THIS HELLCAT’S HELLA FAST AND THAT’S ABOUT IT
With 707 hp, Challenger serves its purpose by tearing up the pavement in record time
Nick Tragianis: Black or red. When you’re about to set foot in a Hellcat, be it a Dodge Challenger or Charger, it makes a world of difference. Do you want an expensive speeding ticket or jail time?
I’m talking about the keys, of course. Every Hellcat comes with a black key fob and a red key fob. The former limits output to 500 horsepower, feeling like little more than a slightly more powerful SRT 392 with the whine of a supercharger. It’ll get you into trouble, but it won’t bite you in the butt that hard.
But when a car like the Hellcat is all about numbers, there’s no sense in trying to be reasonable. The red key unleashes all 707 hellacious horses, transforming the Hellcat into everything a muscle car should be — it’s angry, fast and puts raw power and speed above everything else. David Booth: The Hellcat’s 707 horses are monstrous, especially in these autumn weather conditions because anything less than 10 C turns the Pirelli PZero tires into hockey pucks.
Hell, sometimes it felt like I was driving on ice, so forcefully did the supercharged 6.2-litre V-8’s 650 pound-feet of torque overwhelm the rear Pirellis. I almost spun out with what was barely a tap of the throttle and the Hellcat will spin the rear rubber just rolling on the throttle in second gear — and that’s with the traction control system engaged. NT: This is very much a car where unless you are, as car commercials say, a professional driver on a closed course, traction control should stay active at all times, lest your ham-fistedness cost you some expensive repairs.
At the core, this is a Dodge Challenger. That means it stays true to its muscle-car roots, and with the almost $11,000 Widebody option, it looks properly badass as a muscle car should. The Challenger isn’t the most modern, doesn’t handle the best and it certainly isn’t the lightest, but if all you care about is horsepower, speed and coolness, the Challenger delivers.
DB: Well, you just hit the nail on the head. The Challenger is a lousy automobile, but it’s a great muscle car. It doesn’t handle at all. It’s fat as a pig and has the structural integrity of a 10-yearold sedan. But that just makes it an authentic recreation of a 1960s muscle car and when you throw 707 hp into the equation, then you may have a lousy automobile, but an entertaining lousy automobile. It feels, well, a little dated.
NT: Yes, it’s old. But despite its aging bones, the Challenger is a respectable cruiser. It soaks up bumps quite well and there’s minimal wind and road noise. That mostly holds true for the Hellcat, but the exhaust is tuned in such a way that it beats up your eardrums with an incessant drone at about 120 km/ h in sixth gear, which is right at cruising speed. And that wears on you quickly because why should you possibly drive any faster on the highway in this car?
DB: Oh, come on now, which one of us is 60 years old? Seriously, it’s really not that bad. Besides, the radio is pretty good, isn’t it? You could just turn it up.
NT: You’re right, the Harman Kardon sound system does a pretty good job of drowning out the drone. It’s a bumpin’ sound system that’s hooked up to FCA’s ever-intuitive Uconnect infotainment, sporting Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.
DB: Finally, we agree on something: the bit about the excellence of the Uconnect system. It’s easily deciphered, has a fast processor and hooks up to your cellphone quite quickly. I even like the plethora of apps that are part of Uconnect. Of course, my favourite was the MySRT app, which is the function that controls that valet key.
NT: Ah yes, the magical SRT button on the centre console. That’s the key to unleashing the Hellcat’s fury or if you’re just going to the office or grocery store, keeping the beast tame. The MySRT app lets you adjust suspension dampening and even how much horsepower you have on tap. But as you alluded to, that depends on the key. All that works alongside the Hellcat’s Performance Pages, a clever and thorough suite of apps that track your reaction and quarter-mile times, among many other things.
OK, so we know the Hellcat is fast. We know it’s heavy and can barely take a corner. And we know, underneath all this horsepower and badassery, the Challenger and its siblings within the FCA family are as old as hell. But the Hellcat transcends all that. It’s as though FCA has nailed some secret formula because despite the flaws and old bones, these cars are still cool.
DB: I agree with your first contention. As for all that transcending crap, not so much. Look, if you want a car that has all the same attributes — and the exact same faults! — as it did in 1969, then, agreed, the Challenger Hellcat really is your car. Provided, of course, you’ve got the requisite 80-large that parking one in your driveway costs.
If, on the other hand, you want a good automobile — be that for basic transportation, going around a corner or anything other than going very fast in a straight line — then you really need to shop elsewhere.