- It’s arrived! The first convertible 2025 Dodge Charger Daytona EV we’ve seen
- The manufacturer-backed ‘vert comes from Florida’s Drop Top Customs
- The firm has worked with Dodge in the past on turning new Challengers into ragtops, too
We figured it wouldn’t take too long before a rag-top variant of the new Dodge Charger Daytona sprung forth from a fabrication shop — though it wasn’t really expected the thing would appear before the calendar flipped into 2025. In the hyper-competitive world of custom car building, being first to the table can bring great advantages.
The crew at Florida’s Drop Top Customs, also known on the web as Droptop Challenger, have apparently been working on a roofless Charger Daytona with sufficient speed so as to crank out at least one copy before the end of the year. It probably helps that the firm has been officially working with the automaker since 2022 to create convertible Challengers, having the powerful coupes shipped directly to its shop from the factory for conversion prior to customer delivery at a dealership.
So, such work isn’t new to this shop. In fact, its past conversions of gas-powered Challengers into open-air fun-sters have been somewhat popular in certain circles, with the work costing about CDN$30,000 and covered by a three-year warranty. Details are notably scantier at the moment about this new Charger Daytona effort, though it is reasonable to expect a price hike given the added complexity of working with an EV platform.
Will the loss of a major structural component cause the thing to flex like two bricks held together by a playing card? Will it have the rigidity of a week-old salad? Or will the low centre of gravity and different weight distribution (thanks to a low-down battery pack and lack of heavy V8 lump in its nose) naturally lend themselves to a life sans roof? We shall see.
Eagle eyes will spy an oddly aligned trunk lid on this blue early-build example, likely the result of trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, since the Charger Daytona is technically a hatchback. That’s a headache with which Drop Top Customs did not have to deal on the gasser. The view with its top up (both from inside the car and to passersby) is also, well, um, interesting. Still, there will surely be takers — and one can hardly argue with the presence of more variety on our roads.
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