• The 2026 Dodge Charger Sixpack R/T is heavier than a Mazda CX-90, and the four-door muscle car has a slightly lower top speed too.
• The 420-hp Charger we tested tipped our scales at 4921 pounds, which is 25 pounds heavier than Mazda's three-row, eight-passenger SUV.
• While the six-cylinder sedan is a lot quicker to 60 mph, its top speed is limited to 125 mph, whereas the CX-90 we tested tops out at 127 mph.

Welcome to Car and Driver's Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We've been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).

Every publication keeps an editorial bible. Ours is known as the C/D Stylebook. In it, there are rules. Jelly bean is two words, but you already knew that. It's always anti-roll bar, never sway bar. There's even a section carved out for colons, but not the anatomical ones. And then there's the important distinction between "fast" and "quick," which leads us to today's lesson: The three-row Mazda CX-90—albeit slower to 60 mph by a lot—is faster than the Dodge Charger R/T. It also weighs less, and we won't make you read 127 pages to learn why.

The three-row CX-90 we tested uses the lowest-output version of its turbocharged 3.3-liter inline-six, making just 280 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque. It's good for a 6.9-second run to 60 mph, which is quicker than competitors like the Honda Pilot and nonhybrid Kia Telluride, but in this wacky little example, well behind the Charger R/T's 4.7-second blast to 60.

However, due to the 420-hp Charger R/T's 125-mph speed governor, the CX-90 begins to reel in the Dodge 21.4 seconds after launch. The CX-90 takes 29.7 seconds to reach 120 mph, but it will keep accelerating past the Dodge and up to 127 mph. Of course, this requires a bit of open runway, but the CX-90 will eventually get there. And it does so with double the passenger capacity of the four-door Charger R/T.

Perhaps the more surprising detail is that the 4921-pound Charger Sixpack (another rule is that four-digit numbers never get a comma) tipped the scales 25 pounds heavier than Mazda's mid-size SUV. Dodge's STLA architecture, which was purposely designed to accommodate gas and electric powertrains, delivers a wide and aggressive muscular look, but that also makes it 576 pounds heavier than the last Charger R/T Scat Pack we tested.

The standard all-wheel drive (the copy department would shave my belly with a rusty razor if I had hyphenated that one wrong) on new Chargers also contributes to its heftiness, as well as its wider tires and wheels. If you're wondering how heavy the all-electric Charger Daytona Scat Pack sedan we tested was, well, its 5938-pound curb weight is 16 pounds heavier than our long-term Ram 1500 Laramie pickup. And neither of them thangs got a Hemi.

So, to any CX-90 owner reading this who might find themselves at a Cars and Coffee one early Sunday, Congratulations! You get to tell a Charger R/T owner, "I drive something a little faster." If they scoff and claim you're just being pedantic (it's unlikely they use that word), it might be good to remind them of the important difference between doing donuts in your car and doing doughnuts.

➡️ Skip the lot. Let Car and Driver help you find your next car.