A Stock Dodge Demon 170 Runs the Quarter-Mile Faster Than Any Muscle Car Detroit Ever Built

A modern Dodge Demon 170 can out-run a 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda by nearly five seconds in the quarter-mile — a gap wide enough to end most muscle car debates before they start. See how a lineup of today’s factory monsters stacks up against the classics that inspired them, in verified numbers.

Put a 1970 Hemi ‘Cuda next to a new Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 and the conversation stops being about nostalgia — it becomes math. The Hemi ‘Cuda, one of the most feared muscle cars Detroit ever built, ran the quarter-mile in the low-to-mid 13-second range at around 102 mph, and that was considered untouchable in 1970. The Demon 170 does it in an NHRA-certified 8.91 seconds at 151.17 mph, making it the first production car in history to break into the 8s. A drag-strip lineup pitting today’s factory monsters — the Demon 170, the Corvette Z06, the Hellcat Redeye, and the Camaro SS — against the classics they grew up worshipping puts that gap on full display, and the results aren’t close. But the numbers only tell half the story of why the old cars still win the argument that matters most to the people who actually love them.

What the Matchup Looks Like

The video, posted by the channel Wheels, lines up a roster of modern muscle straight off the factory floor: a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170, a C8 Corvette, a Dodge Challenger Hellcat, and a Chevy Camaro SS, running head-to-head passes meant to settle an argument gearheads have been having since the first factory Hemi rolled out of a Chrysler plant — does new muscle actually beat old muscle, or does it just look better doing it.

It’s the kind of build list that would have read like science fiction in 1969: a supercharged Hemi making over 1,000 horsepower, a naturally aspirated Corvette V8 revving deep into the 8,000-rpm range, and a factory Camaro capable of running quicker than a purpose-built race car from a generation ago. Lining them up against machinery from the muscle car era isn’t really a fair fight on paper — and that’s exactly the point. Videos like this exist to answer a question every gearhead has argued about at a car show: put the best of Detroit’s golden age against the best of Detroit’s current era, and see just how far the technology has actually come.

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The Numbers Behind the Debate

The 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 sits at the top of the modern muscle car pyramid. Fed on 170-proof E85 fuel — hence the name — its supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 produces 1,025 horsepower and 945 lb-ft of torque, enough to push it to 60 mph in 1.66 seconds and through the quarter-mile in that NHRA-certified 8.91 seconds at 151.17 mph. It was the first production car in history to break the 9-second barrier, and it still holds that distinction. The Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye, one step down the ladder, makes 797 horsepower from its own supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI and runs a 10.8-second quarter-mile at 131 mph — numbers that would have been unthinkable for a factory car even a decade ago.

The Corvette C8 lineup tells a similar story from a different direction. A base Stingray, with its naturally aspirated 6.2-liter LT2 V8, makes 490 horsepower and covers the quarter-mile in roughly 11.2 seconds. Step up to the flat-plane-crank Z06, and the 5.5-liter LT6 pushes output to 670 horsepower, cutting 0-60 to 2.6 seconds and the quarter-mile to 10.6 seconds at 131 mph. Even the Camaro SS 1LE, the “entry-level” performance car in this matchup at 455 horsepower from its LT1 V8, runs a mid-12-second quarter-mile — quick enough to have been a factory record in almost any era before this one.

Compare that to the cars these machines are chasing in reputation. The 426 Hemi that powered the 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda was factory-rated at a conservative 425 horsepower — a number Chrysler deliberately underreported to keep insurance companies from panicking — with real dyno pulls closer to 495-520 horsepower. Even so, period road tests had the Hemi ‘Cuda running the quarter-mile at roughly 14 seconds and 102 mph, with the mid-13-second range achievable in the right hands. That was genuinely frightening performance in 1970. Today, a base Camaro SS with an automatic transmission and a factory warranty runs quicker than Chrysler’s most feared street car ever did — and the Demon 170 outruns it by nearly five full seconds.

Why the Argument Never Actually Gets Settled

None of this settles anything, and that’s exactly why videos like this keep getting made. Raw quarter-mile numbers say the argument is over — modern muscle wins, decisively, every single time. But the appeal of a Hemi ‘Cuda, a Boss 429 Mustang, or a Ram Air GTO was never purely about elapsed times. It was about analog feedback: a solid-lifter engine you could feel working through the pedal, a four-speed you had to actually row yourself, and tire compounds that turned every launch into a controlled skid rather than a computer-managed grip event. Modern muscle cars win every stopwatch battle and most subjective ones too, but they do it partly by removing the driver from the equation — launch control, all-wheel drive on some Hellcat variants, and traction management smart enough to make 1,000 horsepower usable by an average driver on a random Tuesday.

That’s the trade-off worth understanding whether you’re shopping classic or modern muscle. A stock classic will lose a straight-line drag race to nearly anything built after 2015, C8 Corvette included. But it will also let you feel every one of its horsepower doing the work — and that’s a currency the drag strip has never been able to measure.

Watch the full video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments.