Dan Neil on the prototypical Dodge Magnum RT consumer —
Killer was wearing a bowling shirt and baggy shorts, several earrings and a couple of ounces of high-quality tattoo ink swirling around his calves, forearms and neck — flaming dice, crossed pistols, hearts and death’s heads, Bettie Page in fishnets. You know, the illustrated psychobilly.
Killer explained that he and his wife — huh? — had been trying to find a Dodge Magnum RT in Los Angeles because they had a 2-year-old daughter — wha?! — and they needed a family car. None of the local dealers had the RT edition — with the 340-horsepower Hemi V8 — and he was thinking of driving to Las Vegas to find one.
“Aw, man,” Killer said, “that thing is just so money!”
It occurred to me as I closed the door and put down my can of “Welcome Mace” that Killer was the Magnum’s ideal demographic: a middle-finger-waving anti-establishmentarian, bad-beer connoisseur, breeder.
Sometime between being hip and breaking a hip, even kool kats need a family car.