, either. It’s also hard to determine exactly what’s been cut away and what hasn’t, but the structural rigidity of the body is likely seriously compromised. In basic terms, this thing will flex like crazy and crumple like a snotty Kleenex in a crash.
You’ll note that when Roadkill did this years ago with a Corvette, they got professionals involved and used the right materials to build a real, proper roll cage. That involves using the right grade of steel, the right size tubes, and properly assembling them with the right welding techniques. This Challenger is anything but that.
Roadkill made this concept popular but they also did it right.
Here’s the other thing. $14,900 is a lot of money. Especially for a 2009 Challenger. You can find plenty of newer examples in decent condition for that kind of money. If this thing was $3,000 and being sold as a farm car, I would understand. But it’s actually listed for more than a stock example. Bold, I’ll admit. Very bold.
Could you even drive this thing on public roads? Well, if you have a death wish, you could try. The owner says it “is tag and street legal.” I don’t think it is, somehow. I’m not going to snitch by reaching out to the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Regardless, you should not be surprised if you end up with a police officer screaming at you to get this thing off the highway if you’re silly enough to take it out. The risks are very real.
As a car enthusiast site, posts like these are always a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s undeniable that hooning a roofless, doorless Challenger would be a great deal of fun. But we also have to be adults sometimes and tell you what’s naughty and not allowed. Forgive me for my maturity but occasionally I’m required to be the adult in the room. You heard your mother: no death karts!
Image credits: Craigslist
For all these posts knocking the V6, would you rather they render a Hemi basically undrivable?
It reminds me of the good ole days when nobody knew anything about computers. So you’d see a movie or whatever and you just know the producer saw a real wireframe in a ‘computer’ scene and said, hell no! Make it, like, curvier and badass looking! And the effects director thought of his wallet and did it.
Basically, Reboot: The Car 🙂
Anyone who passed high-school physics could tell you why this is a poor idea as an actual mode of conveyance. However, it’s a cool piece of art.
I could see a Mopar enthusiast–like my partner, who gave this the thumbs-up when I sent this to him–buying this and displaying it in their living room or garage.
I do think the effort was a bit wasted not doing this to a HEMI-equipped model, though.
Don’t let physics tell you what you can’t do!
Well, on the plus side, you’ll never need to wash it, I guess.
The upside is routine maintenance should be easier. The front end has already been Audid.
This car is stupid and dangerous and I love it! I’d want a proper roll cage in there, but I’ve driven more dangerous cars.
Oh, V6 auto.
How much? My word.
Never mind.
It still has “doors” on the factory hinges, and “door” speakers and controls for the mirrors! Hilarious!
It’s gloriously stupid, but it’s not $15,000 gloriously worth of that stupid.
The problem with these so-called “death karts” is not so much the lack of crumple zones (as others here have pointed out it’s no different really than a motorcycle or an antique), but that in an accident one’s head is likely to strike a bare metal tube, rather than some other type of presumably softer standard automotive interior surface.
That structure will likely crumple more than the original car would have.
That is very poor tube design.
I think I would rather get in an accident in this thing compared to anything made in America before ~1970. At least the steering column might not impale you.
“Roadkill.” Huh.
I find it interesting that, up to a certain age, my cars were all not much more protective or safe than that. The times where welding in a roll cage and a 5 point harness ordered from a catalog and juicing up the engine, to make a car into “a very fast car that looked safe,” but was still a deathtrap, was more important than actually surviving any kind of accident. Until that age hit where suddenly driving a car with airbags and ABS started to sound adult.
That immature side of me appreciates and desires this car, even knowing that it’s basically a parade show vehicle good for 5mph idling while grinning from ear to ear at the cheering masses gazing upon it.
Well said. The builder has artistic metalworking talent at least. I picked up a MGTD fiberfab abandoned project for $200 about 6 years ago, and it was quite obvious that things were not done correctly, so the more I disassembled it, the more horrified I got. Ended up salvaging what was worth it and scrapping the rest. There are numerous online testimonials of serious injuries and deaths from kit cars in minor accidents. A real MGTD wouldn’t be much better.
