With every ounce of its 4,140 pounds, the Challenger symbolizes what’s right – and what’s wrong — with the U.S. auto industry.

On the one hand, Detroit can be responsive to consumer tastes,  aggressive in exploiting new market niches, and unabashed in appreciation for its own heritage. On the other, it often seems mired in the past, bereft of new ideas, and handcuffed by its quaint vehicular isolationism – building cars that can be sold nowhere except in North America.

For those who have missed the public relations blitz, the 2008 Challenger is the production version of the 2006 show car, which itself is based on the 1970 pony car that arrived on the market a few years before the first Arab oil embargo of 1973.

On its own terms, the Challenger is worthy of appreciation by that fraction of auto buyers whose decisions are made on the basis of nostalgia. All those characteristics that would have made you king of the high school parking lot – aggressive stance, noisy exhaust, ability to burn rubber – are here in abundance. The execution, inside and out, is direct, if unsophisticated.  All that is missing is the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

With its two-door body, Hemi V-8, and rear-wheel drive, the Challenger represents a vanishing species of the American passenger car. A couple of numbers explains why. One is the sticker price on the Orange Pearl Coat tester I drove: an imposing $41,310.  The other is the EPA fuel economy estimate of 13 miles per gallon city, 18 miles per gallon highway.  Future models will have smaller engines and price tags, and pass more gas stations, but they won’t feel as authentic.

One of the curses of the automobile business is that you have to figure out what the public wants four years or more before you are able to deliver it.  The Challenger appears jinxed on several fronts.

Back in the summer of 2004, Chrysler was operating under the benevolent, if disengaged, ownership of Germany’s Daimler, and nobody was talking about $4 gasoline.  But as the Challenger arrives in dealerships, it provides answers to none of the questions that the new Chrysler now confronts:  How to reduce its dependence on gas-guzzling vehicles, how to develop  a presence in small cars, and how to find some traction with overseas buyers.

That won’t stop some middle-aged enthusiasts from queuing up for the early production models, and some journalists in search of a story line from waxing nostalgic about Detroit’s past greatness. In response to those readers who wonder if I actually drove the vehicle – I did and here’s what I think: After spending a weekend behind the wheel, I found it extremely satisfying on its own terms: powerful on the straights and sticky in the turns. 

But my guess is that Nardelli and Company would rather be introducing almost any other car in the summer of 2008 than the Challenger SRT8.