Driving around up here in Michigan, I spotted what looked to be a white Mustang and a white Challenger racing up in my rearview. Since I’ve never seen a white Challenger up close I throttled back to let it catch up, and as it got closer I noticed that the rims were similar to those on the Daytona Charger, not the SRT. When it pulled up to the next light I saw the stripes and realized it was the R/T version, the middle-child Challenger with the 5.7L Hemi (as opposed to the SRT’s 6.1), priced at around $30K. The ’09 R/T’s must be available to the public now, because the driver was just an ordinary guy listening to music—no sign of Dodge test computers or anything!

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Edmunds just published a comparison test between the Pontiac G8 GT and the Dodge Charger R/T. It wasn’t even close. They found the Pontiac to be superior in just about every category, despite its lower price.

Forget for a moment that in every performance category the G8 GT walks all over the Charger R/T. Go ahead and overlook the G8′s more aggressive decoration and attractively sinister countenance. Just concentrate your mind on this: The Pontiac is cheaper. Its $29,995 base price is $1,460 under the cost of a Charger R/T, and the as-tested price of this red G8 GT is a thick $3,810 less than the as-tested price of this Charger R/T.

The G8 GT’s $32,745 price is a flat raging bargain. And we Americans love bargains — even when the car is built in Australia.

Read the full test at Edmunds.

Jay Leno is a cool dude and he’s definitely a real car guy. Just check out this video where he talks about his Hemi Challenger (and then takes it for a drive). My favorite quotes? "Horsepower can cure a lot of ills." And, "they don’t stop, they don’t go around corners. If you read the road tests of the period, Car & Driver, Road & Track hated these cars. Maybe that why people like ‘em, cause all the fancy magazines didn’t care much for them." One correction, I believe the console is held in place by three screws, not two. Oh, and why does Jay do those burnouts? "For the kids!"