2016 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Long Term Update 6: Kill All Tires Edition

With 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft from a supercharged HEMI V8, the 2016 Charger SRT Hellcat earned its reputation as the most powerful production sedan on the market. Living with one long-term meant learning just how quickly that much power through the rear wheels alone can turn a set of tires into scrap.

As soon as Jasonâ€™s done, get on the walkie and say, â€˜Let me warm up the tires first.â€™ Then do a big burnout.â€ Those were the instructions from my director, Anthony Esposito. In other words, commanded me to do. See, we were filming episode 4 of season six of Head 2 Head. Miata RF versus Toyota 86. So, naturally, obviously, we had to sneak in a long-term Hellcat cameo. Wouldnâ€™t you? Of course you would.

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A car this powerful was never really meant to survive a long-term test intact, and Dodge seemed to know it. Squeezing 707 horsepower out of a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 and putting it all through the rear wheels of a four-door sedan is the kind of decision that turns routine media loans into tire graveyards, which is exactly what kept happening every time this particular Hellcat left the garage. Somehow it kept getting called back for more abuse instead of being quietly retired. What does a car built to embarrass sports cars actually feel like once the novelty wears off and the odometer keeps climbing?

The Most Powerful Production Sedan on the Planet

Under the hood sits a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 producing 707 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, paired with an 8-speed automatic transmission sending power exclusively to the rear wheels, a combination that let Dodge market the Charger Hellcat as the most powerful production sedan in the world when it launched. That much output in a full-size, five-passenger sedan with 120.8 cubic feet of passenger space created a strange contradiction: a genuinely practical family car capable of destroying a set of rear tires faster than most dedicated sports cars.

Living With It Long-Term

Fuel economy sat at a predictable 13 mpg city and 22 mpg highway, numbers that matter less when a car starts life around $65,945 and exists primarily to answer the question of how much horsepower a four-door sedan can reasonably handle. Long-term test cars like this one exist precisely to answer that question under real conditions, burnout by burnout, tire change by tire change, rather than during a single controlled afternoon on a closed course.

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