ALL Stree DOWNHILL FROM HERE

The Challenger is dead, for now. Will the muscle car survive? We couldn't leave California without a 1,300bhp grudge match

- OLLIE KEW

Rest in peace the muscle car? The Capitol insurrection’s got nothing on this. Amend the constitution! You can pry my V8 from my cold, dead hands.

Erm, no. Outside of California’s stringent tailpipe laws America is still potty for these things. Sales are steadfast and there’s a huge generation-spanning community. The reaction to our Challenger was universally jingoistic. Unprompted, they reel off the tale of the cop from Detroit. And because Americans are born able to discern model years and memorise engine codenames, anyone who stopped for a chat knew the Mustang we brought along to crash the Challenger’s funeral party was a bit special. Think of it like an M3 CS – sharpened, honed, dipped in choice options.

Black Ghost versus Dark Horse. The most malevolent-sounding face-off in all car history? Well, strictly this isn’t a fair match. The Dodge is so old it’s being carved into the face of Mount Rushmore, while Ford’s latest, greatest Mustang is $40,000 (£32k) cheaper and 300bhp worse off. And we’re in the state of California, where the coffee is skinny, decaf and served in a recycled cup. Where every second car is that blobby computer mouse on wheels you know as the Tesla Model Y – 1,307bhp of heavy metal shouldn’t play well here.

But look where we are: downtown San Francisco. Thanks to an iconic car chase set on these very streets that was riddled with continuity errors, jammed with heroic stunts and unsullied by music, this idiosyncratically hilly city put Ford vs Dodge (OK, it was a Charger back then) on the automotive map. The only hostility we incur all day is a parking fine. Ironically, we made the hotel valet parking attendant’s week.