LIKE A SCAT OUT OF HELL

Brendan McAleer convenes two Scat Pack Dodges in Hells Gate, Canada, to give the V8 muscle car icons a suitably sizzling send-off

It's hazy at Hells Gate, and the smoke stings your eyes. A few miles to the north, an out-of-control wildfire has caused a road closure, turning this narrow two-lane canyon road into a suddenly empty spur to nowhere, free from traffic. Contemplating the big Dodge Challenger sitting on the shoulder with the smell of burning timber hanging in the air, it's not hard to see why the era of this sort of combustion-powered guilty pleasure is drawing to a close.

For 15 years, this huge coupé has represented moonshine-grade distilled nostalgia for a time that was shorter than everyone seems to remember. The original model was introduced in the autumn of 1969 and was dead in just four years, killed off by the meteor impacts of 1970s fuel crises.

Now, the modern V8-powered Challenger has reached its own vanishing point. Even for the British, who, the occasional grey import aside, have had to look enviously across the pond at American muscle cars, there's likely to be a sense of loss.

The formerly closely related Dodge Charger will soldier on as either an EV or powered by a twin-turbocharged straight-six petrol engine. It will now also be available as a saloon or a coupé, taking over the two-door muscle car duties from the Challenger. But from here on, that muscle will theoretically have a smaller footprint - no more thundering V8s of ludicrous displacement and power.

Sensible. A necessary evolution. No more dinosaurs. And yet... The road through British Columbia's Fraser Valley is empty, there's a six-speed manual attached to that whacking great V8 and the meaty tyres of this car appear to be bursting out of its bodywork like The Incredible Hulk splitting his trousers. The future beckons - but not before one more thundering visit to the past.

TUNNEL VISION