Dodge announced that 2023 would be the last year they would produce gas-powered muscle cars. Supposedly in 2024, the Charger and Challenger will be replaced by an all-electric mix of the two known possibly as the Charger Daytona or the Daytona Banshee. As sad as that news is, Dodge did arrange for a proper ICE send-off by producing seven final fossil fuel-burning special editions known as the "Last Call" muscle cars.

In 2022, the year Dodge announced they were getting out of the ICE muscle car business, 80,365 Chargers sold and 55,060 people drove new Challengers off the lot. Instead of discontinuing these popular models, Dodge should have unveiled new generations for both and introduced their EV alongside them, because there is an exactly zero percent chance they will move 135,425 costing $70,000 (maybe) Charger Daytona Banshees per year, or probably ever.

While it is certainly a curious business decision to stop making gas-powered muscle, and disappointing to fans, at least Dodge is going out with a bang. Each of the Last Call cars pays tribute to specific and important points in the fabled muscle cars' histories. These limited edition Chargers and Challengers are packed with style and performance, but most of all perfectly honor a pair of true iconic American muscle cars.

RELATED: Dodge To Mark The End Of Its V-8 Era With Final "Last Call" Model Unveiling At Las Vegas Celebration

1 Dodge Challenger Shakedown

The Shaker Hood Special

The first of the Last Call cars to be revealed was the Challenger Shakedown and is the least obvious of all the variants. While all the others pay tribute to something from the classic era of muscle cars, the Shakedown is a nod to a concept vehicle Dodge brought out for the 2016 SEMA show in Las Vegas. That concept was known as the Dodge Shakedown Challenger, which is awfully similar in name to the Dodge Challenger Shakedown Last Call ride.

This isn't a radical high-concept vehicle, but rather a regular third-gen Challenger with a Hellcat and a unique hood stripe graphics package. The Last Call Challenger Shakedown is simply Dodge making more than one of them. Actually it is limited to 1,000 units, with 500 R/T Scat Packs in Destroyer Gray, and 500 R/T Scat Pack Widebodies in Pitch Black. For what it's worth, the original concept car was painted in "Bitchin' Black."

Power, Performance, and Price

Both versions come with the eye-catching Shakedown stripes across the classic Mopar air-grabbing Shaker hood, and that's probably the real piece of history this car is honoring. The Shaker intake was attached to the top of the engine and popped out through a hole in the hood. It was first used on Challengers and Plymouth Barracudas in the early 1970s. It now bids its farewell atop a 6.4-liter Hemi in the Last Call Challenger Shakedown.

2 Dodge Charger Super Bee

Ode To The B-Body

Number two on the Last Call list is the Charger Super Bee, which pays tribute to a couple classic Dodge muscle cars. Dodge has actually made Super Bee trims since they rebooted the Charger in 2005. The 2007 Super Bee came with a 425 horsepower Hemi, which is the same amount of juice a classic 426 generated. It was made in limited numbers until 2009, and then got another run between 2012 and 2014. They also made Super Bees out of Valiants in Mexico during the 1970s.

The Last Call Super Bee however is to honor the original B-body muscle cars. The first Super Bee was based on a 1968 Coronet and was meant to be a low-priced muscle car with plenty of speed and no luxury. The smallest engine they came with was the 383 Magnum, but it was the 440 Six Packs and 426 Hemis that defined this no-frills speedster. Well, that and the cool Scat Pack bumblebee decals. In 1971, the Super Bee trim was moved to the third-generation Charger for one year before it was discontinued.

Power, Performance, and Price

The Last Call Super Bee is making sure that the Charger doesn't go into retirement without at least a few more with bumblebees on the hood. With only 1,000 being made, this Last of the Bees is certain to become as cherished and revered as the originals. Its power and 11.7 second quarter-mile time are also some nice nods to the history of the car. The one thing that seems a little weird however is that it's only available in two colors: 500 Scat Packs in B5 Blue and 500 Scat Pack Widebodies in Plumb Crazy. Super Bees are Yellow and black, yo.

RELATED: 10 Most Killer Classic Mopar Paint Codes

3 Dodge Challenger Swinger

Heir To The Dart Swinger GTS

The third Last Call Dodge rolled out was the Challenger Swinger, that was also a definite nod to a classic muscle car. In 1969, the two-door Dart became known as the "Swinger" and was available with some pretty awesome performance trims. A '69 with a 440 was one of the fastest cars of the classic muscle era and one of the first to wear the Dodge Scat Pack badge. For some reason the Swinger 340 was more famous, but the Swinger GTS was the true terror of the track.

Power, Performance, and Price

In what is a quite fitting tribute, the Challenger Swinger comes with a 485 horsepower Hemi engine and plenty of Scat Pack branding, including the stripe across the back. This car makes sense and the only thing it doesn't explain is why Dodge named it the Swinger in the first place. Back in the day, Dodge almost called the Demon a "Beaver" until they learned it had naughty connotations, but so does "Swinger." Google it. In any case, the Challenger Swinger is limited to only 1,000 cars.

4 Dodge Charger Swinger

More Swing Time

Number four on the Last Calls car list is kind of cheating because it's also a Swinger, only in the shape of a Charger. It has the same power, graphics, and features as the Challenger Swinger, but with a couple of extra doors. It is also based on the Widebody version of the car and will be limited to just 1,000 examples. Dodge really missed an opportunity by doubling up on the Swingers because there is much more in their storied history that could have been made into a tribute car.

