Whether you’ve traveled to Japan to witness its custom automotive culture firsthand of not, social media can easily teach you that tuning aficionados in that part of the world love muscle cars. Now, despite the fact that Dodges are not officially imported into the country, the Challenger is big in Japan. And, if you’ll excuse that pun, we can move over to discussing what happens when the big American coupe meets a JDM tuning style.
We’re looking at a Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Bosozoku hereโthat final particle is my addition, since the piece of Americana has been customized in a way that resembles the more hardcore builds of the sort that are a thing in the Land of the Rising Sun.
What is Bosozoku?
The Bosozoku youth subculture started with biker gangs after WWII, as their members kitted their motorcycles with aggressive-looking elements to make a standing. Meanwhile, that law-defying element has been diluted, while many “regular” car enthusiasts mod their rides in such style nowadays.
As such, we’ll start with the Bosozoku-like elements present on this Mopar, which also happen to be the main bits that set the Challenger apart from what you’d find on most US-modded machines of the sort.
The front apron is now adorned with what appears to be an oil cooler. This probably supplements the factory oil-to-water cooler of the 6.4L HEMI gifting this version of the Challenger with 485 hp and 475 lb-ft of torque. For the record, the example we have here skips the six-speed manual, featuring the ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic instead.
Moving to the other end of the vehicle we have quadruple exhaust tips stepping out from the rear bumper quite a bit, and at an angle. This are noticeably bolder than the already standout tips used on the Liberty Walk widebody Challenger demo car and remind me of Takeyari, which is Japan’s way of turning exhaust tips into extra pipes that shoot towards the sky and seek inspiration in bamboo spears.
I mentioned Liberty Walk because this Challenger features the Japanese specialist’s widebody, with the overfenders accompanied by a ducktail. However, the machine seems to skip LB Performance’s front aero element, with this being replaced by a time attack-style splitter.
The custom wheels of the vehicle can be buried deep inside those overfenders thanks to air suspension provided by Air Lift Performance.
The Hellcat bits
The said oil lines go through the Hellcat-borrowed inner headlight opening, which doesn’t appear to serve an air intake purpose in this case. And while we’re here, I’ll also mention the Hellcat-style, carbon-finish hood, which the owner seems to have raised (in the area of the hinges), so hot air can escape the engine compartment though the constant gap.
As for how Japanese content producers see this Challenger Scat Pack, the Dodge was important enough to stand out, even when parked next to Liberty Walk’s 1,000 hp four-rotor Nissan Silvia drift car. I first noticed the Mopar on the Instagram page of Nino (aka 2nino3), with the image of the car sending me to the YouTube video below, which comes from Yuuro Fujimura’s YUUROTV channelโthe owner even invites the vlogger to take the wheel in the final part of the clip.
This style certainly isn’t for everybody. And I haven’t even mentioned the scissor doors, which allow us to take a peek at an accesory-loaded interior that would have you invest serious time in counting all the toys sitting in there.
However, if you’re looking for the reverse scheme, which would be a Japanese go-fast machine that received polarizing mods in America, this blue, camber-crazy Mazda RX-8 could be the thing for you.
