426 Hemi GTX vs 440 / 6 Pack Challenger – 1/4 Mile Drag Race & Burn Out Video – Road Test TV

A 1967 Plymouth GTX running the legendary 426 Hemi lines up against a 1970 Dodge Challenger 440 Six Pack in this quarter mile drag race from Road Test TV — two of the rarest muscle cars Mopar ever built, going head to head. The Six Pack jumps out front early, but the Hemi has a plan for the second half of the run. One viewer’s story about his own father predicted exactly how it would end. Watch to see who takes it.

Two of the rarest muscle cars Mopar ever built lined up on the same stretch of pavement, and the numbers on paper said this should not have been close. A 425-horsepower 426 Hemi against a 390-horsepower 440 Six Pack sounds like a mismatch before the tires even leave a mark. What actually happened down the quarter mile, though, is the kind of result that has kept gearheads arguing for decades about the real difference between peak horsepower and the kind of grunt that actually wins a street race, and one commenter’s story about his own father settles the argument better than any spec sheet ever could.

Two Genuinely Rare Cars, Not Just Two Fast Ones

This is not a common drag race matchup. The car in the left lane is a 1967 Plymouth GTX running the legendary 426 Hemi with dual four-barrel carburetors straight from the factory, rated at 425 horsepower. The car in the right lane is a 1970 Dodge Challenger fitted with the 440 Six Pack setup, three two-barrel carburetors instead of one large four-barrel, officially rated at 390 horsepower. Road Test TV makes a point of noting that both cars are very, very rare, and pairing two genuinely scarce factory muscle cars against each other, rather than a common example against a common rival, is exactly what separates this video from a typical drag strip compilation.

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Why the Six Pack Jumped Out Front

According to viewers who watched the launch closely, the Six Pack Challenger stormed out of the gate with an obvious early advantage over the Hemi GTX. That head start lines up with how these two induction systems actually behave: three smaller carburetors tend to deliver smoother, more usable low-end response, while the big Hemi’s dual four-barrels need considerably more airflow moving through the engine before they really come alive. One commenter guessed, based purely on how each car left the line, that the GTX was likely running 3.54 gears against the Challenger’s 4.10s, a detail that would only sharpen the Six Pack’s advantage off the starting line even further.

How the Hemi Clawed Its Way Back

The story of this race is really about what happened after the launch, not during it. Multiple viewers pointed out that the Hemi GTX steadily caught the Challenger over the course of the run and was still pulling away at the finish, exactly the kind of top-end charge the 426 Hemi built its legendary reputation on in the first place. That dual four-barrel setup needed the extra distance to reach its full potential, but once it got there, the additional horsepower on paper finally translated into a real advantage on the actual pavement, closing out the run in the Hemi’s favor by the stripe.

A Father’s Story That Predicted This Exact Race

One commenter shared a story his father used to tell him as a kid: that a well-tuned 440 Magnum or 440 Six Pack could hang with, or even beat, an equally well-tuned Hemi car through the quarter mile, thanks to superior low-end grunt and mid-range power carrying it through the first half of the run. Watching that exact scenario play out in this video, the commenter wrote, was one of the coolest things about it. It is a rare case of a secondhand piece of family folklore getting directly confirmed by a real, recorded drag race, decades after his father first told him the story.

What These Engines Actually Represent

The 426 Hemi and the 440 Six Pack were never really competitors within Chrysler’s own lineup so much as two different philosophies aimed at the same goal. The Hemi, with its distinctive hemispherical combustion chambers, was the ultimate expression of raw top-end power and remains the most mythologized engine Mopar ever built. The 440 Six Pack was Chrysler’s answer for buyers who wanted nearly Hemi-level performance without the Hemi’s price, complexity, and notoriously difficult everyday drivability. This particular race captures both philosophies at their absolute best, each one working exactly the way its respective engineers originally intended it to.

Cars That Sparked Real Memories in the Comments

Beyond the race itself, the video pulled genuine personal history out of its audience. One commenter recalled losing his own 1970 Cuda with a 383 back in 1991 and said the footage brought tears to his eyes. Another still misses a 1968 Road Runner with a 383 he once owned decades ago. A third described smoking all four tires in a 1974 Dodge Ramcharger with a 440 and a four-barrel carburetor before police shut the fun down, adding that with a leg rebuilt multiple times since, watching videos like this one is now how he stays connected to that part of his life.

What a Few Thousand Dollars Bought in the Mid-1970s

One commenter offered a reminder of just how accessible cars like these once were: around 1974, a genuinely strong used muscle car could be picked up for a couple thousand dollars, jacked up in the back on Cragar wheels, running an eight-track that never quite worked right. That affordability is a big part of why so many of these cars ended up modified, raced hard, and eventually scrapped or parted out long before anyone thought to preserve them, which is exactly why a matched, documented pair like this Hemi GTX and Six Pack Challenger is so much harder to find running side by side today than it would have been fifty years ago.

Decades after both of these cars left the factory floor, footage of a genuine Hemi GTX racing a genuine 440 Six Pack Challenger still pulls in passionate, detailed commentary from people who clearly know these engines inside and out. Part of that is nostalgia, but part of it is also that this specific matchup, top-end Hemi power against Six Pack low-end grunt, never gets old, because it forces a real answer to a question muscle car fans have argued about for fifty years running: which setup actually wins the race when it matters most, off the line or across the stripe.

Check out the full video above and let us know what you think in the comments.

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