TN does not have inspections and the word roadworthy is simply a question of whether it runs or not. This is definitely a death trap, but if it has a vin, you can get tags for it.
Looks like a Georgia car advertised in Chattanooga, the largest CL market in the region. In wonder how many wrecks this frame has been in to justify creating a completely stripped art car. That said, I can’t stop staring at this thing, and somehow desiring it.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, good steel and good welds, that tubing has no triangulation whatsoever. The torsional rigidity must be marginally better than that of a pizza slice.
Triangles are over rated. / s
Triangle man hates particle man.
They have a fight, Triangle wins.
Triangle man.
This is stressing me…
Yep, even if it was proper spec on materials the design is trash.
I don’t see this article as a diss on the owner of this Challenger, as much as an article of high praise for the team at Roadkill.
If I come across an engineered work product that I have reservation about, I just need to mutter two words:
Newton
Raphson
If all I get are confused looks, that tells me everything I need to know.
No yellow splitter guards, no buy.
Would you accept some lengths of PVC rattle-canned yellow to keep with this thing’s ethos?
I know it’s the wrong model, but I am still relieved there is nowhere to paint a Confederate flag.
Lewin: Don’t buy this!
Stillnotatony with money burning a hole in his pocket from a car he just sold: You can’t tell me what to do!!
Stillnotatony’s wife: Ahem.
Stillnotatony: s**t…
She always listens to me
Hmm. This seems like a hoonmobile right up Toecutter’s alley
Built to cut more than just a toe
There is a bigger reason not to buy it… it’s stupid.
And that asking price is pure crack pipe.
Not sure I’ve ever seen a custom build that is so simultaneously brilliant and idiotic.
Just give the frame leather covers like that weird eastern European car from the 30s that gets Torch all het up, put a proper cage in it, and drive it (possibly use black studded leather for that Rob Halford vibe, but really, whatever, y’know?)
The Venn diagram of people interested in this creation and those interested in safety kind of looks like a pair of eyeglasses.
Like, there’s a tiny outlier person that fits into both (the bridge of the glasses)
That’s some guy with his arms outstretched trying to bring the two groups together.
I don’t see why this is any less safe than a motorcycle or built before crumple zones are a thing. I’m not advocating that you buy this and make it your soccer-mobile and take the family in it on daily trips. But as a fun car to see occasional usage, why not? Or do you also recommend that people shouldn’t every buy ’32 Fords? I mean, please do that, so hopefully the price comes down, but those aren’t safe either.
No, they actually spend an inordinate amount of time advocating for kei trucks to be made legal, so safety can’t be the overriding factor.
The article feels a little like it needed a minimum number of words to be published, where in reality it could have been a quick “post”. “Hehehe” followed by the pics.
That car probably has less rollover and side impact protection than your average car from 1940 to when it became a thing we tested.
It will crumple like foil when from front or rear impacts compared to the factory car.
It also has minimal side impact protection.
Even if that has sufficient wall thickness tube wise, and I doubt it does, there is no cross bracing and tunes do not meet at nodes.
That is a mess.
That 1940 likely doesn’t have any seat belts. Depending on the state, the 1940 could be rusted dust. The 1940 doesn’t have a collapsible steering column. Convertibles existed in 1940, and I’d wager they have far worse roll over protection than this. This certainly isn’t good/safe, but it still has airbags, it still has modern A-pillars (not attached to anything admittedly). It still has 3-point seatbelts. It still has ABS. It still has modern tires. I’m under zero impression that the tubing is nothing more than art.
Again, I’m not saying it is safe, I’m just saying there’s plenty of other vehicles that far less safe, and the author probably has zero issues with those.
At first glance it looks like it’d be a riot and worth the price of admission. On second glance it looks like it has the structural integrity of one of those wire things that keeps champagne corks on and a pure death trap. I love it!
In the words of Clarkson, it probably handles like a bowl of fruit. And I bet that one 5mph tap would be enough to bend that tubing. It’s like those fake roll cages I see bolted to Jeeps. They just mount it right on the sheet metal and call it a day.
He needs to find out when the next Mad Max installment is filming and sell it to the production company.