Much of Europes cities, towns and villages were built before the invention of the automobile. And all of these picturesque little streets and roads that wind up and around the countryside necessitate compact, space efficient vehicles, while EU regulators continue to suppress them from becoming to powerful due to stringent emissions laws. Because of this, big and powerful muscle cars like the Dodge Challenger are all but illegal in The Old World. So when we caught wind of one of these machines being used for a driver’s education school in Bulgaria, our interest piqued.
According to Motor1, a 2012 Dodge Challenger was recently sold to a new owner in the country. While it appears to be a newer model, the front end has just been replaced with a fascia from a facelifted Challenger.
You may have also noticed that the hood of this car is also not stock, as it’s what can be found on a Dodge Demon. The blue plate mounted to the roof of the car indicates that this is a driving school vehicle, and it will soon be used in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital, with a population of around 1.25 million people. The city’s teenagers will have a pretty cool car to learn how to drive, even without the supercharged V8 providing power to the rear wheels.
You might be thinking emission taxes for the company will be through the roof with the decision to make this a learning vehicle, but you’d be mistaken. The 3.6-liter V6 Pentastar engine doesn’t run on gasoline and instead burns liquid petroleum gas, or LPG for short. Why LPG? Bulgaria is one of the countries with the highest number of vehicles using liquefied petroleum gas as a primary fuel in Europe, meaning that the infrastructure is readily available for this alternative fuel car. LPG is a gas that contains a flammable mixture of hydrocarbon gases, specifically propane, propylene, butylene, isobutane, and n-butane. It is widely used as a cheaper and cleaner alternative to gasoline in some areas of the world.
Thanks to the switch away from typical fuel, it’s likely that the Dodge Challenger has even less power than what the V6 usually has on offer, which is 305 ponies and 268 lb-ft of torque. Even with the reduction, it looks way cooler and is significantly more potent than most other training vehicles in Bulgaria and the region. But the cool thing is that the car uses an LPG conversion kit, which means the engine can still run on gasoline.