Power, Performance, and Price

The original Charger, introduced mid-year in 1966, was based on the Coronet and marketed as the "Leader of the Dodge Rebellion." It doesn't take a creative genius to see that they should have made a Charger Rebellion Last Call car. Or, they could have gave a nod to the Charger 500, which was the baddest of the bad second-gens. Really however, the Charger took off after a '68 Charger was cast as the villain in the Steve McQueen film, Bullitt, and that's what the fourth Last Call car should have been. A Charger Nemesis, Bullet, or McQueen Bee would have been cool.

RELATED: Dodge Challenger and Charger Scat Pack Swinger Edition - Old School Swag at its Finest

5 Dodge Charger King Daytona

Big Willie's King Drag Car

The Charger King Daytona is the fifth Last Call car that pays tribute to both a classic Dodge muscle car and a legendary driver. The car is that nose-coned, wild-winged 1969 Charger Daytona that was so fast it got banned from NASCAR. In 1968 Dodge had some Charger 500s running in NASCAR, and while they were fast, they weren't all that aerodynamic and produced too much lift to be effective competitors. The Dodge engineers put their heads together and came up with the Daytona, which along with its sister car the Plymouth Super Bird, would dominate in 1969 until NASCAR kicked them out.

The driver is William “Big Willie” Robinson, who had a '69 he nicknamed the "King Daytona."Dodge Garage tells us that he not only could blow anyone's doors off but also that he was the single most important figure in the Los Angeles street racing scene in the 1970s through the 1990s. He started the National Brotherhood of Street Racers to promote racial harmony as well as quell gang violence and opened a track on Terminal Island in San Pedro, CA to get racing off the streets. By the way, his wife, Tomiko had a '69 as well that she called the "Queen Daytona."

Power, Performance, and Price

The first four Last Call cars have the same naturally aspirated 6.4-liter Hemi, but the Charger King Daytona has a speed legacy to live up to, so it got a little more oomph. With a special supercharged Hellcat under the hood, this beast cranks out 807 horsepower, which is ten more ponies than a normal Hellcat. The King Daytona isn't just more elusive on the track, it's harder to get one's hands on as this Last Call is limited to just 300 examples. Nobody could catch a '69 Daytona or Big Willie driving one, so it's fitting that the King Daytona is just as difficult to run down.

6 Dodge Challenger Black Ghost

Legend Of The Black Ghost

The penultimate Last Call car is another that honors a legendary driver in a legendary Dodge. The Challenger Black Ghost is based on an urban legend that turned out to be true. Back in the early 1970s, a mysterious driver in a black '70 Challenger R/T SE would periodically show up to smoke suckers in the Detroit area, only to disappear for weeks or months at a time. Locals started referring to the car as the "Black Ghost" because it would simply appear and then disappear just as fast.

The Black Ghost was actually driven by a guy named, Godfrey Qualls, who bought the Challenger new in 1970 and made a few mods to turn it into the most dominant car of the Detroit street racing scene. In a weird plot twist, he was also a Detroit police officer, assigned to traffic enforcement. It's been speculated that his intermittent racing schedule was due to his work on the police force. Qualls joined the Army National Guard, which put an end to his street racing career, and he passed away in 2015, but his son restored his car to its original glory, so it lives on as tribute to a legend.

Power, Performance, and Price

Qualls' legend also got some respect with the Last Call Challenger Black Ghost, which is as close to the original as a third-gen can get. Even a silly detail like the gator skin pattern roof, which Qualls hated about his original, was recreated in the tribute car. Of course, the Black Ghost was burner, and Dodge put in a supercharged Hellcat so, like the original, nobody could ever beat it in a quarter-mile. With the sixth Last Call car, like the King Daytona, Dodge is only giving you 300 chances to snap one up.

RELATED: The Real Story Of The 1970 Dodge Challenger Black Ghost

7 Challenger Demon 170

Demonic Horsepower Possession

For the final Last Call car, Dodge pulled out all the stops and made the single most insane production vehicle to ever roll out of Detroit. The Challenger Demon 170 is the fastest muscle car ever built, and by some miracle of modern science, is actually street legal. This evil incantation makes EV supercar power, burning gas (plus alcohol), and is not only a tribute to Mopar Muscle but is also a huge exclamation point on Dodge's legacy of high performance internal combustion engines.

The Demon 170 is another Last Call ride that gives multiple nods to Dodge's muscle car history. First, it's called a Demon, which was the performance Dart, introduced in 1971. It however had a 340 as its most powerful engine option, so it probably wasn't much of an inspiration for the Demon 170. The other thing this amazing car acknowledges is the white 1970 Challenger R/T from the classic film, Vanishing Point. Allegedly Dodge is offering it in 14 different exterior colors, but the only one anyone's ever seen is the badass white one that blazes a single-digit quarter-mile.

Power, Performance, and Price

The Demon 170 was supposed to be unveiled in the Fall of 2022 along with the other Last Calls, but Dodge kept blowing up engines during testing, and it took them a little longer to get it right, so it didn't come out until the Spring of 2023. The first six Last Call cars are offered in limited numbers ranging from 300 to 1,000, but Dodge rightfully perceived added demand for the most amazing muscle car they ever built so the Demon 170 got bumped up to 3,300 units. While there are still a few other Last Call cars available, every single Demon 170 was snapped up before they even started building them.